Police and soldiers are manning roadblocks in the Somerset East area of the Eastern Cape to enforce a quarantine following a suspected outbreak of avian influenza. Test results determining the nature of the virus are expected by the end of the week. A particular strain of the avian flu virus can be transmitted to humans.
Torrential rain on Thursday brought chaos to Cape Town, flooding shack areas and roads and causing major traffic snarl-ups. Several people were ferried to higher ground by boat from the aptly named River Club in Observatory when the nearby Liesbeeck River burst its banks. Informal settlements were also affected.
Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool on Wednesday welcomed the provincial auditor general’s report into a R227 532 car-allowance overpayment to him, saying the findings are a vindication and manifestation of his commitment to transparency. However, the DA said the report raises two important questions.
A suspected outbreak of avian influenza (bird flu) in the Eastern Cape province has halted all movement of ostriches to the Western Cape until a confirmed diagnosis has been made regarding the cause of serious mortalities at three ostrich farms in the Cradock-Somerset East region of the Eastern Cape.
At any given moment about 25 000 accused have been in prison in South Africa awaiting trial for over three months, and some have been there since 1996. ”Part of the Bill of Rights says that there should be no undue delay in concluding criminal trials. However, the reality is that these unsentenced prisoners often spend 23 hours of the day in a cell, with no rehabilitation, no work and no recreation.”
While the overall composition of the student body at South African higher education institutions is changing to reflect the demographic profile of society, there is no room for complacency, says Minister of Education Naledi Pandor. Women — and particularly black women — are under-represented in a number of key study areas.
Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana has tabled a report in Parliament blaming the PetroSA refinery for a R473-million loss during a shutdown in July 2003. Mushwana’s report clears Minerals and Energy Affairs Minister Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka of any misconduct over a controversial labour and maintenance contract that was awarded by the PetroSA refinery last year.
A spokesperson for Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri would on Monday afternoon not confirm or deny a report that she has promised not to grant a licence to stakeholders in the second network operator (SNO) until the entire process is scrutinised in a judicial review.
Dissatisfaction with the way in which business is handling black economic empowerment (BEE) is growing, the South African Communist Party said on Monday. In a statement following Friday’s SACP political bureau meeting, the party said this was because of the ”narrow BEE approaches with which big capital in South Africa is trying to head off the real challenge of significant transformation”.
A key provision in the current Immigration Act, which has led to much confusion over the recording of travel by South African citizens abroad, is to be dumped. Prior to the coming into force of the Act, the movement control system recorded the entry and exit of everyone who left or entered the country.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=119707">Minister calls for immigration review</a>
One of the seven travel agents arrested in connection with the parliamentary travel scam appeared briefly in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Monday. She is one of seven directors and consultants attached to Cape Town travel agencies arrested by the Scorpions in connection with defrauding Parliament of more than R12,5-million.
The amount involved in the parliamentary travel voucher scam could reach R16-million, Speaker Baleka Mbete said on Friday. She was speaking at a media conference the wake of this week’s court appearance by seven travel agency owners and employees, and speculation that MPs could be next on the Scorpions’ list.
In his weekly ANC Today newsletter, President Thabo Mbeki on Friday strongly criticised a report in last week’s Sunday Times, saying the newspaper is ”entirely wrong” in its claim that no additional funds have been set aside by the government for its expanded public works programme.
The South African Navy’s long-serving workhorse, the SAS Outeniqua, is being formally retired from the service on Friday — though she still has a lot of life left in her. The decommissioning of the 12-year old vessel marks a shift in the navy’s capability and spending priorities resulting in part from its acquisition of new corvettes.
Cape Town brothel-keeper Amien Andrews, who offered young girls for sex and watched as two of them were raped, was on Friday jailed for 17 years. Cape Town Regional Court magistrate Chris Naude jailed him for three years for keeping the Salt River brothel and an additional 14 years as an accomplice in the rape of the two teenagers.
The Democratic Alliance has called for a halt to the Western Cape’s multimillion-rand film city project, claiming that wrong decisions were ”deliberately made”. However premier Ebrahim Rasool’s office says due process was followed, and that anyone unhappy with what happened can launch a court challenge.
An estimated half or more of the country’s kilometres of roads, and as much as two-thirds of roads in KwaZulu-Natal, have disappeared, largely due to ineffective administration, said a roads expert on Thursday. While the roads have not physically disappeared, they do not show up on official records.
The Federation of Unions of SA expressed concern on Thursday at the ”apparent rushing and fast tracking” of the draft Public Investment Bill currently before Parliament, and hinted at possible legal action. Fedusa challenged Finance Minister Trevor Manuel to ”be transparent” and support good governance regarding the Bill.
Cape Town gangster Amien Andrews was found guilty in the regional court on Thursday of keeping a brothel, and as an accomplice on two rape charges involving minor girls. Andrews’s brothel was well known in the underworld as ”Amien’s girls”, where girls aged between 12 and 16 were on offer for sex.
Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk visited the West Coast town of Saldanha Bay on Thursday for the first in a series of public meetings with fishermen and workers in the fishing industry. The so-called ”imbizos” are intended to collect opinions on matters affecting the industry, ahead of the allocation of medium- to long-term fishing rights next year.
Cape Town’s traffic and city police will apply the full force of the law in dealing with taxi violence, councillor Danile Landingwe said on Thursday. Landingwe said the city will take a ”zero tolerance” stance, following meetings with representatives from taxi organisations this week to discuss outbreaks of violence in the industry.
The African National Congress won a by-election in Umtata on Wednesday — the fifth upset victory by the party in the past few weeks — over General Bantu Holomisa’s United Democratic Movement. In other by-elections on Wednesday, the Democratic Alliance snatched a municipal ward in Somerset East from the ANC.
South Africa’s opposition Freedom Front Plus says it is concerned about the black economic empowerment charter for agriculture — dubbed AgriBEE — because it introduces unrealistic time frames with too little emphasis on productivity as well as creating unachievable expectations.
The carpet that for many years carried visible stains of the blood from the stabbing of South Africa’s apartheid Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd has been removed from the Old House of Assembly at Parliament in Cape Town. Veteran politician Helen Suzman on Wednesday said she wondered what "had been swept under it over the years".
Six people, believed to be the owners of Cape Town travel agencies, have been arrested by the Scorpions in connection with a parliamentary travel-voucher scam. Scorpions spokesperson Sipho Ngwema said the six were at the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court and should appear shortly.
It’s bigger and uglier than its male counterpart. Sometimes it even makes a noise. But many South African women who have used it say they prefer it. Ten years after it was first introduced to South Africa, the female condom, or femidom, is gaining popularity in the country, but cost is limiting its use. The government buys it at about R7 a unit, which is at least 10 times the price of a male condom.
The German government has provided €7,5-million (about R60-million) in funding for development in Cape Town’s poverty-stricken Khayelitsha township for social development purposes. This money is to be matched rand-for-rand by South Africa. This was announced by Cape Town mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo on Monday.
Two climbers marooned on a tiny ledge on a cliff face above Swellendam in the Western Cape were rescued in a daring airlift on Monday. The men, trapped on the ledge since Sunday, were physically fit when they were brought down, said rescue organiser Kevin Tromp of Wilderness Search and Rescue.
Recent media reports on unemployment and poverty, among whites especially, indicate the African National Congress is not succeeding in distributing wealth, the Freedom Front Plus said on Monday. ”Current trends point to a redistribution of poverty instead,” FF+ labour spokesperson Willie Spies said in a statement.
A European Union body will donate about R4,2-billion to the South African Medical Research Council (MRC) to help combat HIV/Aids, the council said on Monday. ”This is the initial amount. Out of those [donated] amounts, we will conduct trials and others things,” MRC spokesperson Julian Jacobs said.
Nine municipal by-elections will take place in South Africa this Wednesday, but the ruling African National Congress (ANC) has already won another five wards uncontested. Trends indicate that the ANC could win all but two of the contested by-elections.
South Africa is expected to take over the chair of one of the Southern African Development Community’s (SADC) crucial organs from Lesotho on Thursday, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs. The reigns of the SADC’s politics, defence and security organ will be handed to Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota.