The Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation has found that the continuing torture of people in custody is a major blemish on the record of the police force. Its report says the torture allegedly used by some officers is a hangover from apartheid. It also says that deaths in custody have not received the attention such an important issue demands.
If Judge Joop Labuschagne rules this month that South Africa’s so-called “nuclear bazaar” trial should be held in secret, he will be making history. Even the trial of one of the kingpins in the nuclear bazaar case, German engineer Gotthard Lerch, was open to the public and press in the south-west German town of Mannheim.
Concerns are growing about the fate of Kimberley’s famous flamingos, as human waste continues to leak from a municipal sewage works into a dam where they breed. The flamingos of Kamfers Dam have become a major tourist attraction in recent years, with many tourists en route to Cape Town and travelling on the Blue Train stopping to admire the birds.
A survey released this week at the fourth World Congress of Rural Women showed that urban and rural women lead vastly different lives and that rural women have much more of an uphill battle than their city sisters. The Markinor survey showed that nearly half of urban women have matric or higher qualifications, compared to only 15% of rural women.
The ANC’s stormy Winnie Madikizela-Mandela infuriated the rural women who protested outside the World Congress of Rural Women in Durban recently by telling them “not to behave like the MDC in Zimbabwe”. According to Fatiema Shabodien, a protest leader from the Western Cape NGO Women on Farms, Madikizela-Mandela also told the women that their backers, were only interested in embarrassing the South African government.
Tourism is a top economic performer in South Africa, but there are growing concerns that the country will not be able to deliver the necessary skills to further boost the industry, especially with the 2010 Soccer World Cup approaching. According to South African Tourism CEO Moeketsi Mosola, the skills shortage is the biggest challenge facing the sector.
When the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change approved its latest report on global warming two weeks ago, questions about political arm-twisting were immediately asked. In a last-minute wrangling, scientists were left with no option but to remove what some deemed critical parts of the report. Critics then accused the panel of toning down some of the real effects of climate change.
A landmark case, in which a developer is suing an environmental activist for R40-million in damages for defamation, begins in the Pretoria High Court next week. The suit against Arthur Barnes, a former secretary of the Rhenosterspruit Conservancy near Lanseria in Gauteng, has been brought by developer Wraypex. It arises from the conservancy’s opposition to a 330-house luxury estate.
Working with people dying of HIV/Aids is not a pleasant task, but every day thousands of carers around South Africa travel from home to home, offering help and compassion to people in their final hours. “Volunteers are the silent heroes in this fight,” says palliative paediatrician Michelle Meiring, who works at the new Soweto hospice.
No fewer than 210 cases of Klipdrift were sold at this year’s Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees (KKNK). And this was only at the Klipdrift tent and did not account for truckloads of Klippies that made their way to Oudtshoorn in cooler bags and methods of mass transportation. There is no denying that the arts festival is one of the country’s biggest bashes and kuiers.