The management committee of South African rugby will meet next week to discuss matters raised at the meeting between senior rugby officials and Sport and Recreation Minister Makhenkhesi Stofile in Pretoria on Wednesday. The meeting was also attended by representatives of the African National Congress Youth League.
Emergency aid is on the way to a village in the Eastern Cape where an outbreak of a tapeworm-related sickness has seen more than 20 children hospitalised. Dozens more were awaiting immunisation on Tuesday from neurocystercercosis, a parasitic brain infection that results from tapeworms.
As they embark on a process to broaden relations with the People’s Republic of China, South African politicians and officials would do well to consider the advice of China’s reformist leader, Deng Xiaoping: ”Seek truth from facts.” China’s attraction as an ideological and strategic counterweight to the dominance of the West has led to a desire to cosy up to the Asian dragon.
The official opposition Democratic Alliance on Friday threw its support behind "the pyjama protest" action taken by South African nurses over their uniform allowances. DA spokesperson Diane Kohler Barnard said that the allowances in all provinces are far too low to actually buy uniforms.
The ministry of sport and recreation on Thursday called on the South African Rugby Union to clarify the decision of awarding the fifth Super 14 franchise.
A resolution was passed by the president’s council on April 15 to award Central Unions the new franchise, rather that the government-backed South-Eastern Cape region.
The first snow of winter has dusted peaks in the Western Cape. Hex River valley resident Andries Brown said that in the wake of the cold front that moved in on Tuesday, the Matroosberg had a fair coating of snow. Above Tulbagh, there was light snow on the Groot Winterhoek peak on Tuesday.
Volkswagen South Africa (VWSA) on Monday announced that it will invest R750-million in a new, state-of-the-art paint shop in Uitenhage. Addressing the media, VWSA MD Andreas Tostmann said construction of the facility will start in May and is anticipated to be completed and fully operational in the first half of 2007.
After deliberations that delayed the intended media conference by three hours at the Absa Stadium in Durban on Friday, SA Rugby finally announced a reshuffle in provincial affiliations in the enlarged Super 14 franchises for the next three years, subject to an annual review and initial three-year trial period.
The Vodacom Blue Bulls face a bruising encounter against the @lantic Pumas in this weekend’s Vodacom Cup. The Bulldogs, buoyed by their outstanding performance against the Vodacom Blue Bulls last week, will look to build on their success when they take on the Mighty Elephants in an Eastern Cape derby match.
The Eastern Cape social development department is investigating 2Â 000 public servants thought to be cheating the state out of R24-million in welfare grants. Those under suspicion include teachers and employees of the Eastern Cape agriculture department. Eight civil servants were arrested at Mthatha on Monday morning for grant fraud.
A new Afrikaans Sunday newspaper, Die Wêreld, goes on sale this week with 200 000 copies and promises of a fresh approach. ”We are hoping to sell out,” editor Maryna Blomerus said in Pretoria on Thursday before the weekend of the 80-page tabloid-sized paper’s virgin issue.
The desperate shortage of water in Butterworth in the Eastern Cape has reached such chronic proportions that residents sometimes fight one another to get at it. Others, in order to steer clear of the trouble, have resorted to storing up water in containers, and there is even a third option of buying water from self-styled water hawkers.
Transparency International and Transparency South Africa commissioned the Institute for Security Studies to put together the National Integrity Systems Country Study Report — South Africa 2005. The study’s value lies in the fact that it goes beyond measuring "perceptions" of corruption and provides an in-depth assessment of the various "pillars" of the South African National Integrity Systems.
The end of a four-match losing streak for the Sharks came not a moment too soon. In beating the Brumbies so emphatically in Durban the Sharks not only earned a shot at redemption, but also became the only local side to win in round five of the Super 12. In the greater scheme of things the five log points thus earned are irrelevant.
A leading children’s rights organisation is concerned that two proposed laws on child protection could result in duplication and a waste of resources. A child’s general right to health care has been reduced in the Children’s Bill, and the right to health care after sexual assault has been removed from the Sexual Offences Bill.
A string of cellphone messages on a purported hijacking this week turned out to be smokescreen for partying with prostitutes, News24 reported on Thursday. It said a KwaZulu-Natal technician had police on a national alert after unleashing a series of SMSes on Tuesday, saying he had been hijacked.
South Africa’s robust economic growth made a small, hardly noticeable dent in the country’s massive unemployment rate. Yet those who are lucky enough to be employed in the formal sector saw earnings increase faster than the number of their peers. The latest figures show youth unemployment remains chronically high, while 60% of discouraged work seekers are female.
Three nurses were hijacked with their mobile clinic between Tsolo and Maclear on Tuesday, the Eastern Cape health department said. Their assailants crashed the vehicle shortly after they hijacked it at about 4pm, health department spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said.
The acting CEO of the Border Cricket Board, Greg Hayes, and Warriors coach Mickey Arthur dropped a bombshell when they announced on Wednesday that Protea express bowler Monde Zondeki has decided to pursue his career with the Western Province-Boland franchise from next summer. ”He goes with our blessing,” Hayes said.
Department of Home Affairs offices will be open on the weekend starting from April 1, the department said on Saturday. ”This is to accommodate those who cannot visit our offices during the normal office hours by providing them with extra opportunities to access our services,” said a departmental spokesperson.
The Public Service Accountability Monitor has called for the immediate suspension of Eastern Cape housing minister Neo Moerane-Mamase following her arrest on Friday morning for corruption. Mamase and her husband, Max Mamase, were arrested on Friday morning by the joint anti-corruption task team.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) on Friday said that the recently announced closure of clothing manufacturer Rex Trueform’s Salt River plant threatened to put another 1Â 000 people out of work in the Western Cape and bring the clothing, textile and leather industries one step closer to complete collapse.
I am writing this as a white middle-class professional woman, a lawyer, a slightly detribalised Afrikaner from a long line of respected nationalists — racists, by their own admission, also patriots in their own way. One of the lingering questions for me is, why whites, who claim not to be racist, object so vehemently to allegedly false accusations of racism?
The excitement of the Absa Cup starts this weekend, and the boys will be separated from the men as they try to reach the quarterfinals. For the lower-division teams, it will be do or die against the Premier Soccer League teams. It seems the lower-division teams have reached the end of the road unless they plan to surprise their opposition, as Silver Stars did in 2003.
Red tape is the biggest constraint to the expansion of business in South Africa, according to Grant Thornton’s 2005 international business owners survey. Forty one percent of business owners in South Africa cite regulation and red tape as the biggest constraint to the growth of their business, up from 34% last year.
The Eastern Cape health department on Tuesday began immunising young people to combat a measles outbreak in villages in the Elliotdale area of Transkei. Departmental spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said 35 nurses and 6 000 doses of vaccine have been moved into the area, where about seven villages are seen as under threat.
There was chaos at Port Elizabeth’s Livingstone Hospital on Monday as would-be research volunteers flocked to give blood and hair samples, a provincial official said. Eastern Cape health department spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said a pharmaceutical research company had announced it would pay R300 for each sample.
Niche banking group Investec will open an office in Knysna this week, to provide specialised services in the Garden Route area, announced Andy Vogel, Investec regional manager for the Eastern Cape. The specialist investment banking group will offer a number of services from its private client division.
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/ 26 February 2005
The young male hippo that made headlines last year after escaping from a nature reserve in Cape Town will soon start his own herd, City Parks and Nature Conservation said on Saturday. The hippo escaped from the Rondevlei Nature Reserve and took up residence in Zeekoevlei for several months until he was recaptured in December.
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/ 25 February 2005
Raymond Mhlaba, who has died aged 85, dedicated his formidable talents to the struggle against apartheid. A member of the Rivonia group with Nelson Mandela, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, but emerged to take office in 1994 after South Africa’s first democratic elections.
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/ 25 February 2005
As the four South African franchises have one last go at winning the Super 12, the competition that gave southern hemisphere rugby its identity is being somewhat overshadowed by events elsewhere. The lobbying has begun for the right to host the 2011 World Cup and International Rugby Board chairperson Syd Millar is already accusing the Japanese media of misquoting him.
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/ 25 February 2005
African National Congress stalwart Raymond Mhlaba died satisfied, Deputy President Jacob Zuma said at the struggle veteran’s memorial service in Pretoria on Thursday evening. ”He died satisfied that we are on course and are still committed to meeting the minimum demands of our people as stated in the [Freedom] Charter,” Zuma said.