Zimbabweans fleeing into South Africa are not entitled to refugee status and border camps should not be set up to accommodate them, a senior Department of Home Affairs official said on Friday. South Africa has received the largest number of people escaping food and fuel shortages in Zimbabwe.
South African politician-turned-tycoon Tokyo Sexwale said on Saturday the country’s president has a tough and thankless job, shying away from saying if he would make a run for the presidency. ”It’s not an easy job to do. Look at Thabo Mbeki. It’s a tough job … and a thankless job,” Sexwale said.
Confusion reigned at a press conference of the Western Cape branch of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) in Cape Town on Tuesday. After calling a media briefing on the ”suspension” of the public-service strike, Cosatu organiser in the province Mike Louw told journalists: ”We’re not suspending the strike.”
South Africa needs to spend billions of rands to ease a nationwide housing crunch, its housing minister said on Friday, highlighting a glaring legacy of decades of apartheid. Lindiwe Sisulu told Parliament during her annual budget speech that the country had made progress in easing a huge backlog in requests for housing.
South African miners and municipal workers on Tuesday threatened to join an escalating strike by civil servants that has disrupted services at hospitals and schools, state media reported. The National Union of Mineworkers said it was consulting its 280Â 000 members on possible strike action, a move that could hurt one of the biggest sectors of the economy.
South African President Thabo on Monday noted a worrying trend of jailing journalists in Africa as leaders try to balance sometimes competing interests of press and governments, especially in young democracies. While acknowledging difficulties journalists working in Africa face, Mbeki also urged them to report accurately on the region.
South Africa’s health minister said on Wednesday she favoured expanding access to HIV/Aids treatments in her first public appearance since having a liver transplant. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said making HIV-treatment and support programmes more available to those infected with the virus was the linchpin of the government’s prevention strategy.
South Africa will beef up security for tourists for the 2010 Soccer World Cup to ensure visitors are shielded from the country’s notoriously high crime rates, the country’s tourism chief said on Wednesday. The continent’s economic powerhouse, which has among the world’s highest incidence of murder and rape, is battling perceptions that it is unsafe.
Predatory imported fish including trout, bass and carp are crowding out many local species in one of the few places in the world still rich in biodiversity. Introduced in the 18th century and popular with both local and foreign anglers, these fish form an integral part of a burgeoning recreational fishing industry.
South Africa will make it easier for black people to buy predominantly white-owned farms under a controversial land-redistribution programme, Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Lulama Xingwana said on Friday. South Africa’s government has vowed to give its black majority a 30% slice of the country’s farmland by the end of 2014.