A waste-recycling plant in Johannesburg — described as a danger to the health of employees and the environment — was ordered on Thursday to comply with new regulations or face closure. ”You are in deep trouble. My advice to you is no smart talk,” said Gauteng’s environment minister, Khabisa Mosunkutu.
South Africans are not scared of this year’s unluckiest day, Friday May 13. But if you, along with more than 20-million Americans, suffer from paraskevidekatriaphobia (fear of Friday the 13th), then perhaps you should be extra careful. It also seems there are no couples brave enough to tie the knot on a Friday the 13th.
The government denies it has ”ring-fenced” Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang in an effort to limit her controversial pronouncements on HIV and Aids, and on treatment for victims of the disease. According to a Business Day report on Thursday, the government has ”thrown a ring” around Tshabalala-Msimang.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo launched a major blood bank and transfusion project on Thursday, donating blood at a new centre that hopes to begin cleaning up the Aids-contaminated blood supply in Africa’s most-populous nation. The centre is spearheaded by a United States charity called Safe Blood for Africa.
Journalists and broadcasting workers at the British Broadcasting Corporation will strike for three days starting later this month over plans to cut 3 780 jobs across the organisation, union officials said on Thursday. Workers from three trade unions will walk out on May 23, May 31 and June 1.
The seizure of the assets of alleged brothel keeper Andrew Phillips was not for any ”legitimate purpose”, but to punish him even before his trial was over, the Constitutional Court heard on Thursday. Those assets were placed under a preservation order in February 2000 and a restraint order in December that year.
The Eastern Cape health department vowed on Thursday to prosecute officials responsible for letting clinics in the East London area run out of chronic medicines. ”We view this as gross negligence,” a departmental spokesperson said. ”We are going to charge people. There are people that are going to face the music.”
The Cabinet has welcomed the progress made in finalising the deal between Britain’s Barclays and South Africa’s Absa. However, activist group Jubilee South Africa on Thursday urged the government to withdraw its approval of Barclays’ bid to buy a 60% stake in Absa, as the British bank supported the apartheid government.
Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) beneficiaries are to have their grants paid directly into their bank accounts in future, in terms of an initiative launched by the fund and First National Bank on Thursday. ”This is the second phase of our struggle — to liberate people from queues,” UIF commissioner Shadrack Mkhonto said.
Author Tom Wolfe said on Wednesday his next book will look at off-the-wall behaviour — wealthy investor types who hide their status, dress like delinquents and act like bad seeds. The book will be non-fiction, ending a string of three novels and marking a return to the genre that made Wolfe famous as a founder of new journalism.