South Africa needs to wake up to the fact that its coal reserves are not infinite, and the use of nuclear power to produce electricity in the future is unavoidable, Minerals and Energy Minister Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said on Tuesday. ”In addition to coal, nuclear energy will increase as an energy option for South Africa for the foreseeable future,” she told MPs during her Budget vote.
Power station ‘will inject R10bn into SA’
Mpumalanga police rounded up a gang of foreign drug dealers plying narcotics at local night spots in a major operation on Saturday morning, police said. Police, assisted by soldiers and officials from the departments of justice, health and home affairs, arrested 22 foreign nationals for dealing in drugs, among others.
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.
The South African Cabinet has approved a programme to develop human capital and improve research and innovation in relation to the pebble-bed modular reactor (PBMR) project, which has been called the world’s sexiest baby nuclear reactor by its proponents.
Seven Nelspruit high school pupils were killed when their car overturned and caught fire near the town on Sunday, Mpumalanga police reported. Captain Benjamin Bhembe said the driver of the Mercedes Benz was apparently speeding when he lost control of the vehicle at around 2am.
Major General Derrick Mgwebi last week became the first South African to head a United Nations peacekeeping mission when he assumed the command of the UN Operation in Burundi. Mgwebi last Tuesday donned a UN blue beret at a ceremony in Bujumbura to mark the end of the African Union mission in Burundi.
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.
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.
Police fired rubber bullets and teargas at a stone-throwing crowd of school children, some as young as 11, near Secunda in Mpumalanga on Tuesday. The pupils of Kusasa Lethu Secondary School accused headmaster James Jele of misusing school funds and demanded his removal and the return of the money.
Former Springbok rugby player Rudi ”Vleis” Visagie was arrested on Sunday after his daughter was allegedly mistaken for a car thief and shot dead, Mpumalanga police said on Monday. Visagie and his wife Frieda were asleep at home at their plot in Maggiesdal, outside Nelspruit, when his wife woke up early on Sunday morning shouting that someone was trying to steal their daughter’s car.
South African chemical and synthetic fuels group Sasol on Tuesday named Eyesizwe Coal, the largest black-owned, -controlled, -operated and -managed coal-mining company in South Africa, as its lead black economic empowerment mining partner. Eyesizwe’s total coal production is approximately 25-million tons a year.
According to a <i>Sunday Times</i> report, there are now nearly 700 "ultra-high-gross-worth individuals" with assets of at least R200-million each. I doubt that many of the local 25 000 "dollar millionaires" simply give away R100 000 each month. But this is exactly what the National Arts Council (NAC) is doing, writes Mike van Graan.
The Mpumalanga provincial government has suspended Riena Charles, the former health departmental head, from her post with the premier’s office, SABC news reported on Thursday. This follows the auditor general’s report on her activities while she still headed the health department.
About 150 family members and friends of alleged mercenaries held in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea handed over a memorandum addressed to President Thabo Mbeki at the Union Buildings on Tuesday, calling for government intervention. ”I believe my brother is innocent and does not belong there,” said one of the family members.
Trying to sell nature-based tourism in game reserves to people who would rather go to the beach on holiday, if they go at all, sounds like a case of real hard sell. Research shows that 51% of black South Africans prefer to go to the beach for their festive and other holidays. Blacks make up less than 12% of the local visitors who go to national parks. The M&G meets the new director of the Kruger park, a man determined to change local perceptions about ecotourism.
African National Congress secretary general Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele is to pursue a defamation claim against the Mail & Guardian in the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein on Thursday. It relates to printed allegations that Mthembi-Mahanyele, while housing minister, had awarded a building contract to a close friend.
Abbey Mzayiya, better known as Happy Sindane, was expected to be discharged later this week, the Pretoria Academic hospital said on Tuesday. Mzayiya, who has been in hospital fighting for his life since he was run over by two cars on April 3, has been described as ”doing very well”.
A tough municipal by-election in a Chatsworth, Durban, ward will see the African National Congress-aligned Minority Front — led by new KwaZulu-Natal sports MEC Amichand Rajbansi — fight it out to retain a marginal seat from a determined challenge from the official opposition Democratic Alliance.
The official opposition Democratic Alliance has selected its team representing the nine provinces in the National Council of Provinces but former Western Cape premier and former Cape Town mayor Gerald Morkel failed to be selected for one of two Western Cape seats available.
In 1999 pregnant women in Khayelitsha were able to access the drug AZT and two years later, highly active anti-retroviral therapy was introduced to the area. The Western Cape is one of the best-resourced provinces in the country and spends a healthy R1 377 per capita on health, second only to Gauteng, which spends R1 668.
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress named its candidates for premiers in the nine provinces on Wednesday night, after a national working committee meeting was held in the Mother City. It is the first time that candidates have only been named after the election.
The jostling over the spoils of Cabinet posts in the Western Cape and possible representation for the New National Party in the national Cabinet will begin this week. The NNP on Monday went out of its way to underscore the point that there was no suggestion of any calls for its leader to resign.
Champagne corks popped, fireworks exploded and balloons dropped from the ceiling as this week’s general election was declared free and fair in Pretoria on Saturday and the ANC celebrated a hands-down victory. The party has for first time taken the majority of seats in all nine provincial legislatures.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>There remains uncertainty about which parties will rule KwaZulu-Natal after an inconclusive result from Wednesday’s provincial election — but the Inkatha Freedom Party swept its traditional capital in Ulundi with 93,6%.
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As the African National Congress passed the 10-million vote mark on Friday, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said that the turnout for the third democratic elections had been an impressive 76,9%. At present the ANC has 69,6% of the votes counted so far.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>With just over 88,2% of votes captured by early Friday morning, the African National Congress has nearly garnered 70% of the votes. With the preliminary count updated at 3am, the ruling party was heading the national race with 9,39-million of the votes counted, which translates into 69,67% — continuing to make gains on its apparent two-thirds majority.
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The election race in KwaZulu-Natal closed in on the halfway mark on Thursday evening with no indication whether the African National Congress or the Inkatha Freedom Party would win the province. The Democratic Alliance, which may tip the province into the IFP’s hands, was at 9,46%.
The Independent Democrats, contesting its first election on Wednesday, surpassed the long-established New National Party in early poll counts on Thursday morning. By mid-morning, the ID had garnered 123 292 votes or 2,24% of the votes counted, putting them in fourth place. The NNP was in fifth place with 121 928 votes, or 2,21%.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>Initial results from South Africa’s national election released early on Thursday morning indicated that the African National Congress (ANC) was heading for an unsurprising victory of near two-thirds of the vote, with 63,77%. Working off a low base of votes counted at 16%, the official opposition Democratic Alliance, with 19,75%, appears to be faring far more strongly than in the 1999 national election.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>South Africa’s third democratic election was running smoothly late on Wednesday afternoon at the almost 17 000 voting stations around the country, despite long queues and some complaints from parties in the Western Cape, a bomb scare in Gauteng and allegations of fraud in KwaZulu-Natal. Read it all in our continually updated election event rundown.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=34154">Diepsloot, Alex residents make their mark</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=34151">Western Cape voters out in force</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=34145">PAC laughs off Mbeki’s comments</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=34148">ANC activists ‘caught red-handed'</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=34135">Queue talk: What voters are saying</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3_fl2.asp?o=40922">Special Report: Elections 2004</a>
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>Although long queues were reported across the country on Wednesday morning, South Africa’s third general elections got off to a smooth start, with no major logistical problems reported, says Independent Electoral Commission chairperson Dr Brigalia Bam.
South Africa’s Grintek Aviation Systems has been awarded a contract to supply an instrument landing system and distance measurement equipment to Malaysia. The equipment will be installed at the Alor Setar Airport in the north of the country, Grintek said in a statement received in Johannesburg on Tuesday.