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/ 28 January 2004
One of South Africa’s largest medical aid administrators, Medscheme, has welcomed proposals for restructuring the public service’s medical-aid schemes. A proposed new public-service medical-aid scheme would bring a welcome one million new medical-aid patients into the industry.
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/ 28 January 2004
Disgruntled parents and their children gathered in front of the Western Cape provincial legislature on Wednesday to express their dissatisfaction with provincial education minister Andre Gaum and his ”disregard for pupils on the Cape Flats”. Allegedly no classes have taken place this year at Norwood Central Primary School in Elsies River.
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/ 27 January 2004
The Aids Law Project has slammed suggestions that the transmission of HIV/Aids be made a crime, saying that such a move would create the dangerous impression that carriers of the virus are alone responsible for ensuring safe sex. ”It is very unrealistic to believe that a draconian law such as this will get people to test [for Aids],” it said.
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/ 27 January 2004
The first public verbal battles in South Africa’s election campaign between the traditional parties of the white minority have focused not on domestic economic policies or development issues — but on the perennial problem of neighbouring Zimbabwe.
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/ 27 January 2004
Confusion surrounds high-level talks between the Inkatha Freedom Party and an African National Congress team headed by Jacob Zuma reportedly scheduled for Tuesday. ANC national spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama said the talks were on, but his IFP counterpart Musa Zondi said he had no knowledge of them.
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/ 27 January 2004
South Africa’s Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson has pleaded for an end to all ”comment and speculation” on Judge Siraj Desai. In a statement issued on Tuesday, he also said the question whether Desai should sit as a judge before the rape case against him was finalised was not at issue.
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/ 27 January 2004
The official opposition Democratic Alliance has reacted to what it has called newspaper speculation about the selection of candidates for the upcoming parliamentary and provincial legislature elections. The candidate list was meant to be kept under wraps until changes were made by party leader Tony Leon.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=30185">Top DA brass low on Gauteng list</a>
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/ 27 January 2004
The Democratic Alliance has submitted parliamentary questions to the government in a bid to establish whether South Africa has supplied riot control equipment to the Haitian government. This followed reports that truncheons with the words ‘Made in South Africa’ written on them are being used to control anti-government protesters in Haiti.
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/ 26 January 2004
The provisional Gauteng province list for South Africa’s official opposition Democratic Alliance has placed front-benchers in the National Assembly, including shadow finance minister Raenette Taljaard, too low to be re-elected. DA leader Tony Leon is at the top of the list, with Gauteng leader Ian Davidson at number two.
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/ 26 January 2004
Millions of South Africans stand to gain from proposals aimed at extending the benefits of medical aid schemes, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said on Monday. ”What we seek to do is ensure that there is equity and fairness in the health care system in South Africa,” Tshabalala-Msimang said.
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/ 26 January 2004
Judge Siraj Desai thanked his supporters on his arrival at Cape Town International Airport on Sunday following allegations of raping a South African woman in India. He thanked everybody, including his lawyer, for the support they had given him, saying his wife had been ”a pillar of strength”.
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/ 23 January 2004
The affair involving allegations that National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka was an apartheid spy should teach South Africa an important lesson, says President Thabo Mbeki in his weekly letter to the nation. He argues that forgiveness — and the end to labelling — is required.
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/ 23 January 2004
The labour union that has been trying to ”blockade” Cape Town International airport on Friday accused the police of causing traffic jams there. ”The police have started pulling out cars of all our comrades with aims to issue them with tickets,” said a South African Transport and Allied Workers Union spokesperson.
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/ 23 January 2004
Opposition parties should refrain from trying to score cheap political points, the Office of the Presidency said on Friday. Spokesperson Bheki Khumalo denied that President Thabo Mbeki’s upcoming trip to KwaZulu-Natal is part of the African National Congress’s election campaign.
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/ 23 January 2004
In addition to the actions the South African wine industry has taken in the past to curb alcohol abuse, a combined effort by the industry and others is needed to rid the country of the ”tot” system, where farm workers receive part of their wages in the form of liquor, according to the CEO of the South African Wine and Brandy Company.
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/ 23 January 2004
Healthcare-related shares on the JSE Securities Exchange South Africa have come under selling pressure in the past week, sparked by investor fears that company profits and margins will be harmed by draft regulations from the government that would see the listed manufacturer’s selling price of all medicines cut by 50%.
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/ 23 January 2004
Speaking at a banquet in honour of visiting German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, South African President Thabo Mbeki has toasted the role played by Germans in the building of the South African economy and the continuing role they are playing on the continent of Africa.
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/ 22 January 2004
Evita Bezuidenhout handed out koeksisters and campaign donations to political parties on Thursday at a ”fun raiser” to encourage South Africans to register to vote. ”If you want this to become a dictatorship, don’t do anything this weekend,” said Bezuidenhout.
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/ 22 January 2004
The Inkatha Freedom Party on Thursday asked whether South African Broadcasting Corporation spokesperson Paul Setsetse had received intensive training from Zimbabwe’s Information Minister, Jonathan Moyo. The SABC refused, on Wednesday, to meet with the Democratic Alliance about its election coverage policy.
SABC gives DA cold shoulder
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/ 22 January 2004
The Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa on Wednesday delivered a 16-page judgement to bring down the curtain on a war of words between two national media personalities, precipitated by the Darrel Bristow-Bovey plagiarism claims.
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/ 20 January 2004
The legitimacy of previous polls in South Africa’s democratic process has been placed in the spotlight by Inkatha Freedom Party leader and Home Affairs Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi, who has spoken of boxes of IFP votes being ”emptied all over the valleys and forests of [KwaZulu-Natal]” during the 1994 elections.
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/ 20 January 2004
The Foundation for Human Rights said on Monday it would take steps to ensure that Judge Siraj Desai and his alleged rape victim would be provided with the appropriate support. The foundation’s board of trustees said that, at the same time, it would allow the law to take its course.
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/ 20 January 2004
The Inkatha Freedom Party and the United Democratic Movement on Tuesday slammed the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa’s dismissal of a complaint against the SABC, which drew the ire of opposition parties after it screened the launch of the African National Congress’s election manifesto.
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/ 19 January 2004
The Foundation for Human Rights said on Monday it will take steps to ensure that Judge Siraj Desai and his alleged rape victim will receive the appropriate support. The foundation partly funded a South African delegation to the World Social Forum in India, where it is alleged Desai raped a North West woman, also a delegation member.
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/ 19 January 2004
Political minnow the Moderate Independent Party kicked off its 2004 election campaign on Monday, aiming to capture five to 10 seats in the Western Cape provincial parliament. Party leader Malcolm Taylor said the decision on whether to contest the elections nationally will be decided within the next two weeks.
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/ 19 January 2004
Comedian Marc Lottering admitted at the scene of a car crash in Sea Point, Cape Town, that he had had ”too much to drink”, a Cape Town magistrate heard on Monday. Lottering was arrested then for alleged drunken driving and reckless or negligent driving.
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/ 19 January 2004
The official opposition Democratic Alliance has submitted written parliamentary questions to the presidency requesting a breakdown of costs incurred by the South African taxpayer for President Thabo Mbeki’s recent visit to Haiti. Mbeki recently attended Haiti’s bi-centenary celebrations.
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/ 19 January 2004
The government needs to review the contradictions between its stated objectives in education and reality on the ground with children of the poor being turned away from schools because they cannot pay school fees, says Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille.
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/ 19 January 2004
South Africa’s two principal oil industry associations, the South African Petroleum Industry Association and the African Mineral and Energy Forum, have signed a cooperation agreement in the common area of liquid fuels in recognition of their common interests and goals.
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/ 17 January 2004
There is a strong suspicion that a decomposed body police found on the Tradouw Pass, near Barrydale in the Western Cape, is that of missing Dutch exchange student Marleen Konings, police said on Friday. A 46-year-old man has been taken into custody, but not formally charged with Konings’ murder.
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/ 16 January 2004
The bulk of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress’ supporters are unemployed while 94% of them are black, according to the results of a Markinor poll. Similarly, nearly 80% of Inkatha Freedom Party supporters are jobless. The poll was conducted among 3 500 respondents nationwide late last year and was commissioned by the South African Broadcasting Corporation.