Changes to the controversial Community Reinvestment Bill are on the cards, but they hinge on the outcome of negotiations on the financial sector charter at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac).
Nanotechnology. It may sound like something out of <i>Star Trek</i>, but for researchers and postgraduate students from the Inorganic Porous Media Group (IPMG) at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) it is an integral part of designing cheap, green and renewable energy.
Five of the country’s largest political parties face litigation to compel them to reveal their sources of private funding.
Battle lines between the ruling African National Congress and issue-driven groups critical of the government’s performance on service delivery were starkly drawn this week, with the laden symbolism of the country’s first decade of freedom looming in April next year.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=19094">ANC ups ‘ultra-left’ rhetoric</a>
Minister of Minerals and Energy Mlambo-Ngcuka has called on successful black professionals to create footholds and meaningful benefits for others through broad-based black economic empowerment deals and relationships.
The harlequin sprite, a dragonfly long thought to be extinct throughout its home areas in KwaZulu-Natal, was rediscovered recently when a Working for Water team was clearing the Pilgrim’s Rest area in Mpumalanga of invasive alien plant species.
Parliamentarians were put on the defensive at public hearings on the Anti-Terrorism Bill this week, as the proposed law was slammed by legal associations, media interest groups, churches, human rights and civil society organisations.
The New National Party lost the Stellenbosch by-election in the coloured working-class community of Cloetesville to the African National Congress this week, despite a hard campaign.
Former apartheid-era National Intelligence Service (NIS) boss Mike Louw is one of three former intelligence operatives who will advise Minister of Intelligence Lindiwe Sisulu on conditions of employment in the intelligence community, including possible restraint of trade agreements.
The government must, at least, extend the childcare grant to children up to 18 years of age and make it available to child-headed households. "The worse off you are, the less likely you are actually to receive grants," says a senior researcher about proposals for a comprehensive social security system.
Marianne Merten spoke to ANC chief whip Nkosinathi Nhleko about making Parliament relevant, the party’s ability to exercise oversight and the travails of stepping into Yengeni’s shoes.
Amid sexual harassment civil court proceedings brought against two ex-New National Party Western Cape premiers by a former colleague, the party could also be in a pickle over one of its parliamentary seats.
South Africa has emerged as the world’s fastest-growing tourism destination, with 6,4-million tourists visiting last year. This is an increase of 11,1% from the previous year, according to the Ministry of Environmental Affairs and Tourism.
About 3% of the South African workforce – or about 500 000 people – could have full-blown Aids by 2010, Department of Labour guidelines on HIV/Aids have forecast.
Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota’s failure to disclose his fuel and wine businesses to Parliament, as required by law, is expected to be on the agenda of the African National Congress’s national executive committee meeting this weekend.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=14586">Lekota eats humble pie</a><br>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=14579">ANC welcomes fast action on Lekota</a><br>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=14580">Lekota out of pocket by just R11 485</a><br>
From his office window Cape Town, city manager Wallace Mgoqi sees the garage, a former parking lot, where he worked as a youth. And he still recalls the names of places like the White House Hotel in Cape Town where he worked as a "scullery boy".
Former Truth and Reconciliation commissioner Dumisa Ntsebeza has sharply criticised the government’s condemnation of overseas lawsuits against multinational corporations that benefited from apartheid, maintaining there is "nothing illegitimate" about the lawsuits.
British Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Secretary Jack Straw was out wooing South Africa this week, promising better deals that could be on the table for the African continent in the G8 summit next month.
The Democratic Alliance has retained its ward in Grassy Park on the Cape Flats in a heavily contested by-election, setting the scene for a battle between the DA and African National Congress.
With the rand seemingly determined to break through the R7 to the dollar limit, some South Africans may smile at the prospect of overseas travel again becoming affordable. Three economists give their perspectives on the fall and rise of the rand.
Few South Africans know they can complain about bad service from public servants, few of those who know do complain, and those who do complain are often dissatisfied with the response.
Swellendam, the picturesque town deep in the Overberg, is a harbinger of things to come in the Western Cape during next year’s election. It is there, against the backdrop of the Langeberg mountains, that the consequences of defections are stark and that a suprising political shift is revealing itself.
Many municipalities are struggling to adjust to the new "developmental local government" approach to delivery of basic services and to socio-economic growth, says a report by the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE).
Senior members of the Pan Africanist Congress recently advised their president, Stanley Mogoba, to dump Patricia de Lille as an MP because they claimed to know of her plans to leave the party and venture out on her own.
The New National Party is crumbling from the top after nine senior MPs defected this week to rejoin the party’s erstwhile partner, the Democratic Alliance.
The government has established a database of corrupt businesses that departments are banned from using, while a plan for the blacklisting of corrupt employees from the public service has been approved.
The government can improve small businesses’ success by providing training in the specific entrepreneurial skills they need rather than training in general skills or technical management, according to research by the University of the Western Cape (UWC).
Eleventh-hour legal steps by Winnie Madikizela-Mandela have staved off a planned public reprimand in the National Assembly for her failure to disclose regular, substantial donations in the Members’ Register of Interests. This follows Madikizela-Mandela’s appeal against last year’s guilty verdict by Parliament’s ethics committee.
Gender inequalities are substantially less in the Western Cape than elsewhere in the country, the province’s budget revealed. The budget stated that there are no significant differences between woman-headed households and others, and the unemployment rate of women is no higher than that for men.
Parliament heard in the second week of March that 70% of people living in Ceres, one of South Africa’s agricultural powerhouses, experience hunger. A survey of 540 households in the poor communities of Ceres showed that hunger increased in winter months when jobs outside the peak seasonal harvest times became scarce.
The government’s decision to publish important information in all 11 official languages and less crucial documents in at least six will cost it R39,3-million, according to the Budget
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/ 24 February 2003
Funding, personnel and other resources have yet to be finalised for the new police division earmarked to take over the crime prevention tasks of rural commandos, and no date has been set for the division to become fully operational