Runaway fires in KwaZulu-Natal have claimed the lives of two firefighters and caused damage of about R1-billion over the past week, the province said on Wednesday. Agriculture and environmental affairs minister Mtholephi Mthimkhulu said thousands of livestock and extensive patches of grazing land have been destroyed.
The debate surrounding two centres of power at the African National Congress (ANC) policy conference is set to overshadow other issues being debated by members concentrating on organisational reviews. Meanwhile, the South African Communist Party’s Blade Nzimande has reacted to President Thabo Mbeki’s opening address.
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.
After a four-hour battle, Durban firefighters on Monday night brought under control a blaze that had ripped through a 32-storey building in the city centre. Three helicopters — from the police, national Ports Authority and the army — airlifted at least 70 people from the roof of the Seaboard Hotel, which caught fire at about 7pm.
A national warning was issued by the South African Weather Service on Monday morning with regards to a strong cold front affecting the country this week. Already prevalent in the south-western Cape, the cold, windy conditions are expected to sweep across the central interior of the country on Tuesday.
Twelve years ago, Hulamin was valued at R600-million within the Tongaat-Hulett Group, as it was known then. On Monday, the specialised aluminium manufacturer listed as a standalone entity on the JSE with a market capitalisation of more than R8-billion. The listing also signals a new beginning for Tongaat Hulett
The government formally tabled a final public-service wage proposal, including a 7,5% increase, at wage talks on Friday — but unions said they were not yet ready to sign the offer. Unions have 21 days to accept or reject the offer. Until then, the wage talks are suspended.
As in politics, a week can be a long time on the football scene. Last Thursday the Premier Soccer League showcased its success as a brand by signing a multibillion-rand deal with pay-television channel SuperSport. Then the South African Football Association lost the man who had breathed hope into the almost comatose body of the association.
Cases of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) have more than quadrupled in the Western Cape in the past three months, the Cape Times reported on Thursday. Since World TB Day in March, 45 XDR-TB cases have been notified in the province. Eight people have died, according to provincial health department figures.
An identity document that was never delivered, which was later linked to a woman’s suicide, is under investigation, the Department of Home Affairs said on Wednesday. Bongekile Mkhize, a 24-year-old aspiring nurse, left a note in which she said she could no longer live without an ID book.
The government lacks efficient policies for land reform and redistribution, South African Council of Churches (SACC) secretary general Eddie Makue said on Wednesday. As far as he knows, they don’t exist, he said at the opening of a three-day SACC national land-reform conference in Kempton Park.
Desertification is the ”terrible twin evil” of climate change, Deputy Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Rejoice Mabudafhasi said in the Eastern Cape on Wednesday. ”Desertification is a significant problem for South Africa, threatening not only our ecological integrity, but the well-being of our people,” she said.
Abandoned in a bar as a baby and given just weeks to live by doctors seven years later, Tommy Jarvis is living proof Aids is no longer an automatic death sentence for youngsters in South Africa. Tommy, now a strapping 13-year-old who spends his spare time riding his bike and practising karate, makes light of the day that medics gave up on him.
Police will not join the public-service strike until at least Wednesday, under an undertaking by the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union that was made an interim order of the Labour Court on Friday night. Meanwhile, public-service unions will consult their members on the government’s revised salary package.
Amnesty for Zuma? I would like to propose that a resolution be put forward in Parliament, when it assembles again, to allow ANC president Jacob Zuma to apply for legal amnesty in respect of the charges that he faces. Zuma’s legal challenge pales into insignificance when compared with the daunting task he has as ANC […]
Evolution must be taught Your story last week about the teaching of evolution in schools refers. There are only two ways known to us in which new species could have appeared on Earth — either fully formed by miraculous, instant creation or by evolutionary change in older species. Religious groups that accept the first method […]
The Comrades Marathon will go ahead peacefully on Sunday. This is the commitment from Athletics South Africa (ASA) president Leonard Chuene and president of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) Willie Madisha. The two leaders have had discussions around the matter, and they have both agreed that there will be no disruption to the ”ultimate race”.
The Comrades Marathon is still on track despite threats by KwaZulu-Natal members of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) to disrupt the event, Athletics South Africa (ASA) said on Friday. ”I spoke to Cosatu president Willie Madisha on Thursday and there will be no disruptions at,” ASA president Leonard Chuene said.
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 […]
Black economic embarrasment After 10 years of democracy and equality in my African South Africa, it’s almost tragic to note that I have far more opportunities than my white South African counterparts. Affirmative action and black economic empowerment (BEE) are just flashy labels for flat-out discrimination. Since some of us are clearly more equal than […]
Niren Tolsi looks some of the documentary films to be featured at this year’s Durban International Film Festival.
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.
Police have arrested 80 people for Road Accident Fund (RAF) fraud involving R3,7-million. Director Phuti Setati said they were accused of colluding with touts to fabricate information about vehicle accidents in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal in May. ”False claims were allegedly submitted to the RAF for payment of fictitious injuries sustained in accidents that never occurred,” he said.
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 African trade unions have launched one of the biggest national strikes of the post-apartheid era in a move widely seen as spearheading the left’s challenge to win control of the ruling African National Congress ahead of next year’s presidential election. Public-service unions seem determined not to back down on their demands.
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.
South African President Thabo Mbeki is facing mounting threats to his widely perceived plan to retain influence after he stands down as head of state. The presidential succession debate has already plunged the African National Congress (ANC) into some of its worst factional turmoil.