Heated words are flying between the Department of Education (DoE) and teacher unions as they blame each other for the faltering process of teacher appraisals.
The unpleasant aromas that hover over refuse bins left at the side of the road for collection by Pikitup trucks make one feel sorry for the people loading, unloading and sorting the foul-smelling domestic waste. It has been said that one can judge the level of civilisation of societies by the way they treat women, children, the elderly and animals. One should add waste — and the environment — to the list.
Watching the retarded grunting locally that passes for behaviour in society and the government, you could easily forget that there is a larger picture to human endeavour that isn’t bogged down in ethnic differences, or in the stupid, regressive dredging up of old history of which few of us were even part. Out in the real world, things are getting odd and interesting on multiple fronts.
It is tempting to call it a no-brainer: the idea that attempts to prevent transmission of HIV from mothers to children should be matched by initiatives to keep these mothers alive after they give birth. For all this, efforts in South Africa to prioritise the health of HIV-positive mothers have fallen short over past years.
The clothing sector is sometimes called the rag trade. Rags and riches may be more apt. If you work, for instance, as a machinist in the rag trade in a KwaZulu-Natal area such as Newcastle, you can expect to earn a union-sanctioned wage of just R228 a week. The same industry, though, paid R10-million to Edcon chief executive Steve Ross last year, nearly 1 000 times that of the machinist’s annual wages.
In a move that could soon be outlawed, a senior Independent Communications Authority of South Africa official has joined a private company shortly after its licence was amended, allowing it to become a major player in the broadband industry. Former Icasa councillor Mbulelo Ncetezo, joined Wireless Business Solutions in August as head of legal and regulatory affairs.
Batman has flapped to the top of the charts, with -million in his vault. Superman returns next year — it is easy to believe that we are being held hostage by a quango of preening male superheroes. If little boys have the Bat and the alien that wears turquoise tights, who can little girls admire?
Under the punishing rays of summer the shirtless Eladio Garcia throws his fishing nets over a mangrove-ringed lagoon in the isolated Costa Chica region on Mexico’s Pacific coast. Breaking off from his daily ritual, he recalls the stories his grandparents used to tell him about how his ancestors arrived in the area on a ship that sank off the coast.
Referring to sometimes less-than-ideal finances in her budget speech in April, Western Cape provincial minister of environmental affairs and development planning Tasneem Essop (pictured) remarked: ”What we will certainly offer is leadership, energy, commitment, dedication and passion — and this does not require a budget.”
Sixty people were injured, 10 critically, on Wednesday night when two Metrorail trains collided at Merafe station in Naledi, Soweto, following a power failure in the area. ”What happened was that a train crashed into a stationary one due to the power failure,” said Metrorail marketing and communications manager Brenda Motau.