Factional tensions are sharpening in the National Union of Mineworkers in the run-up to next week’s NUM congress, which is to elect new leaders. Apart from those of president and deputy president, all positions are being contested. There is particularly fierce rivalry over the crucial post of general secretary, which Gwede Mantashe is vacating after two terms.
President Thabo Mbeki has changed his mind about Tony Leon, Parliament heard on Thursday. It was a rare moment in their decade-long battle in the National Assembly. ”I had originally thought Tony Leon was a racist to the bone; I would later discover that he is a democrat to the bone,” Mbeki told members.
Government proposals for the revamping of further education and training (FET) colleges have run into a barrage of criticism that they "abdicate responsibility" and are out of kilter with broad state policy on skills acquisition. The FET Colleges Bill, ostensibly aims to streamline the colleges to meet South Africa’s chronic skills shortfalls more effectively than former technical colleges.
Be afraid, be very afraid. Your future is unsafely in the hands of your security company. A conference in Johannesburg made it clear that South Africa is one of many countries where security is increasingly provided by private rather than public actors. And with the global, multibillion-rand sector virtually unregulated, shady elements have stepped in where states can no longer protect citizens.
Concern was expressed in Parliament on Friday about a lack of synergy between different arms of the criminal justice system. While more prosecutors were being appointed to match growing police numbers and arrests, the Legal Aid Board was not given additional money to boost its number of criminal defenders, justice portfolio committee chairperson Fatima Chohan said.
MOVIE OF THE WEEK: South Korean Kim Ki-Duk’s Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter … and Spring certainly has a meditative tone, though there are eruptions — and a certain dark humour, too, writes
Shaun de Waal.
Arsene Wenger hailed Thierry Henry’s decision to stay at Arsenal as more significant for the club’s future than winning the Champions League would have been. Henry signed a new four-year deal at the north London club two days after the Gunners went down 2-1 to Barcelona in the Champions League final.
National police chief Jackie Selebi won’t be engaging in any debate surrounding his call for the demise of the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD), said police spokesperson, Director Sally de Beer on Friday. Business Day newspaper on Thursday reported Selebi as saying the directorate had ”outlived its usefulness” and could be dissolved, leaving the police to police themselves.
Talks on the current security guards’ strike deadlocked again on Friday after the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) refused to suspend the strike. Employers want Satawu to call off the violence-wracked strike as a precondition to negotiating, but Satawu has rejected this call.
The Asia-wide death toll from Tropical Storm Chanchu rose to 91 on Friday, with nearly 250 Vietnamese fisherman still missing at sea and 28 reported dead as the tempest moved offshore again after battering southern China. The storm has cut a path of destruction across several countries and territories around the South China Sea.