![]()
The KwaZulu-Natal branch of the African National Congress plans to invite former deputy president Jacob Zuma to its Freedom Charter celebrations on June 26, a spokesperson for the party said on Saturday. Zuma was fired by Mbeki after the Durban High Court found that he had a ”generally corrupt” relationship with his financial advisor Schabir Shaik.
Former deputy president Jacob Zuma pleaded with the youth on Thursday not to divide the African National Congress (ANC) by criticising President Thabo Mbeki for sacking him. ”Phansi ngo Mbeki. Phambili ngo Zuma,” [Down with Mbeki. Up with Zuma] the crowd chanted earlier as Zuma took a lap of honour around Nelspruit’s packed Matsulu stadium.
The Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum in Soweto is busier than it has ever been, with people turning out to celebrate Youth Day, its chief curator said on Thursday. The museum preserves the memories of events surrounding the fateful march from the Morris Isaacson school in Orlando on June 16 1976.
The SABC will be allowed to broadcast regional television programmes on two stations in official languages other than English, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) announced on Wednesday. Icasa chairman Mandla Langa said SABC 4 would broadcast in Setswana, Sesotho, Sepedi and TshiVenda, Xitsonga and Afrikaans.
Minister of Education Naledi Pandor’s assurances to whistle-blowers are hollow if her department cannot take the minor administrative steps needed to protect them, the Democratic Alliance said on Monday. A teacher from the Kamhola school in Barberton — one of the schools implicated in the cheating — was dismissed last week.
About 1 300 members of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) again downed tools at Samancor Chrome’s Mpumalanga and North West mines after negotiations deadlocked, a spokesperson said on Monday. NUM deputy secretary Archie Palane said workers are protesting the company’s refusal to upgrade certain positions.
Traffic was disrupted between Nelspruit and Riverside in Mpumalanga on Monday when thousands of taxi operators marched to the premier’s office to hand over a memorandum outlining grievances, news reports said on Monday. The operators want the government to abandon its planned taxi-recapitalisation programme.
A two-year-old boy was found by a neighbour locked inside his house with the bodies of his dead parents and siblings in Mhluzi, near Middelburg, on Friday afternoon, police said. A police spokesperson said the neighbour saw the child at a window after receiving no response when she knocked on the door.
The name change of Pretoria to Tshwane took another step forward on Thursday when the South African National Geographical Names Council unanimously approved the recommendation. Tommy Ntsewa, chairperson of the council, said in Bloemfontein the approval was granted after thorough deliberation.
The African National Congress tried to swat away the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>’s Oilgate revelations last week like some pesky insect. But like the persistent gadflies that we are, we won’t disappear that easily. Hiding behind a paper-thin set of excuses, the party has argued that there is nothing wrong with a private company making donations to a political party.
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) says junior miner Simmer & Jack Mines is "ready" and has resources and skills to take over DRDGold’s mining operations in the North West province. An NUM spokesperson said labour is convinced that thousands of mineworkers left without jobs in the North West might soon be redeployed.
It was a simple question to a senior Cabinet member and head of the South African observer mission to the Zimbabwean election: "Why are you ignoring the custom of addressing whether elections were free and fair by only pronouncing on the freeness and being silent on the fairness of the election?"
The search for the Mpumalanga pupil feared drowned in the sea at Richards Bay resumed early on Monday morning, KwaZulu-Natal police said. Seven other pupils drowned after the group decided to go for an early-morning swim at Richards Bay on Sunday. All were between 16 and 17 years old and in grades 10, 11 and 12.
Rescue workers called off their search for a schoolboy feared drowned in the sea off Richards Bay late on Sunday afternoon, hours after finding the bodies of seven of his classmates. The eight children were among a group of about 250 children from Ndlela Secondary School in Mpumalanga who attended a sports day at Mondini High School in Ntambanana.
The court case against vitamin entrepreneur Matthias Rath is a distraction from the real work of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), its national chairperson Zackie Achmat, said on Friday. Earlier, Rath’s lawyer argued Rath should have a chance to reply to ”vilifying statements” Achmat and the TAC made against him in their papers.
A lower growth in house prices in the first quarter of 2005 is an indication of a residential property market that is cooling off, according to Absa. Nevertheless, it says real growth in house prices is expected to be positive for 2005 for the sixth consecutive year, with a nominal house price growth of between 15% and 20% forecast for the year.
South Africa will pay dearly for global industrialisation and other activities that generate greenhouse gases, a new study revealed on Thursday. A report by the South African National Biodiversity Institute, released in Cape Town, warns that rising temperatures will change the face of the country by 2050.
As they embark on a process to broaden relations with the People’s Republic of China, South African politicians and officials would do well to consider the advice of China’s reformist leader, Deng Xiaoping: ”Seek truth from facts.” China’s attraction as an ideological and strategic counterweight to the dominance of the West has led to a desire to cosy up to the Asian dragon.
If you don’t clamp down on the farms feeding the "canning" industry you will lose the battle, warn critics of the government’s attempts to stamp out unethical hunting. In submissions on proposed new regulations to stop canned hunting, both pro- and anti-hunting organisations are unanimous that the 50-plus facilities breeding thousands of predators across the country are the chief culprits.
Petrol, already topping a record R5 a litre in Gauteng and set to increase again next month, is widely seen as the main inflationary risk in South Africa today. However, a revision in the formula by which the fuel is calculated, could result in a small reduction in the fuel price, an economist says.
First it was the penal colony on Robben Island, then the Old Fort at Constitution Hill. Now a decaying army base on the edge of the Blyde River Canyon, in Mpumalanga, has become the latest set of buildings to be transformed from a place of oppression into a thriving tourism resort. Is tourism earning its reputation as the world’s peace industry by turning the architecture of terror into slick holiday resorts?
A task team has been set up to find — within two months — ways to speed up the provision of classrooms, the education and public works departments said on Monday. The team will report by June with concrete plans to end the practice of teaching children outdoors, Minister of Education Naledi Pandor told reporters in Pretoria.
After deliberations that delayed the intended media conference by three hours at the Absa Stadium in Durban on Friday, SA Rugby finally announced a reshuffle in provincial affiliations in the enlarged Super 14 franchises for the next three years, subject to an annual review and initial three-year trial period.
The almost 900 Mpumalanga matric pupils who had their 2004 exam results nullified for allegedly cheating will get a second chance, the Mpumalanga department of education said on Wednesday. The department feels that falling behind by a whole year on future plans is punishment enough.
Two graves, believed to contain the remains of the ”Mamelodi 10”, were exhumed at the Winterveldt cemetery, north-west of Pretoria, on Monday by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to commemorate national Human Rights Day. The ”Mamelodi 10” were 10 youngsters abducted in June 1986 by the apartheid government’s security police.
Department of Home Affairs offices will be open on the weekend starting from April 1, the department said on Saturday. ”This is to accommodate those who cannot visit our offices during the normal office hours by providing them with extra opportunities to access our services,” said a departmental spokesperson.
The trade union Solidarity is to join an investigation into the latest accident at Sasol’s Secunda plant on Tuesday, which left a man dead. The man died on Tuesday morning in an accident on the second day of a commission of inquiry into the September blast that left 10 dead and 360 injured.
Bullets have been found in each of the remains of the two Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) cadres exhumed in Piet Retief on Monday. National Prosecution Authority spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi said on Tuesday that the findings brought them closer to the conclusion of the case.
A man died in an accident in an operation run by a contractor at Sasol’s Secunda plant in Mpumalanga on Tuesday morning. The employee of a company called Fluor was working in the pipe-fabrication shop, said Mark Flower, Fluor’s marketing director. The fabrication facility is operated by Fluor within the boundaries of Sasol’s Secunda plant.
The remains of two Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) cadres, believed to have been killed and buried in Piet Retief, Mpumalanga, in 1983, were exhumed on Monday. Months of research have led the National Prosecutions Authority to the conclusion that the exhumed graves belonged to Madoda Bonga and one other, as yet unidentified, cadre.
No image available
/ 27 February 2005
A former councillor has been arrested for allegedly kidnapping a baby at Mpumalanga’s Ermelo hospital exactly 10 days after she was born, the province’s police said on Saturday. The baby was found at Boschfontein near Komatipoort on South Africa’s border with Mozambique, Captain Abie Khoabane said.
No image available
/ 23 February 2005
![]()
Total expenditure, excluding interest costs and a contingency reserve, rises from R363-billion in 2005/06 to R428-billion by the end of the medium term expenditure framework period in 2007/08, South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Wednesday.