Johannesburg metro police fired rubber bullets at Soweto hostel dwellers protesting on Saturday against a lack of service delivery. Protesting residents of the Dobsonville and Nancefield hostels took to the streets at 4.30am on Saturday along with Jabavu hostel dwellers, blockading roads with stones.
Free State scored a hard-fought 18-3 win over the Pumas virtually to confirm their place in Saturday’s main match at the 44th annual Coca-Cola Craven Week at Paul Roos Gymnasium. Their likely opponents will be hosts Western Province, who won against the Lions on Wednesday.
In the third such accident this week, four people were injured when a train hit a car at a crossing in Welkom in the Free State, emergency services said on Thursday. Three adults and a young child were travelling between Welkom and Odendaalsrus at about 8.15pm on Wednesday when their car was hit by a train carrying mined rock.
Thabo Mbeki says he is prepared to serve another term as ANC president if the ”leadership” asks him to stick around. But, in the face of strong opposition within his party, why is the president so determined to take it to the wire? A generous interpretation of the ANC policy conference, at least on the leadership issue, was that it registered a draw: half of the ANC wants Mbeki to continue as party president and the other half doesn’t.
The Free State Cheetahs moved clear at the top of the Absa Currie Cup standings when they outclassed Griquas 51-10 in Bloemfontein on Saturday. After holding a narrow 14-7 (two tries to one) lead at halftime, the Cheetahs simply moved up a gear after the break and scored another five tries for their third success full-house of log points.
Boeremag accused Jurie Vermeulen poses a danger to society and it is not in the interests of justice to release him on bail, a Pretoria High Court judge ruled on Thursday. Vermeulen (39) submitted that his five-year-old son needs him and is likely to suffer a permanent personality disorder if he does not get to know his father.
Twice as many children were abandoned in the past year compared to the year before, the Johannesburg Child Welfare centre said. Thousands of children a year are being abandoned, with the number reaching at least 1 200 in three provinces alone, media reports said on Tuesday.
Education Minister Naledi Pandor and leaders of teachers’ unions will meet on Tuesday to discuss an education recovery plan designed to help pupils catch up on the 10 days of schooling missed during the recent public-sector strike. Also expected to be discussed is a review of the results of the interrupted June examinations.
A decision on winter schools in KwaZulu-Natal is expected on Monday when various stakeholders will meet to discuss it, the provincial department of education said on Saturday. Similar plans are afoot in North West and the Western Cape to recover from the effects of the lengthy public-service strike.
The Free State Cheetahs had few problems beating the Valke by 45-11 at the Bosman Stadium in Brakpan on Friday night. The visitors patiently waited for the home side to make mistakes, on which they then pounced. Most of the visitors’ six tries were against the run of play, with the Valke failing to protect their own ball.
African National Congress (ANC) delegates attending the party’s policy conference in Midrand agreed there is still a need for the tripartite alliance, national executive committee member Joel Netshitenzhe said on Thursday. The alliance should be made up of the social movement, trade-union movement and the revolution movement.
There were varying responses on Thursday from delegates who had attended African National Congress (ANC) policy conference ”commissions” to discuss the strategy and tactics document at Gallagher Estate in Midrand. A delegate from KwaZulu-Natal said there were different views from most of the delegates at the commission he attended.
”Very cold” conditions were expected to persist over some parts of the country, the South African Weather Service warned on Thursday. The Eastern Cape, eastern Free State, Lesotho, western KwaZulu-Natal and Highveld areas of Gauteng and Mpumalanga would be affected, according to the service’s website.
Freezing weather and snowfalls in parts of South Africa have seen the death of a homeless man in Johannesburg, the delay of airline flights and the closure of mountain passes. Snowfalls left more than 300 bus passengers and 20 truck drivers trapped between Harding and Kokstad in KwaZulu-Natal.
Johannesburg’s first real snowfall in more than 20 years and the freezing temperatures that accompanied it claimed at least one life on Wednesday morning. Motorists were warned to avoid all passes in the Eastern Cape on Wednesday due to snowfalls, the South African Weather Service said.
President Thabo Mbeki is to deliver the opening address at the African National Congress’s policy conference in a bitterly cold Midrand, Gauteng, where delegates started arriving on Wednesday morning. The conference takes place against intense behind-the-scenes jockeying over the leadership of the party, and coincides with a bitter public-service strike.
Many residents of Gauteng woke up on Wednesday morning to a layer of snow turning lawns, rooftops and cars white, while the South African Weather Service predicted a freezing day with temperatures staying below eight degrees Celsius in Johannesburg. A number of roads in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal were closed to motorists due to snow on Wednesday morning.
The African National Congress’s (ANC) policy conference, which will play a key role in deciding whether President Thabo Mbeki leads the party for a third term, gets under way in Midrand on Wednesday. About 1 500 delegates are expected at the four-day meeting at Gallagher Estate.
Severe cold and more snow is to hit large parts of the country later on Tuesday and Wednesday, the South African Weather Service has warned. It said temperatures will drop as low as minus nine degrees Celsius in places such as Sutherland in the Northern Cape. The town was blanketed in snow on Monday.
Severe cold is to hit large parts of the country later on Tuesday and Wednesday, the South African Weather Service has warned. It said temperatures would drop as low as minus nine degrees Celsius in places such as Sutherland in the Northern Cape. The town was blanketed in snow on Monday.
All permits are in order at the Heilbron game farm in the Free State where a Bengal tiger attacked a child and her father over the weekend, environmental officials said on Monday. ”There is no problem with the camps, fences or permits,” said Werner Boing, spokesperson on biodiversity compliance at the local department of environmental affairs.
Jannie du Plessis says he is delighted to be included in the Springbok touring party of 28 players for the away fixtures of the Tri-Nations series against the All Blacks and Wallabies. Jake White has opted to rest his big guns for the tour to Australasia, saying it would be ”a ludicrous risk” to take all his players on tour in this World Cup year.
Two game farmers with tape measures in hand say Free State authorities break their own rules for housing confiscated wildlife, including lions, a media report said on Friday. Free State department of environmental affairs spokesperson Kgotso Tau said: ”Individuals should stop kicking up dust and dramatising.”
Bulls captain Victor Matfield, playing in his 58th Test, has been named to lead the Springboks in their Tri-Nations Test against the All Blacks at the Absa Stadium in Durban on Saturday. Significantly, the man widely tipped to take over from the injured John Smit, Bobby Skinstad, has not been included in Jake White’s 22-man squad.
Mbeki’s PR blunders President Thabo Mbeki finds himself in a whirlpool of controversy because of how he manages communications, especially media relations. He has been criticised for providing a self-serving view that stifles the public’s right to access to government information, discourages public debate, assaults those who have the audacity to criticise his views and […]
Deaths in South Africa are on the increase, with 590Â 000 in 2005 — 3,3% up on the previous year, according to Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) figures on mortality and causes of death. ”The overall number of deaths shows a continuous increase from 1997 to 2005,” Stats SA said in a statement on Thursday.
A toddler suffering from a lung infection died after nurses at a Bloemfontein hospital told his mother to take him home as they were preparing for a strike, Die Volksblad reported on Thursday. After spending the whole of last week by her son’s bedside, Joyce Ditsoane boarded a taxi for a 45km ride home when nurses told her there would be no one to take care of the boy on Wednesday.
South Africa’s civil-service strike broadened on Wednesday as other union workers walked out, piling more pressure on the government in a dispute stoking political tensions in Africa’s largest economy. Union leaders have vowed to shut the country down in sympathy with civil servants, whose two-week-old strike has already caused chaos in hospitals, schools and public offices.
Only four South African higher education institutions are led by whites. They are Professor Calie Pistorius (University of Pretoria), Professor Frederick Fourie (University of the Free State), Dr Theuns Eloff (North-West University) and Dr Rolf Stumpf (Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University).
Threats to dismiss striking health workers could only provoke workers’ anger and undermine current ”sensitive” negotiations, the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) said. ”Dismissing workers would not work towards addressing the current public-service crisis. [The] root-cause of which is total disregard of workers demands by government,” the union said in a statement.
Gareth Cliff, radio presenter on 5fm, is seeking legal opinion after he was suspended from broadcasting for two days, his agent said on Thursday. ”He is seeking legal opinion from his lawyer for his two day removal from the station … and also the matter must still go to the BCCSA [Broadcasting Complaints Commission] …,” said his agent, Rina Bloomberg.
Four years ago the National Association of Conservancies of South Africa (Nacsa) did not exist. Now it operates in seven provinces, with 750 conservancies, protecting about 30-million hectares of land. "That is five times more than SANParks and the provinces control, and we do it on no budget at all," says Nacsa chairperson Anthony Duigan.