It is a century since Bhambatha kaMancinza, inkosi of the Zondi, ambushed a police patrol at Mpanza north of Greytown in Natal and, with 150 men, headed for the Nkandla forests in Zululand. There, joined by thousands, he defied the colonial government. This was the Bhambatha rebellion or impi yamakhanda, the ”war of the heads”, named after the head or poll tax that sparked it off.
Mangosuthu Buthelezi, head of South Africa’s largest black opposition party, has warned an ethnic war could be started by supporters of former deputy president Jacob Zuma complaining of an anti-Zulu conspiracy. South African President Thabo Mbeki fired Zuma last year after he was implicated in a corruption scandal, but the charges were thrown out of court last month.
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It was still unclear at lunch on Friday whether African National Congress (ANC) deputy president Jacob Zuma and President Thabo Mbeki would both attend the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) meeting on the weekend. The NEC will meet behind closed doors for three days at Esselen Park on Gauteng’s East Rand amid questions about a possible rift between Zuma and Mbeki.
Ten cases of the extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) have been reported in North West, the provincial department of health said on Friday. Spokesperson Lesiba Molala said four people have since died from the disease, while six others were being monitored at the Tshepong hospital complex in Klerksdorp.
Beach soccer spin doctors may credit former Manchester United striker Eric Cantona for helping spread the game around the globe, but the man doing that job in Durban last week during the African leg of the Fifa Beach Soccer World Cup qualifiers was, undoubtedly, Côte d’Ivoire’s Frederic Aka — without any pseudo-philosophical twaddle about seagulls, trawlers and sardines, thankfully.
South Africa has a long way to go in having indigenous languages recognised as a medium of instruction, Minister of Education Naledi Pandor said in Pretoria on Thursday. ”The ministerial committee reported a startling but not surprising finding that the future of African languages as a medium of instruction is bleak if nothing is done immediately,” she said.
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Jacob Zuma was mum on Thursday on whether he would attend the weekend meeting of the national executive committee of the African National Congress (ANC). Speaking from his home in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal, a jovial Zuma said: ”I am not answering that question.” The ANC deputy president said he did not want the media to ”be speculating”.
KwaZulu-Natal provincial minister of transport Bheki Cele on Tuesday applauded the police for the swift arrests of 24 alleged cash-in-transit heist gang members. ”The police had done a tremendous job and I certainly believe that, as the province, we will work tirelessly in decreasing the rate of crime, particularly the accelerating rate of cash-in-transit heists,” said Cele in a statement.
Parts of the Western Cape can expect heavy rain and snow on Monday, Weather SA warned on Monday. ”Heavy falls of rain are possible in the Overberg, Breede River Valley, Ruens, Garden Route and the Little Karoo,” said Weather SA. ”Very cold, wet and windy conditions are expected on the high-ground areas of the Western Cape province and western parts of the Northern Cape province.”
President Thabo Mbeki and India’s Prime Minister Mohandir Singh are to meet on Sunday and jointly attend functions in and around Durban to mark the centenary of Mahatma Gandhi’s Satyagraha strategy of passive resistance against racism and injustice. Singh will meet with Mbeki and other dignitaries at Resistance Park, in Umbilo, for a plaque unveiling and walkabout.
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/ 29 September 2006
South Africa’s poorest municipality, the OR Tambo District Municipality in Transkei, could find itself lagging as much as 10 years behind the national target dates for water and sanitation, President Thabo Mbeki heard on Friday. This was the warning in a report handed to him during a day-long visit to the Mbizana area.
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/ 28 September 2006
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A statement issued by Jacob Zuma on Thursday saw him ”apologise unreservedly for the pain and anger” his recent statements about gays and lesbians may have caused. But some in the gay community feel that his was a ”false apology”. ”It’s one of those spin pieces designed to smooth ruffled feathers,” Donna Smith, CEO of the Forum for the Empowerment of Women, said.
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/ 27 September 2006
KwaZulu-Natal’s chief health officer on Tuesday rejected media reports that deaths related to multi-drug resistant (MDR) tuberculosis (TB) had risen sharply. Dr Sibongile Zundu said the 182 people who had died from MDR tuberculosis was the total number of deaths since January 2005 up until September 19 this year.
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/ 27 September 2006
New cases of tuberculosis found in South Africa have raised fears there could be multiple versions of a highly drug resistant strain that has killed 62 people and threatens to spread across a region ravaged by HIV/Aids. An easily-transferred airborne respiratory disease, tuberculosis is the main direct cause of death for people with HIV/Aids in South Africa.
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/ 22 September 2006
Extreme drug resistant tuberculosis is a challenge that needs a collective regional approach, Southern African Development Community (SADC) health ministers said on Friday. At a meeting held in Maputo, Mozambique, the ministers agreed that the free movement of people between SADC countries could compound the spread of the disease in the region.
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/ 22 September 2006
The National Democratic Convention’s (Nadeco) future will be on the line when it holds its national congress on Saturday, with some KwaZulu-Natal political analysts predicting its two factions will split. Independent analyst Protas Madladla said on Friday: ”I can’t see the rift being healed.” He said he expected the two factions within the party to drift ”further” apart.
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/ 22 September 2006
In a bid to consolidate political and economic relations between South Africa and India, President Thabo Mbeki will be hosting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from Saturday, the Department of Foreign Affairs said. ”South Africa and India share a strategic partnership in developing the agenda of the south,” spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said in a statement.
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/ 22 September 2006
The status of the commercial wing, the financial recovery plan and the position of chief executive Raymond Hack are expected to dominate the South African Football Association’s (Safa) 14th annual general meeting, which starts in Johannesburg on Friday. Early this year Safa announced that it intends to establish a separate company to run and administer the affairs of all the national teams.
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/ 21 September 2006
Most South Africans seemed to have an opinion after former deputy President Jacob Zuma’s corruption court case was struck from the roll on Wednesday morning. Here are a selection of quotes from newspapers, including the <i>Star</i>, the <i>Citizen</i>, the <i>Daily Sun</i>, the <i>Sowetan</i>.
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/ 20 September 2006
<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=zuma_report"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/243078/zuma.jpg" align=left border=0></a>African National Congress deputy president Jacob Zuma on Wednesday accused the media of sentencing him even before a judge had decided on the corruption charge he faced. "The media asked: ‘What is Zuma hiding?’," Zuma told thousands of people outside the Pietermaritzburg High Court after his and co-accused Thint’s case was struck from the roll.
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/ 20 September 2006
<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=zuma_report"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/243078/zuma.jpg" align=left border=0></a>Former deputy president Jacob Zuma’s corruption case was struck off the roll by the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Wednesday, boosting the popular politician’s bid to succeed President Thabo Mbeki. Judge Herbert Msimang also dismissed the state’s application for a postponement of the case.
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/ 20 September 2006
Only the position of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) president is to be contested in its leadership election, the union federation’s congress in Midrand heard on Wednesday. Willie Madisha, who presently holds that office, will be pitted against Zanoxolo Wayile, Cosatu’s Eastern Cape chairperson and a National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa member.
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/ 18 September 2006
The T-shirt tells the story of the South African clothing industry and the struggle to maintain local production against the wave of cheap imports from China. T-shirts rose from 1% to 7% of total textile and clothing imports from China between 1995 and last year, according to Quantec data.
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/ 18 September 2006
There were 18 in Africa 35 years ago. There are 34 now — which begs the question: are policies to thin the ranks of the almost three dozen least developed countries (LDCs) on the continent even somewhat effective? To date, only one African state has managed to leave behind its LDC status: diamond-rich Botswana, in 1994.
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/ 18 September 2006
Local craft production — piggybacking on a national agenda obsessed with tourism and identified as a potential poverty alleviation sector — has increased in recent years. As has consumption. From the pavements of Durban to Stockholm markets, Niren Tolsi traces the various lives (and prices) of a piece of beaded jewellery.
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/ 17 September 2006
South Africa’s government long ignored warnings about drug-resistant tuberculosis, putting millions of HIV-positive people at risk now that a dangerous new strain of TB has emerged, Aids activists say. South African officials have scrambled to react to news this month that extremely drug resistant tuberculosis, or XDR-TB, has killed at least 60 people in KwaZulu-Natal and is likely spreading.
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/ 16 September 2006
There is a tendency in South Africa to think that the future is dependent on what happens in the political domain. We debate the prospects of long-term political stability and economic growth as a question of the future of the tripartite alliance, economic policy and globalisation. This is all very important. Yet it draws attention away from an area of South African society that may be equally important.
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/ 14 September 2006
Gauteng province is not geared up to treat a killer tuberculosis (TB) strain for which patients have to be isolated, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Thursday. ”About 41 000 patients are currently being treated for TB in Gauteng, but the number of TB beds has dropped in the last year from 1 495 to only 820 beds,” spokesperson Jack Bloom said.
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/ 14 September 2006
The Johannesburg woman diagnosed with extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) has agreed to hospital treatment, the Gauteng health department said on Thursday. ”We are busy conducting more tests to establish what drugs she could respond to,” said spokesperson Zanele Zungu.
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/ 13 September 2006
South African health authorities went on high alert on Wednesday after officials confirmed a case of a new, deadly strain of tuberculosis (TB) in Johannesburg, the country’s economic hub. Officials said the case, a woman, had refused to stay in hospital — stoking fears the TB strain could spread rapidly through communities already weakened by HIV/Aids.
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/ 12 September 2006
Cracks in the ranks of the 22 in the dock in the Boeremag treason trial became obvious this week when most of them failed to support an application by two of their number for the recusal of Judge Eben Jordaan. On Tuesday counsel for brothers Wilhelm and Johan Pretorius asked Jordaan to withdraw because of his clients’ ”reasonable apprehension” that the judge was biased.
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/ 12 September 2006
South Africa’s Department of Health has promised to start distribution as early as next week of a drug to help fight an extremely virulent strain of tuberculosis (TB) that has killed 52 people in the country. However, the government warned on Tuesday there was no guarantee the drug will save lives as it may prove ineffective against the new superbug.