Police opened fire with rubber bullets on protesters against municipal boundary changes who had broken away from a dispersing crowd at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on Friday. Earlier, about five or six small groups, from a few hundred protesters, set patches of the Union Buildings’ lawns alight.
Protesters were shot at with rubber bullets and arrested at South Africa’s Matsamo border with Swaziland on Wednesday in demonstrations against the kingdom’s leadership, Mpumalanga police said. Initially the marchers were peaceful but then they started to blockade the roads, said Superintendent Mtsholi Bhembe. Police told them their march certificate only entitled them to picket and they cleared the road.
Three of South Africa’s five border posts with Swaziland were completely blocked to traffic in organised protests against the kingdom’s leadership, the Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN) said on Wednesday. Members of the SSN, the Congress of SA Trade Unions the South African Communist Party and the Young Communist League were gathering at South Africa’s border posts with the kingdom to protest the curtailing of political freedoms.
South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal border with Swaziland was completely blocked on Wednesday in a protest against the kingdom’s leadership, said the Swaziland Solidarity Network. ”The Golela border post, which is the border between South Africa and Swaziland in KwaZulu-Natal, has been blocked to traffic by our protesters since 5am,” said spokesperson Lucky Lukhele.
A hundred and thirteen people were injured in a four-bus pile-up on the Moloto Road, north of Pretoria, on Monday. The accident happened at a depot where three of the buses were stopped when a fourth bus hit one bus from behind, causing each to ram the vehicle in front of it.
Lodge owners in a prime coastal resort are pitting the Danish and Mozambican governments against each other in a bitter legal row over who owns a piece of paradise. Jørgen Nielsen, a Danish businessman, ran into trouble in paradise shortly after he bought rights to a piece of land in the Vilanculos Coastal Wildlife Sanctuary in 2001.
Life insurers saved R347-million in 2005 by preventing dishonest policy holders and financial advisers, as well as crime syndicates, from making fraudulent claims. This was an increase of nearly 40% on the previous year, Gerhard Joubert, chief executive of the Life Offices’ Association said on Thursday.
A rural security company established to create jobs in the San community in the Northern Cape has already secured contracts in three provinces. Gert Schoombie, managing director of Sanda Security, said the first group of security guards consisting of members of the !Xun and Khwe community had received their certificates.
The Scorpions have been given permission to confiscate a farm in Mpumalanga where the drug tik-tik, or ice, was manufactured, the National Prosecution Authority said on Friday. Spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi said the Pretoria High Court gave the order on Thursday.
Phil Naledi has changed the lives of residents along a leafy street in the north-eastern Johannesburg suburb of Sydenham. He earns R900 a month for guarding the houses in the relatively affluent suburb, working 12-hour shifts. ”No one can make a life if they spend so much time working for this little money,” he explains.
Police were keeping an eye on striking private security guards in the Johannesburg city centre on Friday. About 100 guards had gathered at Beyers Naude Square by 9am, police said. In other centres, striking security workers were also expected to march in support of their demands for better wages and working conditions.
Protesting security guards in Pretoria began to disperse on Thursday afternoon after their strike turned violent earlier, with a security vehicle set alight and rubbish strewn in the inner city. At one stage police fired rubber bullets at the protesting guards in an effort to calm the situation.
Police fired rubber bullets at protesting guards after they apparently set alight a security van in Pretoria on Thursday afternoon. Guards made their way to Church Square, trashing rubbish bins and causing havoc in the city centre. Shops were also set alight. The violence came on the first day of a security-guard strike in seven provinces.
Security-guard employers were reporting little absenteeism in Johannesburg and the East and West Rand on Thursday, the first day of a two-day security-industry strike in six provinces. In the Cape and Pretoria, however, some companies experienced 80% absenteeism, and cases of intimidation were reported.
An estimated 90 000 security guards from 13 unions will strike for two days from Thursday, South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) security industry coordinator Jackson Simon said on Thursday. The figure is down from the 150 000 mooted on Wednesday.
Thirteen security guard unions will embark on a two-day strike in six provinces on Thursday and Friday, in support of higher wages and better working conditions — including the right to lunch breaks and using a toilet without being charged for deserting a position of duty.
”Theft” of water by South African farmers upstream the Nkomati River has prompted a complaint from downstream Mozambique, after the river’s flow dropped to a trickle last year. The department of water affairs’ executive manager for institutional oversight, Silas Mbedzi, said the Mozambicans had been very upset when the river ”almost stopped” flowing across the international border.
Sasol Mining’s black economic empowerment (BEE) ownership component will reach about 20% by 2009 and full compliance with the Mining Charter by 2014, the company said on Thursday. The wholly-owned coal-mining business of Sasol Limited said the first phase of its empowerment strategy entailed the formation of Igoda Coal.
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South Africa has taken a giant step towards the goal of gender equality and the emancipation of women in the recent municipal election, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday. The election results show the success the African National Congress has achieved to increase the numbers of women in the municipal system, he said.
An increase in minimum wages for farm workers — introduced on March 1 — is not the main reason for dismissals in the agricultural sector in Mpumalanga. This is according to Glen Cormark of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), who also noted that there were 600 cases of unfair dismissal in the sector since last April.
Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana on Saturday said he was pleased that farmers were agreeing with minimum wage legislation. He was speaking at the signing of a memorandum of understanding between organised labour, organised business and the Mpumalanga provincial government on bettering labour relations on and union access to farms.
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The African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) has called for a multi-party governance system in the Western Cape after Wednesday’s local government elections. The party’s leadership made the call on Friday after no single party won an absolute majority in Cape Town, paving the way for political parties to form coalitions.
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Provisional results show a 46,72% poll with just more than 14-million votes cast from a pool of 21Â 054Â 957 registered voters. The African National Congress had swept the board in the Northern Cape by 9.45am on Thursday, and the DA’s worst fear seemed to have come true in the Western Cape.
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South Africa’s third local government election since the advent of democracy in 1994 took place in a low key and peaceful manner on Wednesday. ”The voting process has proceeded smoothly throughout the country,” the Independent Electoral Commission said in a brief statement.
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Voting got off to a good start despite a few problems, including flooding, at some voting stations, the Independent Electoral Commission said on Wednesday. By 9am, 99% of voting stations were open. Police used rubber bullets to disperse youths in Khutsong and extinguished burning tyres with a water cannon.
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Khutsong community stalwart Jomo Mogale on Wednesday called for a by-election in the troubled township where residents are boycotting the local government poll. He said the few voters who had trickled in to cast their ballots were mainly candidate councillors themselves.
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/ 28 February 2006
The Pretoria High Court on Tuesday dismissed urgent applications by four municipalities to stop the transfer of their assets and services to other provinces. The Merafong Demarcation Forum applied to restrain government from handing over at midnight on Tuesday their assets and service duties from Gauteng to the North West province.
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/ 28 February 2006
Heavy rains in Thabazimbi, Limpopo, have caused several houses and shops in the town to be flooded, resulting in thousands of rands in damages, a municipal spokesperson said on Tuesday. Segale Pilane said a municipal task team was on its way to the affected areas to assess the extent of the damage.
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/ 27 February 2006
Heavy rains accompanied by misty conditions in Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni resulted in more than 80 accidents on Monday, according to metro police and emergency services. Meanwhile in areas of Mpumalanga, disaster-management teams have been dispatched to minimise the effects of possible flooding.
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/ 24 February 2006
The African National Congress has cautioned against ”alarmist responses” to the electricity outages that have affected especially the Western Cape over the past couple of days. In a statement on Friday, the ruling party criticised ”some parties” that ”seek to gain political mileage from these technical problems”.
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/ 22 February 2006
The current Transnet workers’ strike will continue if management refuse to engage unions constructively, the United Association of South Africa (Uasa) said on Wednesday. ”We are receiving conflicting messages from the trade and industry minister [Alec Erwin],” said Uasa official Leon Grobler.
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/ 22 February 2006
Power utility Eskom on Tuesday backed away from assurances given the day before that power supply to the Western Cape would be fully restored by mid-week. The assurance was given by Eskom chief executive Thulani Gcabashe during a meeting with the Minerals and Energy as well as Public Enterprises departments to discuss the recent power outages.