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/ 12 September 2006
The Correctional Services department’s efforts to establish the prevalence of HIV/Aids in prisons is being hamstrung by a lack of co-operation from staff and inmates alike, it emerged on Tuesday. The department’s survey was launched last year with a pilot project in Gauteng, and was completed on May 24 this year.
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/ 11 September 2006
A high-speed train linking Johannesburg and Durban in under three hours has been ”agreed in principle” and was just waiting for approval, KwaZulu-Natal’s provincial transport head Dr Kwazi Mbanjwa said on Monday. Speaking at the South African Road Federation Conference being held in Durban, Mbanjwa said the high-speed train was one of the projects being discussed as part of the National Rail Plan.
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/ 11 September 2006
Extreme drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) has become endemic in KwaZulu-Natal, media reports said on Monday. Dr Tony Moll, principal medical officer at the Church of Scotland hospital in Tugela Ferry, said doctors in his area had been identifying new XDR-TB patients every month since January last year.
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/ 11 September 2006
Last year, the Times Higher Education Supplement produced a comparative report on the world’s top 200 universities. Not a single African university featured on the list. Only four African universities featured in the academy ranking of the Top 500 World Universities for 2005.
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/ 9 September 2006
Three HIV-positive prisoners are known to have died in Durban’s Westville Prison since the Department of Correctional Services was challenged in the courts over its antiretroviral treatment programme, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) said on Friday.
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/ 8 September 2006
The Department of Correctional Services filed an affidavit in the Durban High Court on Friday, detailing how it plans to speed up providing anti-retroviral treatment at Durban’s Westville prison. The department was criticised in August 31 Judge Chris Nicholson, who said the government’s failure to abide by court orders posed a ”grave constitutional crisis”.
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/ 8 September 2006
The recent verbal attacks on President Thabo Mbeki by supporters of former deputy president Jacob Zuma are despicable, says Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi. ”In my book, such behaviour is neither consonant with our African tradition, nor concordant with the culture of respect and deference to our leaders and institutions which one associates with the Zulu nation.
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/ 8 September 2006
Whether through employment or education, transformation and affirmative action strategies have become part of daily life in South Africa, and recent media attention on the admissions policies of the University of Cape Town (UCT) has raised some important questions.
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/ 7 September 2006
The extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis in KwaZulu-Natal must be dealt with urgently, international health experts said in Johannesburg on Thursday. ”There is no time to wait before we embark on decisive action,” said the World Health Organisation’s Dr Ernesto Jaramillo.
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/ 7 September 2006
A particularly drug-resistant tuberculosis discovered in eastern South Africa is likely to have spread beyond the rural area where 52 of the 53 people first diagnosed with the new strain have died, the doctor who discovered the super bug said.
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/ 6 September 2006
The east coast of South Africa is experiencing a severe blood shortage, the South African National Blood Service (SANBS) said on Wednesday. Blood stocks in the region, which includes KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, are ”way down”, especially of type O blood, said SANBS spokesperson Ianthe Exall.
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/ 6 September 2006
The 21 000 civil servants caught fraudulently claiming social grants should all be prosecuted, face disciplinary hearings and be made to pay back the money, two rights monitoring groups said on Wednesday. ”It is vital that justice in these cases be seen to be done,” the Grahamstown offices of the Black Sash and the Public Service Accountability Monitor said in a joint statement.
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/ 6 September 2006
Labour regulations and official red tape tops a list of key constraints hampering South Africa’s economic growth, a Bureau for Economic Research survey showed on Wednesday. Other constraints identified are state leadership and capacity (policy support and municipal services), infrastructure deficiencies and costs and labour skills.
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/ 5 September 2006
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The state on Tuesday invited Jacob Zuma’s legal team to submit evidence taken in controversial search-and-seizure raids to be adjudicated by the Pietermaritzburg High Court, saying this would speed up the corruption trial. The state said on the status of the various search-and-seizure raids were the main reason for the need for a postponement.
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/ 5 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>It was not clear why the state wanted to have Jacob Zuma’s trial postponed, African National Congress KwaZulu-Natal deputy chairperson Zweli Mkhize told Zuma’s supporters outside the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Tuesday. Mkhize said there had been argument between Judge Herbert Msimang and state prosecutor Wim Trengove.
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/ 5 September 2006
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The corruption trial of former deputy president Jacob Zuma and two co-accused French companies began in the Pietermaritzburg High Court shortly after 10am on Tuesday. Zuma sat in the dock wearing a dark suit. He smiled and put his hands together in greeting to his supporters.
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/ 5 September 2006
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A few hundred supporters of Jacob Zuma marched up and down Pietermaritzburg’s Church Street on Tuesday ahead of the former deputy president’s court appearance. ”Fight conspiracy and demand justice,” read one of the banners the protesters carried.
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/ 4 September 2006
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The African National Congress is not investigating claims by Jacob Zuma that there is a conspiracy against him, the ANC said on Monday. Speaking at a press conference to brief the media on a planned vigil to be held outside the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Monday night, KwaZulu-Natal ANC secretary general Senzo Mchunu said he was not ”aware” of any investigation.
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/ 4 September 2006
More children are attending and finishing school but more are vulnerable due to poverty and the death of at least one parent, said an Education Department report released on Monday. The report found that the demand for high school and higher education institutions would probably grow strongly while demand for primary schools would grow more slowly.
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/ 3 September 2006
Africa is facing the prospect of a sharp increase in new and fatal strains of tuberculosis (TB) as drug-resistant forms of the disease find those living with HIV easy victims, according to medical experts. Specialists in communicable diseases will gather in Johannesburg this week for a conference on the topic.
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/ 1 September 2006
A new, deadly strain of tuberculosis (TB) has killed 52 of 53 people infected in the last year in South Africa, the World Health Organisation said on Friday, calling for improved measures to treat and diagnose the bacteria. The strain was discovered in KwaZulu-Natal, and is classified as extremely drug-resistant.
South Africa’s dams are 92% full, according to the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry’s records. The department reports on its website that the dams were only 65% full this time last year. This week, dam levels in the provinces ranged from overflowing in the Northern Cape to 72% full in Limpopo.
Kevin Pietersen says heartbreaking racial quotas forced him into making the biggest decision of his life, to quit his native South Africa and move to England. The batsman said his starring role in last summer’s Ashes’ triumph only happened when racial discrimination resulted in him being left out of the KwaZulu-Natal side because of the colour of his skin.
The tobacco industry is ”on top of things” when it comes to the government’s proposed tougher anti-smoking legislation, according to the Democratic Alliance’s former health spokesperson, Dianne Kohler-Barnard. She also said she will ”fight to the death” for smokers’ rights. She made these statements last month in a series of e-mails.
South African hotel and gaming group Sun International on Monday reported adjusted headline earnings per share (HEPS) of 546c for the year ended June — up 33% from the previous year’s 411c. Its full year diluted HEPS declined to 431c from 500 cents before.
South Africa could face ”a grave constitutional crisis” that could leave judges considering whether they should ”continue on the bench”, the Durban High Court said on Monday. Judge Chris Nicholson was referring to a government statement that it would not to comply with a court order to expedite anti-retroviral treatment at Durban’s Westville prison.
Eastern Cape Police have questioned eight people after discovering an investment scam in Grahamstown which used Oprah Winfrey’s name to target hundreds of people. Captain Mali Govender said on Friday people were told: ”You pay R10 and [US talk-show queen] Oprah Winfrey is going to pay you R1 200 a month for 10 years”.
Members of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) staged protests outside government offices around the country on Thursday. The illegal protest was part of a ”global day of action” to pressure the government on its response to HIV/Aids. However, the Department of Health said it will continue to focus on prevention in its fight against HIV/Aids.
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Reaction to Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s calls for Jacob Zuma to abandon his presidential ambitions was muted on Thursday. By Thursday afternoon, Zuma himself had not responded to Tutu’s comments made while delivering the Harold Wolpe Memorial Lecture in Cape Town on Wednesday.
The National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi on Thursday labelled calls for his resignation as an ”elaborate plan” to discredit him and the NPA. The Congress of South African Trade Unions in KwaZulu-Natal claims Nkosi lied when he said the NPA would be ready to proceed with its case against Jacob Zuma.
The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) had decided to deliberately stage illegal protests because it was tired of the government’s failure to act on HIV/Aids, it said on Thursday. ”We deliberately did not apply for permission to protest and we don’t apologise for that because we are tired of government’s inactivity in the face of the Aids pandemic,” said the TAC’s general secretary Sipho Mthathi.
In the big clash of the day Western Province on Wednesday upset defending champions Southern Gauteng by a solitary goal on the third day of the Spar Interprovincial Women’s Hockey tournament being played at the Randburg AstroTurf in Johannesburg.