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/ 17 October 2005
There were conflicting reports of the success of a Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) call for a worker stayaway in Mpumalanga, the Free State and Northern Cape on Monday. Cosatu said the protest was a ”magnificent” success, while the South African Chamber of Business said its impact on businesses was hardly felt.
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/ 15 October 2005
The Zululand Rhino Reserve could develop into the KwaZulu-Natal equivalent of Mala-Mala and Timbavati, provincial arts, culture and tourism minister Narend Singh said on Friday. He was speaking at the official launch of the 24 000ha privately owned reserve in the Msunduzi River valley, near Mkuze.
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/ 14 October 2005
Mike van Graan asks if we can move on to real transformation, now that we have generally replaced white people with black people at the trough of public funds.
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/ 11 October 2005
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Former deputy president Jacob Zuma will appear in the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday morning on two corruption charges. Security was stepped up on Monday evening when a large crowd of Zuma’s supporters held an all-night vigil in front of the court building. Police have warned that only those with accreditation will be able to enter the court for the proceedings.
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/ 10 October 2005
Several promising young black gymnasts showed their mettle at the weekend’s acro-gymnastics nationals, which were held at Ermelo in Mpumalanga. Elizke Blofield, a 12-year-old pupil at Laerskool Delmas, and Alexander Demianenko stole the show with brilliant routines to finish with a world-class score of 55,182 (out of 60).
Mpumalanga Premier Thabang Makwetla’s office on Friday morning vehemently denied reports that he had to be rescued from a stone-throwing crowd in Delmas the previous afternoon. Makwetla was meeting residents on the typhoid outbreak and was seeking to reassure them that the water in the area was safe to drink.
Recently the Pension Funds Adjudicator (PFA), Vuyani Ngalwana issued rulings on a further 22 retirement annuities (RAs). Life companies have chosen to settle 15 of these rather than face the negative publicity. This brings to 54 the total number of RA rulings since March. The life companies are appealing seven of these in the High Court.
Ntsundukazi Mvandaba and her family were the envy of the neighbours they left behind when they moved from the Mandela informal settlement to proper houses in Delpark, both in Delmas. They moved five years ago into an Reconstruction and Development Programme house: unplastered and small, but the first real home for this family from the Eastern Cape.
There is a steady increase in HIV prevalence in South Africa, a professor from the University of KwaZulu-Natal said at the opening of the Gauteng Aids Council conference in Johannesburg on Thursday. The life expectancy in the country would soon plummet from 63 years to 46, Professor Alan Whiteside said.
Cool and conditions moving over the northern parts of the country brought some relief on Wednesday for firefighters still battling veld fires in Mpumalanga. Earlier in the day, a fire that raged through the North West veld overnight was brought under control near the Vredefort Dome. However, the fire risk remains high in the northern parts of the country.
It is ”patently obvious” that the rights of patients in state hospitals are not being respected and that urgent action is needed, the Democratic Alliance said on Wednesday. DA MP and health spokesperson Dianne Kohler-Barnard released a damning report on the country’s ”five worst hospitals” during a press conference at Parliament.
A solid final-round 66 in the Vodacom Origins of Golf Tour at Erinvale reignited Eugen Marugi’s career after a rather non-descript 2004 season. Last week, Marugi underlined his comeback at the Seekers Travel Pro-Am. With back-to-back top-10 finishes, the 21-year-old Johannesburg golfer is finally back on the Sunshine Tour fairways.
Firefighting teams are battling to extinguish 15 forest and veld fires that continue to burn out of control in Mpumalanga, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal, Working on Fire (WF) said on Monday. WF spokesperson Val Charlton said about 26 WF firefighting teams are battling the blazes across the northern parts of the country.
About 50 Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) members on Sunday shackled themselves to railings at Parliament in Cape Town to highlight their jobs and poverty campaign. Cosatu’s Eastern Cape provincial secretary said marches would start at 10am on Monday in East London, Port Elizabeth, Mthatha and Queenstown.
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/ 30 September 2005
Benoni residents have been warned not to drink water from the town’s rivers, especially the Blesbokspruit, or use it for irrigation purposes, the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry said on Thursday. Spokesperson Marius Keet said the warning came after salmonella was found in effluent at Benoni Sewage Treatment.
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/ 29 September 2005
Work to uncover and eradicate corruption in the 2004/05 financial year has saved the government projected future losses of nearly R3,5-billion, the Special Investigating Unit said on Thursday. This was calculated on the premise that malpractices exposed during the year were likely to have continued on average for ten more years.
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/ 27 September 2005
A fifth person has died from typhoid after an outbreak in Delmas, a spokesperson for the Mpumalanga premier said on Tuesday. ”Twenty-three-year-old Alfred Thombeni died last night [Monday] at Bernice Samuel Hospital,” Lebona Mosia said. Since the outbreak was identified on August 22, 594 cases have been confirmed and 3 318 people have been treated for diarrhoea.
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/ 27 September 2005
Fires that have killed two people and ravaged large areas of land have largely been contained, but now the provinces are starting to count the costs. Crews from the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Gauteng, Free State, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo have been fighting fires since September 23.
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/ 26 September 2005
Wildfires began claiming lives — both human and animal — on Monday as they ran unabated across the hot, dry countryside, fanned by heavy winds. A six-year-old girl, Bonakele Ngema, burnt to death in a house where she was trapped while seeking refuge from a roaring blaze that bore down on her in Mntanenkosi reserve, KwaZulu-Natal.
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/ 26 September 2005
Organisations in Dullstroom denied on Monday that there is something wrong with the water quality in the popular Mpumalanga resort town. ”We would like to assure the public that the quality of water in Dullstroom has never been in question,” the organisations said in a joint statement.
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/ 26 September 2005
The number of cases of typhoid in Delmas has increased to 594, a Mpumalanga government spokesperson said on Monday. The total number of people with diarrhoea has risen to 3 303 since the typhoid outbreak in the town on August 22, said Lebona Mosia.
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/ 26 September 2005
Firefighters were put on standby in the Eastern Cape and Western Cape on Monday after fears that blazes in four other provinces could spread, a public-private firefighting organisation said. Working on Fire spokesperson Val Charlton said fires are raging in Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal, the Free State and Mpumalanga.
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/ 23 September 2005
The typhoid outbreak in Delmas, Mpumalanga, was caused by human waste in one of the boreholes, government biologists said on Friday. Vusi Kubheka, a bacteria specialist, said Salmonella typhi, the bacteria that causes typhoid, was found in a borehole in the area. ”Salmonella typhoid is carried in human waste,” he said.
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/ 23 September 2005
The typhoid outbreak in the Mpumalanga town of Delmas is the result of the African National Congress’s failure to heed warnings the area was facing a major public health risk, says Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon. ”What is happening in Delmas is also happening in ANC-controlled municipalities across the country,” he said in his weekly newsletter.
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/ 23 September 2005
He was whisked away from his newsroom, bundled into a police van and detained for four years before being released without charge. Years later, Levison Lifikiro still isn’t sure of his crime. Instead he lives with the pain of losing his job and family as a constant reminder of those wasted years.
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/ 23 September 2005
Mpumalanga Premier Thabang Makwetla met Moutse residents on Thursday in an attempt to address their concerns over demarcation into Limpopo. Mpumalanga government spokesperson Lebona Mosia said Makwetla’s visit to the town followed protests and violence over the integration of the town into the Limpopo province.
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/ 21 September 2005
A Kanhym Estates worker was killed and four others wounded in Mpumalanga on Wednesday when security guards at the company opened fire on protesting workers. About 500 people were protesting for a wage increase at the farming company’s premises in Middelburg.
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/ 21 September 2005
Roads leading in and out of Mpumalanga’s Moutse area were reopened on Wednesday following a protest over demarcations, police said. Earlier, residents of Moutse threatened to set the local magistrate’s court alight if people arrested on charges of public violence on Tuesday were not released from custody.
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/ 21 September 2005
Delmas has seen 26 more cases of typhoid in the last 24 hours, Mpumalanga health department spokesperson Mpho Gabashane said on Tuesday evening. ”Ten people have been discharged while 65 are still hospitalised.” Health promotion activities continued in Delmas on Tuesday as authorities waited for the results of tests that might determine the source of the disease that has claimed four lives and made over 500 ill.
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/ 19 September 2005
The actual number of deaths from typhoid at Delmas in Mpumalanga is higher than the official figure of three, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) said on Sunday. ”It has been alleged to the TAC by multiple sources that government is underestimating the number of deaths in the current outbreak of diarrhoea and typhoid in Delmas,” said TAC spokesperson Nathan Geffen.
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/ 18 September 2005
It is not yet conclusive that the source of the typhoid outbreak in Delmas was the town’s water, the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry said on Saturday. Karin Bosman, the department’s director of water-resource protection and waste, said tests run so far have not shown any presence of the bacteria.
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/ 16 September 2005
A third person has died of typhoid in Mpumalanga following an outbreak of the disease, the province’s department of health and social services said on Friday. The provincial health minister said the government is doing its utmost to stabilise the impact and prevent further outbreaks of typhoid and diarrhoea in Delmas.