Click on image for full-size view.
No image available
/ 16 February 2006
The removal of the social security grant function from provinces will allow the national government to shift its priority away from social assistance towards welfare services, which it says has been neglected over the past five years as social grants consumed as much as 92% of the provincial equitable share.
No image available
/ 16 February 2006
Denel, the loss-making defence parastatal, is to get a government rescue package that could reach more than R5-billion as it struggles to ward off insolvency, to restructure and to attract new strategic partners. The new funds should clear the way for the announcement of an equity partnership with the Swedish firm Saab.
No image available
/ 16 February 2006
The government is making an extra R9,6-billion available to the provinces this year, but at the same time is cracking the whip on accountability and better service delivery. A nationally applicable performance assessment system for top municipal officials will be in force by the start of the new municipal financial year, from July 1.
No image available
/ 16 February 2006
The South African National Defence Force appears to be escaping somewhat from the stranglehold of expenditure on the strategic defence procurement package as the repayment peaked last year and drops off from 2006 to 2008. Of the total defence costs of R23,5billion for 2005, R9,2billion was allocated to the Strategic Defence Account.
No image available
/ 16 February 2006
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy branded Iran’s nuclear programme for the first time on Thursday as a ”clandestine, military” project. In response to sharp protests from Iran, however, France’s foreign ministry reiterated Paris’s official position, which is that Tehran’s nuclear activities ”raise doubts about their peaceful nature”.
No image available
/ 16 February 2006
Russian biathlete Olga Pyleva was expelled from the Winter Olympics and stripped of the silver medal she won the women’s 15km race for failing a dope test, the International Olympic Committee announced on Thursday. It was the first failed dope test since the Games began on February 10.
No image available
/ 16 February 2006
Rahul Dravid hit a patient half-century and paceman Rudra Pratap Singh grabbed four wickets as India trounced Pakistan by five wickets in the fourth one-day match on Thursday. Dravid scored 59 as India overtook Pakistan’s modest 162-run target with 17,3 overs to spare at Multan stadium, giving the tourists an unbeatable 3-1 lead in the five-match series.
No image available
/ 16 February 2006
More than 500 coffee growers, investors and researchers gathered in Tanzania on Wednesday to discuss the future of the industry in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa. The region grows some of the world’s most distinctive coffees, along a long north-south axis that includes the highlands of Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia.
No image available
/ 16 February 2006
The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has welcomed the life sentence handed down on Thursday to the man who raped and murdered HIV-positive TAC activist Lorna Mlofane. Cape High Court judge Dumisani Zondi sentenced Ncedile Ntumbukane to life in prison for the murder in December 2003, and a concurrent ten years for the rape, the TAC said.