<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
The forestry sector could lose almost R900-million because of invasive alien wasps, says Water Affairs and Forestry Minister Lindiwe Hendricks. In written reply to a question by Democratic Alliance MP Janet Semple in the National Assembly, Hendricks said a control programme to limit damage had been introduced.
An elderly man who was stung to death bees at a village near Butterworth at the weekend was probably taking part in a cultural ceremony to remove dangerous African honey bees. Eastern Cape police said on Monday that Victor Ndoda Nyembezi (73) had been part of a group of about 100 people who were trying to remove a hive from a homestead in Mgomanzi village on Friday.
The death of a female leopard three days after she tore herself from a gin trap in the Eastern Cape has reignited debate around what some conservationists call ”barbaric weapons”. The leopard tore free from the trap and was on the loose in the Baviaanskloof area for at least three days with the trap still attached to her paw.
Twelve people were killed and four left in a critical condition when a tour bus overturned near Kroonstad on Monday, Free State police said. Captain Rosa Benade said 35 people were treated for serious injuries on the accident scene and moved to the Boithumelo and Kroon hospitals.
Support for a third term for President Thabo Mbeki has not cost South African National Civics Organisation (Sanco) leader Mlungisi Hlongwane his job. National executive committee member Donovan Williams said a Business Day article reporting that Hlongwane and deputy general secretary Master Mahlobogoane had been suspended was wrong.
Rugby, it seems, is continually in the wars, if not for misadministration then for poor results. The latest piece of idiocy presented itself in the form of the meeting between the South African administrators and MPs. In our second decade since the unification of sporting codes and our shiny new democracy, the progress made in racial integration in the sport is shameful.
The Department of Correctional Services has deployed a team of investigators to probe the possibility of a syndicate assisting prisoners to escape from the Middledrift and St Albans prisons in the Eastern Cape. Spokesperson Zukisa Nduneni on Friday said a team from the department’s investigation unit has been deployed.
President Thabo Mbeki has reached new heights of public popularity, with current job-approval ratings matching the best ratings given to Nelson Mandela, the Afrobarometer survey said on Wednesday. According to the survey, conducted in January and February, nearly eight in 10 South Africans approved of the job Mbeki was doing as president. When asked about the way Mbeki had performed his job over the past year, 77% said they approved, with 28% strongly approving.
Two more people have been taken in for questioning after two prisoners escaped from the Middledrift maximum security prison on Tuesday morning, the Eastern Cape correctional services department said. Authorities have also reviewed the closed circuit television footage which implicated four officers at the prison.
An East London man who caused the death of six children when he lost control of a bakkie has been sent to prison for seven years, the Dispatch Online reported on Thursday. It said East London Regional Court magistrate Fungile Dotwana handed down the sentence on Wednesday.
Thousands of Eastern Cape children are going hungry after the province’s new school feeding scheme collapsed before it got off the ground, Dispatch Online reported on Thursday. Problems apparently arose after the previous suppliers for the feeding scheme, including two major bakery groups, were dumped.
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) on Wednesday called for regular inspections to be conducted at construction sites to ensure compliance with safety standards. The call followed the death of three construction workers on Tuesday afternoon while working on a construction site at Volkswagen in Port Elizabeth.
I may as well state the facts up front. This article is not about the Jacob Zuma rape trial. It is best to be clear about this to avoid the passionate disquisitions and name-calling of ”bjective”intellectuals and ”biased” partisans alike. I find it strange that in all the buzz about South Africa’s transformation — particularly the transformation of the judiciary — one subject has not been broached.
South African retailer Mr Price on Thursday reported a 48% rise in diluted headline earnings per share to 154,7 cents for the year ended March from 104,7 cents a year ago. A total distribution of 81 cents per share — based on a cover of two times — was declared, up from 60 cents last year.
The government has done what it can for a group of protesting former miners from the Eastern Cape, and urged them to go back home. ”We are not resisting to pay the claims; we are willing to, especially when it comes to the elderly,” Boas Seruwe, acting Unemployment Insurance Fund commissioner, said on Tuesday.
A group of about 800 protesting former miners from the Eastern Cape who were evicted from the Tshwane city hall on Monday were being cared for by residents on Tuesday. ”The group has been separated into two smaller groups of about 300 and 500 each and they are staying in open halls in blocks of flats in the Pretoria CBD,” said Willie Fuledi, spokesperson for the Ex-Mineworkers’ Union of SA.
Winter will not be exceptionally cold, it will just be normal, Weather South Africa said on Monday. ”According to our models the temperatures will be normal for this time of year,” meteorologist Selebaleng Gaebee said. Last winter was exceptionally warm, which may explain why people feel the current cold weather more intensely.
The icy weather experienced over the country was set to continue until about Thursday when the days will become slightly warmer, the South African Weather Service said on Sunday. Forecaster Ezekiel Sebego said another cold front would move in over the Western Cape on Monday night, bringing with it rain for that area, the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
Bitterly cold weather around the country is likely to result in snow on higher ground, hail and sleet in the interior and rough seas in the Cape, meteorologists said on Friday. The National Forecasting Centre said the central and eastern parts of the country are being invaded by very cold weather.
Thousands joined marches throughout the country on Thursday to protest against job losses, but the impact of the one-day strike varied across the sectors of the economy. The strike, called by the Congress of South African Trade Unions, was felt hardest in the mining industry, followed by car manufacturers, retailers and the textile industry.
Thousands of workers heeded a call by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) to down tools on Thursday in protest against South Africa’s high levels of unemployment and poverty. The mining and car-manufacturing industries appeared to be hardest hit.
Hundreds of people have gathered to pay their respects to the former public works minister Stella Sigcau at the Qawukeni Great Place in the Transkei on Tuesday morning. South African President Thabo Mbeki is to deliver the eulogy. Sigcau’s body has been lying in state at her home ahead of the official funeral.
General Motors plans to begin exporting South African-made Hummers to countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and South America by the end of the year, a company official said on Monday. The Struandale plant in the Eastern Cape is slated to export 33 countries, a spokesperson said.
Fourteen tons of dagga were found in the mountains of the Eastern Cape and three people were arrested in an operation running from last Wednesday to Friday, police said. Two unlicensed firearms and 85 rounds of ammunition were also confiscated. Superintendent Mzukisi Fatyela said the dagga is harvested at this time of the year.