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/ 2 November 2005
Large parts of the Eastern Cape are being evacuated in the path of runaway fires, the Working on Fire programme said on Wednesday morning. ”A fire is burning along the N2 highway towards Port Elizabeth near the Van Stadens River bridge,” spokesperson Evelyn Holtzhausen said. ”The fire is out of control.”
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/ 2 November 2005
A number of fires in the Humansdorp area of the Eastern Cape were extinguished by 8.15pm on Tuesday, fire-department official Andrew Pietersen said. ”The Jeffrey’s Bay fire and the St Francis fire have been extinguished,” he said. Earlier, he said fires were ”jumping from one place to another”.
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/ 1 November 2005
A fire in the Humansdorp area of the Eastern Cape and three fires in the Tsitsikamma area were out of control on Monday night, Working on Fire (WOF) said. ”They are burning commercial timber and indigenous veld,” WOF spokesperson Val Charlton said at 7.30pm. Gale-force winds expected on Tuesday would fan the flames.
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/ 30 October 2005
The government is holding back on announcing a date for the local government elections because of the current disruptions in the African National Congress, the United Democratic Movement said on Saturday. This is the result of the axing of Jacob Zuma and the struggle over who will succeed the president, UDM leader Bantu Holomisa said.
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/ 24 October 2005
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”There is little doubt that if Jacob Zuma had been a candidate for the presidency of the ruling African National Congress at the party’s national general council in July, he would have won an overwhelming number of votes … It was clearly demonstrated that Zuma had the support of the people,” writes Donwald Pressley.
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/ 24 October 2005
A 17m-long sperm whale that beached off Ngqura harbour in Algoa Bay, Eastern Cape, at the weekend, has died, the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) said on Monday. Earlier on Monday, Ian Gray, the NSRI’s spokesperson in Port Elizabeth, said the whale was expected to die ”within the next two hours”.
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/ 23 October 2005
The Thabo Mbeki-Jacob Zuma ”fight” was affecting government’s performance at every level, Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Tony Leon said on Saturday. ”And the DA, as the official opposition leader, cannot remain neutral and detached. But which side, if any, should we support in the ANC’s internal battle?”
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/ 22 October 2005
The familiar spectre of batting collapses continued to haunt the Warriors as they tottered to 38 for four at the close of the second day of their Supersport Series cricket match against the Cape Cobras at St George’s Park on Friday. The slump in the day’s final 20 overs by the Eastern Cape side threatened to undermine a fine bowling performance which saw them restrict the visitors to 211 for nine declared.
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/ 19 October 2005
The Coega Development Corporation has secured its second investment — a R1,6-billion stainless steel precision mill that is part of the offset from the multibillion-rand arms deal, The Herald website reported on Wednesday. The project still needed the approval of its 26% partner, the Industrial Development Corporation, ”but no obstacles are expected”.
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/ 14 October 2005
South Africa’s National Industrial Participation (NIP) programme has generated investment and sales credits valued at $3,5-billion during the past eight years, says the Department of Trade and Industry. This translates into about R23-billion at the current exchange rate.
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/ 14 October 2005
Mike van Graan asks if we can move on to real transformation, now that we have generally replaced white people with black people at the trough of public funds.
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/ 14 October 2005
The most pointlessly complex Currie Cup system of all time has finally produced exactly the same semifinal match-ups as last year. The main difference is that a year ago, when eight teams contested the Currie Cup, it was a reversion to strength against strength and, what with the Springboks winning the Tri-Nations and all, it was considered something of a vintage season.
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/ 10 October 2005
Workers marching for an end to unemployment and job losses warned the ruling African National Congress on Monday to ignore them at its peril. ”We cannot simply be election fodder,” Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) president Willie Madisha told protesters who converged at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.
Minister of Education Naledi Pandor expressed horror on Thursday at the disruption of the matric-exam process in the Eastern Cape by teachers involved in a labour dispute. ”We must not allow the Eastern Cape to get the lowest pass rates again,” she reacted to reports that teachers have been prevented from submitting pupils’ year marks.
Recently the Pension Funds Adjudicator (PFA), Vuyani Ngalwana issued rulings on a further 22 retirement annuities (RAs). Life companies have chosen to settle 15 of these rather than face the negative publicity. This brings to 54 the total number of RA rulings since March. The life companies are appealing seven of these in the High Court.
Ntsundukazi Mvandaba and her family were the envy of the neighbours they left behind when they moved from the Mandela informal settlement to proper houses in Delpark, both in Delmas. They moved five years ago into an Reconstruction and Development Programme house: unplastered and small, but the first real home for this family from the Eastern Cape.
There is a steady increase in HIV prevalence in South Africa, a professor from the University of KwaZulu-Natal said at the opening of the Gauteng Aids Council conference in Johannesburg on Thursday. The life expectancy in the country would soon plummet from 63 years to 46, Professor Alan Whiteside said.
Cool and conditions moving over the northern parts of the country brought some relief on Wednesday for firefighters still battling veld fires in Mpumalanga. Earlier in the day, a fire that raged through the North West veld overnight was brought under control near the Vredefort Dome. However, the fire risk remains high in the northern parts of the country.
It is ”patently obvious” that the rights of patients in state hospitals are not being respected and that urgent action is needed, the Democratic Alliance said on Wednesday. DA MP and health spokesperson Dianne Kohler-Barnard released a damning report on the country’s ”five worst hospitals” during a press conference at Parliament.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) claimed to have shut down the clothing industry in the Western Cape on Monday during a one-day strike in the province and in the Eastern Cape. But a Western Cape clothing-industry spokesperson described the shutdown claim as ”a joke”.
Only a few thousand people turned up to march through central Cape Town on Monday as the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) called a one-day strike in protest against job losses. About 27 000 turned up for a similar march in June this year, but police said Monday’s total was only about 5 000.
About 50 Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) members on Sunday shackled themselves to railings at Parliament in Cape Town to highlight their jobs and poverty campaign. Cosatu’s Eastern Cape provincial secretary said marches would start at 10am on Monday in East London, Port Elizabeth, Mthatha and Queenstown.
President Thabo Mbeki paid tribute on Friday to Transkei-born activist Wycliffe Mlungisi ”Wyckie” Tsotsi, who had died earlier this week. ”His death has robbed South Africa and the African continent of a hero of the struggle for liberation, non-racism, non-sexism and justice,” Mbeki said.
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/ 29 September 2005
Work to uncover and eradicate corruption in the 2004/05 financial year has saved the government projected future losses of nearly R3,5-billion, the Special Investigating Unit said on Thursday. This was calculated on the premise that malpractices exposed during the year were likely to have continued on average for ten more years.
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/ 28 September 2005
Schoolchildren in the Eastern Cape should not have to bear the brunt of the province’s poor budget planning, the Democratic Alliance said on Wednesday. The DA’s Helen Zille appealed to the minister of education to intervene to stop the province from implementing proposed severe budget cuts to the school feeding scheme.
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/ 27 September 2005
Fires that have killed two people and ravaged large areas of land have largely been contained, but now the provinces are starting to count the costs. Crews from the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Gauteng, Free State, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo have been fighting fires since September 23.
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/ 27 September 2005
More than one million children, mostly from poor homes, are to be affected by cuts in the Eastern Cape’s school-feeding scheme, the Herald Online reported on Tuesday. The programme will be scaled down from five to three days a week because the education department does not have money to run the scheme every day.
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/ 26 September 2005
Wildfires began claiming lives — both human and animal — on Monday as they ran unabated across the hot, dry countryside, fanned by heavy winds. A six-year-old girl, Bonakele Ngema, burnt to death in a house where she was trapped while seeking refuge from a roaring blaze that bore down on her in Mntanenkosi reserve, KwaZulu-Natal.
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/ 26 September 2005
Firefighters were put on standby in the Eastern Cape and Western Cape on Monday after fears that blazes in four other provinces could spread, a public-private firefighting organisation said. Working on Fire spokesperson Val Charlton said fires are raging in Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal, the Free State and Mpumalanga.
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/ 26 September 2005
The Government Printing Works (GPW) which prints identity documents and passports could collapse if state departments failed to pay about R150-million that it is owed, media reports said on Monday. GPW chief executive Tom Moyane warned of the possibility of closure, saying ageing printing machinery needed millions of rand to replace.
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/ 21 September 2005
A third of Nelson Mandela Bay’s population of about 1,3-million is HIV-positive, making the region’s prevalence the highest in the province, the Eastern Province Herald newspaper reported on Wednesday. The figure was revealed in the annual national ante-natal HIV prevalence study.
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/ 18 September 2005
The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) on Saturday suspended its deputy president, Reuben Mohlaloga, over remarks he made disowning the organisation’s decision over the ”two centres of power” debate. The ANCYL national executive committee referred the matter to the national disciplinary committee.