South Africa’s health system is hurtling from crisis to crisis. The country has a minister of health who deftly sidesteps accusations of incompetence, flatly denies drinking at hospitals and fires her competent deputy, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge. But the problems are not just concentrated at the top. They are more basic and affect the lives of children.
South Africa will not be able to distribute 30% of its land to black people by 2014, the director general in the Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs has warned. Glen Thomas says the high land prices will make it impossible to reach the 2014 target — set by President Thabo Mbeki — if ”drastic interventions” are not made.
He came to tell ”of arms and a man”, and on Tuesday prosecutor Billy Downer and his team resembled warriors. Standing proud in the Constitutional Court after they won their last battle (for now), Downer, his fellow prosecutors and investigators from the Scorpions were all smiles as they shook hands and sent SMSs to spread the news.
The deft way in which Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to ensure he remains in power even after he has left the presidency will ensure that Ukraine remains a recurring theme in United States- Russian rivalry. Its role in this geopolitical contest lessens further still the likelihood that the parliamentary elections will resolve the long-running power struggle between the president, Viktor Yushchenko, and the prime minister, Viktor Yanukovych.
The announcement last week that the Department of Arts and Culture has received a qualified audit report from Auditor General Terence Nombembe has been met with alarm from the parliamentary opposition and silence from within the department itself. In the first qualified audit finding in five years, the Auditor General has written: ”An unexplained difference of R13 415 189 exists between the asset register and the amount disclosed in the financial statements.”
More than half of South Africa’s maths and science teachers are underqualified, but imminent changes in the education system are set to create an even bigger deficit in qualified instructors, making it more difficult to improve maths and science results for learners.
Hillary Clinton, United States presidential candidate, was raised in a middle-class family in the middle of America — a classic suburban childhood, she says on her page on Facebook, the social networking website that has taken the world by storm. She was warmly welcomed in Oakland this week, where a crowd of 14 000 heard her speak. That’s about one-third of the number of supporters linked to her Facebook profile.
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Boeremag accused Mike du Toit on Thursday told the Pretoria High Court he did not trust the state or police because he believed they were controlled by former terrorists. Du Toit, a Herstigte Nasionale Party supporter, said not only did he and many others distrust the police, he also believed the African National Congress government was behind farm attacks and murders.
The outcome of a Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) central executive committee meeting held to discuss the fate of its beleaguered president, Willie Madisha, will be announced on Friday. Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven said a statement would be issued but he would not be drawn out on the meeting held at Cosatu House on Thursday.