Warning: This story contains spoilers.
The booming economy in South Africa has resulted in greater demand for products and workers from other African countries and added to the revenues already being enjoyed as a result of the high price of commodities. Ian Marsberg, senior economist at Absa, says in 1998 13,6% of South Africa’s merchandise exports went to the rest of Africa and this rose to 14,1% in 2005.
Less than a month after its policy conference, the ANC is battling the “two centres of power” as the party fights with its government structures about who is in charge. In the past two weeks the party has overruled two municipalities and the North West provincial government over deployments. In the Eastern Cape, the party told the Nelson Mandela Bay metro mayor Nondumiso Maphazi to put her reshuffling on ice.
”Skorokoro”, ”Tata ma chance”, ”Going nowhere slowly” and ”Laduma!” — these are the four environmental scenarios facing South Africa, says the consultancy at the forefront of the government-commissioned report, South Africa Environment Outlook. The report found that the country’s land, atmosphere, marine areas, inland water and biodiversity are already in extremely poor shape.
Harry Potter fan Yolandi Groenewald offers her interpretations of and predictions for the famous fiction.
Former president FW de Klerk told the truth commission that he knew nothing of apartheid-era police crimes. That claim will be put to the test when former law and order minister Adriaan Vlok and former police chief Johan van der Merwe appear in court next month, say sources close to the investigation.
Some in South Africa believe that there is no community in the country that can spin a story better than the people who speak Afrikaans. Rich in nuance and always ready for a laugh, the Afrikaans storytellers first used a campfire hundreds of years ago to narrate stories about hunting, the veld and love.
Despite government interventions, South Africa continues to deplete its environmental capital. That is the thrust of the second Environment Outlook report — the first was released in 1999 — commissioned by the department of environmental affairs and tourism, which was published recently.
Mining houses in North West have been accused of whitewashing their community involvement and "plundering" the environment. A new study on the corporate social responsibility programmes of mining corporations in North West, released recenty, questions whether the houses are doing enough for the environment and its surrounding communities, and if mine safety standards are up to scratch.
Attacks on members of the South African Police Service (SAPS) rose by 67% between 2004/05 and 2005/06, according to a former policeman and now researcher for the Institute of Security Studies, Johan Burger. But only one more policeman died in the latter period than in the former. Burger said this indicated that the SAPS’s ”street survival” course, introduced in 2005, was bearing fruit.