President Thabo Mbeki will spend his 62nd birthday on ”work, work, work”, his spokesperson Bheki Khumalo said on Friday. ”The president doesn’t believe in festivities and big bashes. It embarrasses him,” said Khumalo. However, his colleagues in the National Assembly decided that his big day could not go unmarked and in a motion the political parties wished him a happy birthday.
In an effort to develop a classification of marine habitats for South Africa, the marine science community is working virtually round the clock to meet a July deadline for identifying marine priority areas for the country’s first National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan.
The Department of Public Works did not get enough money in this year’s Budget to carry out all its appointed tasks, including tackling a maintenance backlog at government buildings, says Minister of Public Works Stella Sigcau. In February this year, her department was allocated more than R4,8-billion.
The first snow of the season has fallen on the peaks surrounding Barkly East in the Eastern Cape, almost three months later than last year, the South African Weather Service said on Tuesday. As a result, very cold conditions were expected over the western, southern and south-eastern interior as well as the eastern high ground and Highveld.
Major General Derrick Mgwebi last week became the first South African to head a United Nations peacekeeping mission when he assumed the command of the UN Operation in Burundi. Mgwebi last Tuesday donned a UN blue beret at a ceremony in Bujumbura to mark the end of the African Union mission in Burundi.
The South African Chamber of Business has won a $20 000 award for its simple toolkit to assist small and medium enterprises address HIV/Aids in their workplaces. The chamber also won accolades for its strategy to monitor the implementation of this product through its chamber movement.
Almost a fifth of frog species in South Africa are under threat of extinction, a nine-year research project has found. The Atlas and Red Data Book of the Frogs of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland was officially launched on Thursday at the University of Cape Town’s avian demography unit.
A two-hour boat ride across windswept Algoa Bay from Port Elizabeth lies Bird Island, the site of the largest breeding colony of gannets in the world. Bird Island is managed by SA National Parks, which also looks after three smaller adjacent islands — Stag, Seal and Black Rocks. They estimate there are 169 000 gannets on the island.
At least 42 traditional surgeons have been arrested in the Eastern Cape since the provincial government introduced legislation on circumcision in 2001, Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi said on Monday. He said of the 42, 18 have been convicted of crimes linked to initiation circumcisions gone wrong.
Dale McKinley (”New power to the people …”) reports the number of spoilt ballots as if these votes might indicate a preference for socialist revolution. He confuses the voting age population with the number of eligible voters, and arrives at grossly exaggerated claims of low voter turnout. From this he imputes that the election was ”rejected” by the majority of people. The majority of social movements do not oppose representative democracy, writes Michael Sachs.
South Africa has to overcome the colonial and apartheid legacy of unskilled and jobless workers to create a workforce for the reconstruction and development of the country, President Thabo Mbeki said on Tuesday at the launch of the Expanded Public Works Programme in Limpopo.
Newly appointed Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk is to visit the Eastern Cape’s Pondoland coast to assess the impact a plan to mine titanium from sand dunes will have on the area, known for its biodiversity and scenic beauty.
Internationally renowned ichthyologist Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer died on Monday, aged 97. Courtenay-Latimer achieved international recognition as the discoverer of the coelacanth in 1938 when it was thought to have been extinct for 70-million years. The fish genus was named Latimeria chulumnae in her honour.
As the government’s national roll-out of anti-retrovirals (ARVs) intensifies, there is growing concern that the available sources of supply — including the only South African company manufacturing generic ARVs, Aspen Pharmacare — could be pressurised by the demand.
As South Africa’s new government braces itself for the task of extending clean water supplies to more people, environmentalists are warning there may soon be little water to distribute if conservation efforts are not stepped up. They believe the country will run out of water by 2030 unless current water resources are better maintained.
The Eastern Cape health department on Friday launched its provincial anti-retroviral roll-out to HIV-positive patients in that region. Eastern Cape minister of health Dr Bevan Goqwana was at the launch of the province’s ”comprehensive” rollout plan at Settlers hospital in Grahamstown.
According to a <i>Sunday Times</i> report, there are now nearly 700 "ultra-high-gross-worth individuals" with assets of at least R200-million each. I doubt that many of the local 25 000 "dollar millionaires" simply give away R100 000 each month. But this is exactly what the National Arts Council (NAC) is doing, writes Mike van Graan.
South African Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana on Wednesday announced the resignation of his director general Advocate Rams Ramashia. Mdladlana said Ramashia had played a leading role in the successes enjoyed by the Department of Labour since his appointment in 2000.
Pharmacists across the country adopted a wait-and-see attitude to the effects of the new Medicines and Related Substances Act as the industry faced uncertainty and anger on Monday. The Act, intended to regulate medicine prices, came into force on Sunday, making discounting by manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers illegal.
The new Eastern Cape premier Nosimo Balindlela further alienated the provincial African National Congress leadership on Thursday by choosing her cabinet without consulting them. Senior officials in the ANC complained that they had expected to meet Balindlela on Thursday, but she failed to attend the meeting.
A tough municipal by-election in a Chatsworth, Durban, ward will see the African National Congress-aligned Minority Front — led by new KwaZulu-Natal sports MEC Amichand Rajbansi — fight it out to retain a marginal seat from a determined challenge from the official opposition Democratic Alliance.
Thabo Mbeki was inaugurated as South Africa’s President in a lavish ceremony at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on Tuesday before an estimated 40 000 revellers and 6 000 invited guests, including presidents, royalty, prime ministers and Cabinet ministers from all over the world.
Mandela, Mugabe cheered
The official opposition Democratic Alliance has selected its team representing the nine provinces in the National Council of Provinces but former Western Cape premier and former Cape Town mayor Gerald Morkel failed to be selected for one of two Western Cape seats available.
The jostling over the spoils of Cabinet posts in the Western Cape and possible representation for the New National Party in the national Cabinet will begin this week. The NNP on Monday went out of its way to underscore the point that there was no suggestion of any calls for its leader to resign.
Selling Africa to non-Africans is becoming an institution. At exhibitions, shopping malls and estate agencies across Europe, people are buying up the South African coast. The government, land activists and residents look askance at the European invasion of the coastal property market.
Champagne corks popped, fireworks exploded and balloons dropped from the ceiling as this week’s general election was declared free and fair in Pretoria on Saturday and the ANC celebrated a hands-down victory. The party has for first time taken the majority of seats in all nine provincial legislatures.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>There remains uncertainty about which parties will rule KwaZulu-Natal after an inconclusive result from Wednesday’s provincial election — but the Inkatha Freedom Party swept its traditional capital in Ulundi with 93,6%.
The Eastern Cape has some of the poorest districts in the country, according to Statistics South Africa
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As the African National Congress passed the 10-million vote mark on Friday, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said that the turnout for the third democratic elections had been an impressive 76,9%. At present the ANC has 69,6% of the votes counted so far.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>With just over 88,2% of votes captured by early Friday morning, the African National Congress has nearly garnered 70% of the votes. With the preliminary count updated at 3am, the ruling party was heading the national race with 9,39-million of the votes counted, which translates into 69,67% — continuing to make gains on its apparent two-thirds majority.
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Bantu Holomisa’s United Democratic Party and the New National Party, led by Marthinus van Schalkwyk, appeared to be the big losers as the final counting for the 2004 polls drew closer on Thursday night. By 9.30pm on Thursday the UDM stood at 6,96% in its Eastern Cape stronghold, not even half of the 13,6% it got in 1999.
The Independent Democrats, contesting its first election on Wednesday, surpassed the long-established New National Party in early poll counts on Thursday morning. By mid-morning, the ID had garnered 123 292 votes or 2,24% of the votes counted, putting them in fourth place. The NNP was in fifth place with 121 928 votes, or 2,21%.