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/ 20 December 2004
Gifts not distributed during former president Nelson Mandela’s annual Christmas party will be handed out to pre-schools early in 2005, the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund announced on Monday. The party was called off in the Eastern Cape on Sunday after ”shuffling and pushing” among the 76 000-strong crowd.
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/ 20 December 2004
Former president Nelson Mandela’s annual Christmas party for children was called off on Sunday amid a crush of pushing and shoving children and parents jostling for position in the queue for presents. The organisers had bargained on between 15 000 and 20 000 guests, but made provision for an extra 10 000, said Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund spokesperson, Archie Tsoku.
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/ 19 December 2004
Deputy President Jacob Zuma handed over a traditional court, king’s chamber, community hall and other facilities to the people of Klipfontein, Mpumalanga, on Saturday. The project is part of the government’s commitment to ”improve the status and position of traditional leaders in our country”, he said.
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/ 17 December 2004
With the music industry hit by a testosterone rush, Brian Letlhabane talks to local pop’s heart-throbs and heavies, featuring the likes of MXO, Mr Selwyn and RJ Bejamin.
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/ 17 December 2004
The Department of Social Development launched a major anti-corruption campaign recently, asking for public support in its fight against fraud, but a large proportion of the fraud is committed by civil servants. The corruption takes many forms, including syndicates operated by corrupt government officials, doctors, lawyers and priests. We investigate how government officials collude with members of the public to defraud the state of millions of rands.
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/ 14 December 2004
Eastern Cape emergency workers struggled to clear a scene of carnage on Tuesday after a runaway truck ploughed through a taxi rank in the town of Flagstaff, instantly killing four and injuring 10 others, two critically. It appears the articulated truck was speeding through the town centre when it lost control.
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/ 13 December 2004
Citizens who received social grants to which they are not entitled have until the end of March to apply for indemnity. Those who fail to do so will face ”drastic measures”, Minister of Social Development Zola Skweyiya said in Pretoria on Monday. He said about 37Â 000 people are apparently illegally enjoying benefits.
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/ 10 December 2004
City of Cape Town nature conservation officials have at last captured the elusive young male hippo that escaped from the Rondevlei Nature Reserve in February this year. It took six darts and a three-and-a-half hour chase in the dark through reed beds and deep water in the small hours of Thursday morning to get the 800kg animal under control.
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/ 9 December 2004
The six-year-old boy struck by lightning on a Pretoria golf course on Wednesday is still in a very critical and unstable condition, the Pretoria East hospital said on Thursday. His internal organs have suffered from the heat and electricity that surged through him in the lightning strike that killed his father, paramedic Roger Owen-Ellis.
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/ 6 December 2004
An investigation has been ordered into an Eastern Cape doctor’s alleged refusal to treat a two-year-old rape victim on Saturday. The Eastern Cape health department’s superintendent general has appointed a team of investigators to probe the incident and make recommendations, a departmental spokesperson said on Monday.
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/ 6 December 2004
The Arrive Alive campaign will not tolerate traffic offenders this coming holiday season — this is according to a statement by the Department of Transport issued on Monday. With schools countrywide closing for the December holidays, Arrive Alive is gearing itself up for the holiday rush.
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/ 30 November 2004
Fifteen people were arrested for various cases of fraud amounting to more than R2,5-million in the Eastern Cape on Tuesday. Superintendent Mike Fatyela said members of the joint anti-corruption task team in the province expected to arrest another 10 people during the course of the morning.
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/ 30 November 2004
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/142915/aids_icon.gif" align=left>A year ago the government approved a national plan for the management, care and treatment of HIV/Aids. Its aim was to provide free anti-retroviral drugs in the public health sector. The HIV prevalence rates range from an estimated 13,1% in the Western Cape to a very high 37,5% of adults in KwaZulu-Natal. A <i>M&G</i> assessment as World Aids Day approaches reveals the leaders and laggards.
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/ 27 November 2004
The East London-based Daily Dispatch has appointed Phylicia Oppelt as its first woman editor. The 35-year-old, formerly of the Sunday Times, will take over the 132-year-old newspaper on January. She replaces Gavin Stewart who has been editor for the past 10 years, the paper said.
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/ 26 November 2004
”President Mbeki explains to European leaders why Nepad is succeeding beyond all expectations.” ”The government reveals how the arms deal has brought billion of rands in foreign investment and created thousands of jobs.” Then comes the ”ag shame” touch, delivered with a helping of devastating SABC wordplay to get the nation hosing itself. Does that menu smell familiar? Of course it does.
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/ 25 November 2004
The African National Congress (ANC) and the official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) both won three of eight contested municipal by-elections held on Wednesday – with the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) retaining two seats it previously had held.
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/ 25 November 2004
Media and entertainment group Johnnic Communications on Wednesday reported an increase of 727% in headline earnings to R124-million for the six-month period to 30 September 2004. Revenue for the period rose by 52% to R1953-million from R1284-million in 2003, while profit from continuing operations before exceptional items leapt by 800% from R17-million in 2003 to R153-million.
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/ 18 November 2004
A meeting to determine the fate of seven Eastern Cape Development Corporation directors — who were irregularly dismissed by the provincial minister for economic affairs, environment and tourism, Andre de Wet, in September — turned pear-shaped on Wednesday after De Wet effectively ruled against a High Court judgement instructing him to act "without capriciousness".
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/ 12 November 2004
”It has often surprised me how difficult it is to speak across colour barriers, to people who do not understand your reality. Communication barriers arise when one does not recognise the other’s experience as authentic, real and true. I have started to feel quite oppressed by the presence of ”whiteness” in my world, or perhaps my presence in the white world.” A black professional in Cape Town feels like a foreigner in her own land.
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/ 9 November 2004
A traditional surgeon who allegedly performed an illegal circumcision on a 48-year-old man is to be prosecuted, the Eastern Cape health department said on Tuesday. Kupelo said the circumcision season has just started, with more than 30 boys in the Port Elizabeth area queuing for pre-circumcision medical tests on Tuesday.
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/ 8 November 2004
An Italian prosecutor on Monday sought to probe the link between alleged Mafioso Vito Palazzolo and Count Riccardo Agusta, who achieved notoriety in the Roodefontein saga. The Cape Town Magistrate’s Court is hearing evidence for Palazzolo’s trial in absentia in Italy.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=125163">Failed bid to charge Palazzolo</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=125147">Stressed policeman unfit to testify</a>
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/ 5 November 2004
There is no need to panic about drought — unless the rain stays away for another two months, the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry said in Pretoria on Friday. The department is reviewing the state of the Vaal River system to see if water restrictions in Gauteng — now South Africa’s driest province — will be necessary.
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/ 29 October 2004
Local business and labour have welcomed the almost doubling of production for the East London-built new C-Class Mercedes Benz. DaimlerChrysler chairperson Christoph Kopke said this week that the East London plant would be producing around 80 000 of the new C-Class from 2007 — up from the 45 000 a year for the current W203 model.
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/ 29 October 2004
The most alarming thing about the Schabir Shaik trial in Durban is that the revelations being made by various witnesses seem unsurprising. As each new narration unfolds we learn of chicanery, double-dealing, hustles, swindles, lies. And we do little more than shrug. If these things were even 10% true, we should be outraged.
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/ 22 October 2004
Adverse weather conditions continued to delay the start of oil-transfer operations from the BBC China, the cargo vessel stranded off the Eastern Cape Coast, authorities said on Friday. The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism said the ship has about 120 tonnes of oil on board.
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/ 19 October 2004
Listed retailer Pick ‘n Pay has managed the current South African environment of very low inflation and deflation in some categories by improving its operational efficiencies as well as encouraging higher sales volumes, reflected in an improvement in its operating profit margin to 2,6% from 2,4% a year earlier.
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/ 18 October 2004
Sectoral education and training authorities (Setas) are here to stay, Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana said on Monday about the oft-criticised learning institutions. ”We are not going to scrap the Setas. On the contrary, we are going to do what we can to strengthen them,” Mdladlana said.
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/ 18 October 2004
A six-hour maritime drama played out along the Wild Coast when 16 seamen were airlifted off a freighter in stormy seas in the early hours of Sunday morning, the Marine Rescue Co-ordination Centre said. Helicopters battled 40-knot winds and three metre swells to airlift 16 crewmen off the freighter BBC China.
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/ 15 October 2004
The European Union’s decision this week to extend the ban on ostrich imports from South Africa because of an avian influenza scare in the country has caught the local ostrich sector by surprise, industry representatives say. "We were hoping to resume export by November 1," said Anton Kruger, general manager of the South African Ostrich Business Chamber.
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/ 12 October 2004
Eight schoolchildren died and 60 were seriously injured in a bus accident in Tabankulu in the Eastern Cape on Monday, the provincial transport department said. Spokesperson Tshepo Machaea said the children from the Mtutukazi Junior Secondary School were on a tour to East London when the driver lost control while negotiating a curve, causing the bus to overturn.
The Eastern Cape education department has overspent its budget by more than R600-million, the province’s education minister Mkhangeli Matomela told MPs on Tuesday. Briefing Parliament’s education select committee, he warned the overspending would lead, among other things, to cutting the number of schools the region had planned to build this year.
A cold front will hit the Western Cape province from Wednesday evening and should continue moving over South Africa, while at the same time bringing rain, until Tuesday next week, said South African Weather Service (Saws) forecaster Evert Scholtz. There should be heavy showers over parts of the Western and Eastern Cape up until Friday.