South Africa’s population was estimated at approximately 47,4-million at mid-year 2006, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said on Tuesday. In addition, Stats SA said the estimated overall HIV-prevalence rate is approximately 11%, from less than 9% in 2001, with the HIV-positive population estimated at approximately 5,2-million.
Whip out your winter woollies, put on thick socks and boots and stock up on firewood — it is going to be cold and wet in the entire country this week. The South African Weather Service said on Tuesday a strong cold front was moving in over the interior with snow already being reported in the Western Cape.
Business is helping tackle crime, with several initiatives by Business Against Crime bearing fruit. Vehicle theft and hijackings are down about 16% over the past five years from about 115 000 in 2001 to 96 000 last year. Even more impressive is the 30% reduction in Gauteng hijackings last year.
The Public Protector has nearly finished his investigation into complaints over the incorporation of Matatiele into the Eastern Cape, his office said on Wednesday. The Public Protector, advocate Lawrence Mushwana, met on Wednesday with the Matatiele-Maluti Mass Action Organising Committee to discuss its complaint.
South African Ben Sassman admits his bid to help a lonely friend living with HIV/Aids started out as a ”feel-good project for myself” but is now an online dating service reaching people around the globe. The Positive Connection, in its third year, can even claim success in the matchmaking game, having brought together a few solid partnerships.
Heritage month — which is September — will see the holding of hearings into the causes of deaths at initiation schools. The Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural and Linguistic Communities said on Tuesday that this was decided as a matter of urgency at a meeting held to discuss the recent spate of deaths at initiation schools.
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The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) in the Eastern Cape may strike if there are repeated delays in former deputy president Jacob Zuma’s fraud and corruption trial, Cosatu’s provincial secretary said on Monday. ”If there are perpetual postponements in the case, then we will have no option [other] than to take a stance,” said Xola Pakati.
Avian influenza detected in poultry north-west of Mossel Bay is under control, the Department of Land Affairs and Agriculture said on Tuesday. ”The virus has been classified as type H5N2 which is not known to infect humans, unlike the H5N1 virus that has caused disease in humans in Asia, Europe and North Africa”, said spokesperson Nare Mabuela.
Factional politics in the Eastern Cape appear to have scuppered a multimillion-rand ecotourism project on the Wild Coast, and in the process chased a leading private tourism company out of South Africa. After years of haggling with politicians and bureaucrats, Wilderness Safaris says it has had enough.
A Limpopo chief, Fhulumani Kutama, was elected unopposed on Thursday as chairperson of the National House of Traditional Leaders. He replaces Mpiyezintombi Mzimela, who left the post after the dissolution of the house of traditional leaders in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal.
The circumcision death toll in the Eastern Cape has reached 19 with news on Thursday of the death of another would-be initiate, the provincial health department said. An official said the 18-year-old youth died after being circumcised at an illegal initiation school in the Libode area of Transkei.
Transformation in rugby is no longer a moral issue; it is a strategic necessity if the sport is to survive in South Africa. That is the view of Dr Willie Basson, author of the transformation charter that the South African Rugby Union (Saru) adopted at its latest president’s council meeting. Presenting the charter to the media on Tuesday, Basson said rugby’s traditional resource pool is dwindling.
Action is needed to stop deaths in initiation schools from ruining the custom, the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities said on Monday. ”We cannot go on like this. One death is [a] loss too many for cultural communities …,” commission chairperson Mongezi Guma said.
The Mthatha General hospital, which serves 2,5-million people in the eastern region of the Eastern Cape, has a 32% vacancy rate among doctors and a 39% vacancy rate among pharmacists, according to figures released by Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang on Monday.
The National House of Traditional Leaders is to appoint a four-member task team to get ”first-hand information” on ongoing problems with traditional circumcision ceremonies. The resolution follows the deaths of 16 youths and the hospitalising of dozens more in the Eastern Cape over the past few weeks.
A European Union ban on ostrich imports and meat from two Western Cape districts will not be devastating, the South African Ostrich Business Chamber (SAOBC) said on Thursday. ”It is the low season for ostrich consumption in Europe so most of the abattoirs are closed …, so the effect will not be [as] big as it was in 2004,” said Anton Kruger, chief executive of the SAOBC.
An Eastern Cape initiate was to appear in the Port Elizabeth Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday after allegedly killing a traditional surgeon with a spade. Spokesperson Captain Ernest Sigobe said the 22-year-old initiate was apparently unhappy with the way in which he had been circumcised.
A ”frightening” number of police officers have died in Gauteng so far this year, with almost as many slain in the first six months of 2006 as in the whole of last year, said the office of National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi. The deaths of four police officers in a bloody siege in Jeppestown last Sunday brought the tally to 19 since the start of the year.
Some HIV/Aids and tuberculosis (TB) patients in the Eastern Cape are refusing treatment because they fear losing their disability grants, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in the province said on Thursday. TAC coordinator Philip Mokoena said the number of people refusing treatment is growing.
A would-be initiate has died of malnutrition after he and twenty-one other boys were found hidden in the Ntabankulu mountains in the Eastern Cape, the province’s health department said on Thursday. Spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said the boys had been kept in the mountains for more than three weeks and were denied food. They were all taken to hospital suffering from malnutrition.
One of the parents whose baby died recently during a power failure at an East London hospital plans to sue the government, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported on Tuesday. Another parent was seeking legal advice. Parents of the dead babies were outraged at comments by Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang in Parliament that they would not receive compensation.
Health care in the Eastern Cape faces a collapse in surgical services if a shortage of general surgeons continues, Dispatch Online reported on Tuesday. It quoted Association of Surgeons in South Africa chairperson Dr Sats Pillay as saying: ”I have nobody to train as surgeons.”
Another circumcision initiate has died in the town of Port Shepstone, bringing death toll to seven in two weeks since the start of the mid-year initiation season, the Eastern Cape health department said on Tuesday. Another boy, from Ngqeleni near Mthatha, faces possible amputation.
Nearly five-million people in South Africa are totally illiterate, Minister of Education Naledi Pandor said on Monday. Another 4,9-million South Africans were functionally literate — people who dropped out of school before grade seven. Pandor said the figures were compiled by a ministerial committee she appointed to help find the best way to tackle illiteracy.
<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=soccer_world_cup_2006"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/272488/icon_focuson_wc3.gif" align=left border=0></a>The official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) says it is to submit questions to all national departments of government in South Africa about which politicians and officials have gone to Germany during the World Cup at taxpayers’ expense. This follows a report that the KwaZulu-Natal transport department was sending a delegation to look at the German transport system.
Five boys have died in the Eastern Cape since last week, the start of the circumcision period in that province, the provincial health department said on Saturday. The fifth body was picked up by the police at an initiation school late on Saturday, said Sizwe Kupelo, departmental spokesperson.
The Eastern Cape province has defended a planned visit to Germany by its premier and senior officials in what has been dubbed a ”Soccer World Cup junket” by a watchdog body. The Public Service Accountability Monitor said the ”junket” should be declared fruitless and wasteful expenditure by the auditor general.
A 16-year-old initiate died in Libode on Friday, bringing to three the number of deaths from illegal circumcisions since the start of the initiation season last week, the Eastern Cape department of health said. ”He died in the bush at an illegal initiation school,” said spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo.
Heavy snowfalls are likely over the north-eastern parts of the Eastern Cape on Thursday, the South African Weather Service said. Forecaster Deon van der Mescht said very cold and wet conditions were expected in Aliwal North, Queenstown and Molteno. Snowfalls would then move to the Drakensberg.
Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana has referred allegations of corruption at a sectoral education and training authority (Seta), involving at least R13,7-million, to the Scorpions for further investigation. He has also given its board two weeks to study a forensic report by the auditor general and act on its findings.
The justice system is seen as unfair to people laying a charge of rape, a survey has found. This perception was strongest in the coloured community, with black people the least critical, said Research Surveys, which conducted the study as part of ongoing research into social and political issues. It was also a belief held mainly by women, but not markedly so, the survey found.
The manne would like to commend African National Congress Youth League president Fikile Mbalula for his latest online missive in which he exhorts us to ”double our efforts” in the fight against HIV and Aids. Not only would a doubling of the state’s efforts put a whole 200Â 000 people on anti-retroviral treatment, it would leave only 4,5-million infected people in the hands of Teutonic snake-oil salesmen and