The wife of Malan Moyo, one of the South Africans among the 70 suspected mercenaries being detained in Zimbabwe, died in Phalaborwa on Wednesday, a KwaZulu-Natal radio station reported on Friday. Moyo’s daughter said that they have been battling to get word of her mother’s death to her father.
The installation of ”intelligent road studs”, along a notorious stretch of road in KwaZulu-Natal, has seen accidents drop so dramatically that the province’s transport department has just had them installed on another stretch of highway. The studs have seen fatalities drop from 27 in the seven months prior to the start of installation in October 2002, to one.
The South African Police Service will launch a crime prevention programme in the 63 areas of South Africa identified as experiencing the most contact crimes, Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula said on Tuesday. Nqakula also touched on the Firearms Control Act that comes into effect on Thursday.
<i>Iphepha elisematheni lesiZulu, Isolezwe, seliyatholakala kwi-Internet</i>. Yes, <i>Isolezwe (Eye of the Nation)</i>, the KwaZulu-Natal-based, Zulu-language daily newspaper, is now available on the web. This makes the site the first Zulu news website. This is a bold step for the cheeky, two-year-old, ground-breaking newspaper, founded by well-known journalist Cyril Madlala.
Inkatha Freedom Party president Mangosuthu Buthelezi said that the IFP has been called upon by history to become the voice of the African National Congress’s bad conscience. Buthelezi said the ANC could not control itself, or hold itself accountable.
Two government officials who allegedly defrauded an estate of a deceased person were arrested on Tuesday by the Directorate of Special Operations (Scorpions) and the Special Investigations Unit, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said. The arrests took place in Mtubatuba and Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal.
It was not much bigger than the four-wheel drives gathered in the dust to watch, but a small, oddly shaped white machine made history on Monday when it soared through the Californian sky to become the world’s first commercial craft in space. Piloted by South African-born Mike Melvill, the tiny rocket-cum-glider fired its way into the aerospace record books, reaching 10 times the height of a commercial jet’s cruising altitude on its one-hour, 28-minute maiden flight
Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) leader Mangosutho Buthelezi maintained on Friday that irregularities in the last general election "may have robbed the IFP of victory in KwaZulu-Natal". The party withdrew its case in the Electoral Court because it would be difficult to prove, not because it retracted its claims of widespread irregularities, Buthelezi told a rally in Durban.
Eric Khumalo first opened a bank account when he got a job as a field assistant at the Hluhluwe Umfolozi Park in KwaZulu-Natal. Khumalo goes to the bank once a month, withdraws his entire salary, and returns to the park with his spending money. He is the type of low-risk client that banks are seeking to exempt from the stringent identification requirements of the Financial Intelligence Centre Act.
More than 300 people gathered at the Hector Peterson memorial on Wednesday for a wreath laying ceremony as part of Youth Day commemorations. Peterson, then aged 13, was shot dead by police in the June 16, 1976, schoolchildren’s uprising. He was the first victim of that event.
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.
About 5 000 people have been left homeless after more than 200 shacks burned down at the Slovo informal settlement in KwaMbonambi on KwaZulu-Natal’s north coast, police said on Monday. Umfolozi police spokesperson Superintendent Jay Naicker said it was believed that a candle left unattended in one of the shacks caused the fire, which quickly spread through the settlement on Sunday night.
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.
Drug dealers are now targeting KwaZulu-Natal primary school children, a Durban police spokesperson said on Thursday. He said the mainly Nigerian drug lords recruit runners to infiltrate the schools. ”It’s not only in Durban but in the whole of the province. There isn’t a school they do not target.”
The Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria says it will not withdraw funding granted to South Africa. This follows reported comments last week by fund executive director Richard Feacham that the funds, which have been available since 2002, are being held up and that the money will be withdrawn from the government.
South African food and industrial group AVI has reached an agreement to acquire Denny Mushrooms for R197,5-million rand, less all interest-bearing debt as at the effective date. Denny is a producer of fresh, canned and value-added mushroom products in South Africa, with a market share exceeding 50%.
A 16-year-old KwaZulu-Natal schoolboy has died after allegedly being beaten by his principal, police said on Tuesday. Mthokozisi Zuma, a grade 10 pupil at Phezulu High School in Hammarsdale, was beaten with a stick, allegedly by his principal as
punishment for coming late to school. The boy was taken to a nearby clinic where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
The Health Department would not be suspending anti-retroviral programmes for children as had been reported in the media, a spokesperson said on Tuesday. However, it had warned participating hospitals to make sure they had enough supplies of the medication before enrolling new patients, spokesperson Sibani Mngadi said.
More than 1Â 000 pharmacists and University of KwaZulu-Natal pharmacy students, chanting ”save our profession” and waving placards, gathered outside Durban City Hall on Thursday. The protesters said they were protesting against the ramifications of the government’s new medicine pricing laws and dispensing licences.
Black economic empowerment, poverty, education, HIV/Aids, tourism and the Soccer World Cup in 2010 were some of the issues KwaZulu-Natal Premier S’bu Ndebele touched on in his ”state of the province” address in Pietermaritzburg on Tuesday. He plans to pay particular attention to broad-based economic empowerment.
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has vigorously rejected a claim that her department is delaying distribution of donor money to fight Aids. Richard Feacham, director of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria, made the claim this week, saying his organisation might look at other distribution mechanisms than the central government.
Inmates at Pretoria’s prison were detained under ”atrocious conditions”, according to a report by two advocates handed to the city’s High Court on Monday. Judge Essop Patel earlier this year requested the Pretoria Bar Council to appoint advocates to investigate complaints by five prisoners, who approached the court for help, saying that they were incarcerated under inhuman conditions that violated their human rights.
Police on Monday dispersed more than 800 protesters and 150 taxis that blocked Durban’s Mangosuthu Highway on Monday morning, police said. The blockade caused chaos as commuters could not use the M4 to and from Umlazi and Durban International airport early on Monday morning.
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.
KwaZulu-Natal’s provincial traffic authorities will take a new look at school transport safety following a truck accident near Umlazi on Tuesday that left 83 children injured. A programme looking at all safety aspects regarding pupils and children and ways to regulate it will be launched shortly in the province.
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.
South African sugar producer Illovo Sugar announced on Monday that it has entered into an agreement to sell its interests in the Gledhow sugar mill and refinery and the associated cane-growing estates to broad-based black economic empowerment company Grand Bridge for R335-million.
Institutionalised, representative democracy in our country is in trouble. This is not because the African National Congress’s sizeable electoral victory supposedly heralds the imminent arrival of a one-party state. It is simply because, only a decade after the introduction of a universal electoral franchise in South Africa, just more than 50% of all eligible voters participated in the formal process of representative democracy.
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.
Inkatha Freedom Party national chairperson Lionel Mtshali denied on Wednesday having ”begged” for a post in the KwaZulu-Natal provincial cabinet. Mtshali denied what he called ”malicious” newspaper reports that he had asked Premier S’bu Ndebele for a post in his African National Congress-led provincial government.
In KwaZulu-Natal, where politics is conducted in hush-hush tones, locals –particularly the old and the uneducated — have invented a street language that says more about politics than do any number of pundits. The language they have invented is the language that tells of their struggles for survival. Thabo Mbeki is referred to as ”the man who gives us grants [ubaba weqolo]”.