Ecotourism outfits based in one of South Africa’s most fragile ecosystems are discovering that coal mining and prospecting permits have been granted on their land without their knowledge or participation. Landowners in the Mpumalanga highveld have gone to court to stop the miners. Some have vowed to deny the miners access to their properties.
ANC delegates from KwaZulu-Natal will go to the party’s national policy conference at Gallagher Estate on June 27 armed with a clutch of resolutions seeking, among other things, greater state control of the media and the abolition of the position of ANC national chairperson. Other resolutions reflect disenchantment with government deployees and sympathy for ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma.
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ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma would not alter the broad parameters of South Africa’s economic policy, but believes the national treasury has usurped the people "as the driver of economic change" and that "participatory democracy" has foundered under President Thabo Mbeki.
The Johannesburg Labour Court on Thursday reserved judgement on whether South African Police Service (SAPS) members could join the public-service strike. Arguments by the lawyers for the police and the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union centred largely on whether SAPS administration and support staff were essential-service workers or not.
A court application for the reinstatement of health workers dismissed during the public-service strike sought to punish a government that was trying to restore order, the state argued in the Cape High Court on Thursday. ”We have been berated for taking action in a chaotic situation,” said an advocate for the Western Cape government, Dumisa Ntsebeza.
On paper, Proudly South African probably seemed like a good idea. In practice, it’s turned out rather differently.
South Africa has embarked on the construction of 2,3-million subsidised houses since 1994, the Presidency said on Thursday. Releasing a set of 72 indicators of development, it said the number of households had increased because of population growth and a shift to smaller households.
The continued threat of sanctions against Sudan will only hamper progress towards deploying a hybrid African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force to Darfur, the government said on Thursday. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said that sanction threats against Khartoum were ”surprising” and unhelpful.
A fire that broke out this week at Zimbabwe’s only newsprint producer has crippled production, the official Herald daily said on Thursday. Newsprint for the handful of newspapers still operating in Zimbabwe comes from the eastern border city of Mutare, which lies close to a number of timber plantations.