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/ 23 January 2006
South Africans who are injured in work-related accidents are increasingly being denied treatment by doctors and pharmacists because the labour department’s Workmen’s Compensation Fund has not processed their claims for payment. "Getting an injury while on duty is one of the worst things that can happen to someone," said Renette Oosthuizen of the union Solidarity.
A wave of illegal asset grabs by Zimbabwean officials has ruined a South African farmer and hit at least 20 others, many of them foreigners, farming in the south of the country. The farmer, Peter Henning, complained that while the investments of many foreigners in Zimbabwe were protected by an agreement between Zimbabwe and their governments, South Africa had not signed the treaty.
Devastating fires in the Western Cape are burning holes in South African taxpayers’ pockets, with the initial cost of battling the blaze already running into the millions.
But, according to government fire-fighting agency Working on Fire, the exact cost of fighting the fires and the damage they have caused has yet to be determined.
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/ 19 December 2005
South Africa’s high HIV prevalence has been described as the biggest challenge facing the country since apartheid. In light of this, one would expect to be bombarded with Aids-prevention messages on radio, television, billboards and bus stops. Yet some say that not enough of these messages are available.
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/ 2 December 2005
Lesbian couple Cecelia Bonthuys and Marié Fourie will have to wait another year to get that little piece of white paper that symbolises a legal marriage. The Constitutional Court ruled this week in favour of same-sex marriages, but gave Parliament 12 months to draft new legislation that would legalise gay and lesbian unions.
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/ 30 November 2005
Eastern Cape land affairs and agriculture minister Gugile Nkwinti has sparked controversy between game farmers and the government by attacking game farms as ”elitist”. ”There is a recolonisation of the countryside. Game farms are taking over,” he told a meeting of farm workers and residents in Grahamstown.
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/ 29 November 2005
More than 60% of people infected with HIV/Aids call Africa their home — and Southern Africa remains the epicentre of the global Aids epidemic, according to the United Nations’s report on the pandemic that was released recently. Despite some light points, the UNAids report paints a bleak picture of a region where the virus is having a devastating toll on human lives.
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/ 21 November 2005
The Vuna Awards, South Africa’s ”municipal Oscars”, have dropped off this year’s social calendar without anyone batting an eyelid. Could this be because there are no suitable candidates? Or because the event risked being mobbed by angry local residents demanding better services?
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/ 18 November 2005
The future existence of Orania as an Afrikaner volkstaat is being challenged by a land claim. Gazetted in August, the restitution claim on the Northern Cape town has surprised the 600-strong community, which is already embroiled in a battle with the government to win the right to self-determination.
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/ 18 November 2005
More than 20% of South African domestic workers earn less than the government’s stipulated minimum wage, with a fifth of the 1 100 respondents in a survey earning less than R500 a month, a new report reveals. According to Migration and Domestic Workers: Worlds of Work, Health and Mobility in Johannesburg, about 55,7% of respondents earned between R501 and R1 000 a month.