Minister of Land and Agricultural Affairs Lulu Xingwana muscled a South African Airways passenger off her business-class seat on a flight to Johannesburg two weeks ago, relegating the latter to a crew seat at the back of the aircraft. According to the pilot’s formal incidents report, Xingwana stormed through the boarding gate and ”hijacked” seat 1F when she discovered she had been removed from flight SA 570 from Durban to Johannesburg.
Coal — the doomed energy resource, great polluter and contributor to global warming — might just have a brighter future. This is if a new technology that captures carbon dioxide from coal plants can be fine-tuned in the next few years. South Africa has an abundance of coal, but the environmental problems coal plants cause is dampening the future of the mineral.
Robert Hamblin has fond memories of his childhood. His male cousins accepted him as just another mate. His grandfather used to take him round the farm and joked about the bulls’ twaksakke (balls). He did not mind that the child carried the name of Adele. But then Hamblin started developing breasts and ”the boys” dumped him.
A group of Soweto residents is challenging the very basis of South Africa’s water for households strategy. The residents, who filed papers in the Witwatersrand High Court against the City of Johannesburg and the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, are asking that the government’s capped free water allowance as well as prepaid water meters be declared unconstitutional.
By the time 2050 rolls around, current decision-makers will either be dead or stuck in old-age homes. Yet the decisions they make today will have a significant effect on the economic and environmental future. According to the International Energy Agency current emission policies, such the Kyoto Treaty, will not put the world on a path towards a sustainable future by 2050.
Traffic jams are on the increase and the public transport system seems to be stuck in a rut. Critics question whether South Africa’s transport infrastructure can handle the pressure of three million World Cup visitors when it is already struggling to cope with domestic demands.
When former radio presenter and adventurer Patricia Glyn read her great-great-grand uncle’s diary three years ago, she immediately decided on a roots odyssey. She would walk in the footsteps of her ancestors and peek into the world they once knew, writes Yolandi Groenewald.
Veteran journalist and former head of South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) radio news Pippa Green has turned a harsh spotlight on the SABC’s editorial culture, noting that it sometimes degenerates into "a political grazing ground for the ruling-party faithful". Green’s comments follow a series of controversies at the SABC.
South Africa is to take a further step away from Europe and towards its siblings in the East. Johannesburg and Pretoria will soon have ”tuk-tuks” — the three-wheeled motor vehicles that swarm through Asian cities such as Bangkok and Mumbai — buzzing along its streets.
A land reform project in Worcester is on the brink of collapse after nature and bureaucracy conspired against the 52-strong community. They say the Land Bank has been a major cause of their woes. "We’ve been able to keep other creditors at bay, but the bank is demanding its pound of flesh," said community member Niklaas Prins.