Allegations about the competence of a trainee pilot who died in an aircraft crash at the weekend were part of the inquiry into the matter, the South African Air Force (SAAF) said on Monday. SAAF spokesperson Captain Ronald Maseko was reacting to a newspaper report asking who would accept responsibility for the pupil pilot’s death on Saturday during a solo navigation training flight.
Trade union Solidarity will apply for an urgent interdict to oppose the choice of provisional liquidators of DRD Gold’s operations in North West province.The application would be heard by the Pretoria High Court on Monday, Solidarity spokesperson Reint Dykema said on Friday.
South Africa’s National Union of Mineworkers on Wednesday in a statement accused the South African mining industry and the government of not paying enough attention to safety. The statement followed Wednesday’s earthquake at DRDGold’s Hartebeestfontein gold mine in the North West province.
At least 42 miners were stuck 2,4km underground at Hartbeesfontein gold mine late on Wednesday after an earthquake shook the Klerksdorp mining area in the North West province. ”Rescue teams are working to open entry tunnels that were closed by rock falls,” said Ilja Graulich, spokesperson for DRDGold, which operates the mine.
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/ 22 February 2005
Student leaders must ”sit down and talk” to resolve the issues sparking a series of student protests around Gauteng, a national Department of Education spokesperson said on Tuesday after a series of student uprisings around Gauteng and unrest at a school in the North West province.
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/ 20 February 2005
So you missed the Prickly Pear Festival in the Western Cape last month but worry not, there’s a whole 10 months of local festivals and events to choose from. From the Philippolis Witblits Festival to the Calvinia Vleisfees, we’ve lined up some of your more interesting options.
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/ 9 February 2005
Canadian junior miner Platinum Group Metals, or PTM, is hoping to start mining platinum in South Africa within five years, PTM CEO Michael Jones said this week at the Mining Indaba. PTM’s key asset is its joint venture with world number one platinum-miner Anglo Platinum (AngloPlat).
The Merafong municipality, which includes Carletonville and Khutsong, may soon be incorporated into the North West province.
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/ 30 November 2004
The drought in South Africa’s western maize belt is becoming critical and planting time for those maize areas is running out, farmer body Grain South Africa (GSA) said in a statement on Monday. Although there was rain in some parts of the western maize belt on the weekend, it was too little and was not distributed widely enough to allow maize farmers to plant, GSA chairperson Bully Botma said.
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/ 30 November 2004
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/142915/aids_icon.gif" align=left>A year ago the government approved a national plan for the management, care and treatment of HIV/Aids. Its aim was to provide free anti-retroviral drugs in the public health sector. The HIV prevalence rates range from an estimated 13,1% in the Western Cape to a very high 37,5% of adults in KwaZulu-Natal. A <i>M&G</i> assessment as World Aids Day approaches reveals the leaders and laggards.
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/ 2 November 2004
Rustenburg in the North West province has the distinction of having been South Africa’s fastest-growing urban area between 1996 and 2002, with an annual compound economic growth rate of 6%. The worst performance was put in by the Free State’s Goldfields, which showed an annual decline of 4,3% over the same period.
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/ 1 November 2004
Ten people were arrested on the West Rand and in the North West province on Monday, for allegedly defrauding the Mine Pension Fund of more than R4,5-million, police said. A spokesperson for the Johannesburg commercial crimes unit said several plots and houses of former mine employees were raided on Monday morning.
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/ 24 October 2004
Free after spending seven months in Zimbabwe’s Chikurubi prison, two suspected mercenaries returned home to find themselves homeless and facing possible prosecution under South African law. Zimbabwean authorities on Saturday released Pius Kanjowa and Lenatu Eselumu on humanitarian grounds due to ill health.
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/ 12 October 2004
Cameroon’s main opposition parties called on Tuesday for the Central African country’s presidential election — which veteran leader Paul Biya has been widely tipped to win — to be annulled, saying it was marred by rampant fraud. One opposition presidential candidate called the vote ”a masquerade, with overt fraud throughout the country”.
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/ 24 September 2004
Twice a year the Chrissiesmeer shop owners put up signs on their doors that say, "Gone Frogging". Instead of preparing for World Tourism Day on September 27 by publishing a set of platitudes about the most prominent places to visit, we decided to abide by the spirit of these intrepid merchants and prepare a portfolio of the country’s more unpredictable and out-of-the-ordinary travel destinations.
Mining magnate Patrice Motsepe this week unveiled the first full-year results of his new company African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) while revealing the next, and probably most interesting, chapter in his career. The results show how far Motsepe has come as a mining entrepreneur — and the hard work that lies ahead in turning ARM into a world-class diversified resources company.
A summons for R80 000 in respect of outstanding legal fees has added to the woes of former Western Cape Environmental Affairs and Tourism MEC David Mickey Malatsi, who is on trial in the Bellville Regional Court on corruption, theft and fraud charges. He lamented the fact in court on Monday, when his trial resumed before magistrate Andre le Grange.
The department of housing in Gauteng and the residents of Diepsloot, north-west of Johannesburg, are expected to have a meeting at Muzomuhle Primary School on Monday afternoon. The meeting comes after last week’s violent protest by the residents amid rumours that they were about to be relocated to the North West province.
The African National Congress has blamed its local leaders and those of the South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) for the violent protests in Diepsloot earlier this week. ”They allowed the situation to get out of control,” Pule Buthelezi, the general secretary of the ANC in the greater Johannesburg region, said on Friday.
Police will maintain a strong presence in the Diepsloot informal settlement north west of Pretoria on Thursday following the ongoing violent protests in the area, police spokesperson Inspector Percy Morokane said. He said although the situation was calm, and ”everyone was going to work as if nothing has happened in the past days”, police were not going to be ”fooled”.
The trial over the controversial Roodefontein development was postponed for a second time on Monday, pending a decision by Justice Minister Brigitte Mabandla on whether to provide legal aid for the accused. Former Western Cape premier Peter Marais and his then environment MEC David Malatsi are appearing in the Bellville regional court.
The Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, said on Friday that the Air Quality Bill will be resubmitted to Parliament this year and air quality officers will be appointed to crack down on offenders in pollution hot spots. Adressing the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>’s Greening the Future awards breakfast in Johannesburg on Friday, Van Schalkwyk also paid tribute to the South African public, "the foot soldiers in our greening revolution".
<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.
<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>
The thing is, we all now fervently believe that it is safe to venture out of the woods. The thing is, it isn’t. Consider this. Nosimo Balindlela, provincial minister for sports, arts and culture for the Eastern Cape, has just instituted a civil claim to the tune of R100 000 against a (presumably white) woman, Erika de Beyer, who called her a baboon in the parking lot of an East London shopping centre some time last year.
The distance between Johannesburg and Mafikeng has been shortened by more than two hours. It now takes only 45 minutes to travel between the two towns following last December’s resuscitation of the air route linking the two cities. The revival is funded with an investment of R5,8-million from the North West government.
Health departments in the Eastern Cape and North West provinces were still investigating on Thursday the possible cause of recent outbreaks of cholera. Thirteen people died of the disease early in March in the rural Eastern Cape, and at least nine people are still being treated in the North West.
Bridgestone, the world’s largest manufacturer of tyres and other rubber products, on Tuesday stated that it is to invest about R700-million in upgrading and expanding its Brits tyre manufacturing plant in North West province over a five-year period.
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/ 16 January 2004
The bulk of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress’ supporters are unemployed while 94% of them are black, according to the results of a Markinor poll. Similarly, nearly 80% of Inkatha Freedom Party supporters are jobless. The poll was conducted among 3 500 respondents nationwide late last year and was commissioned by the South African Broadcasting Corporation.
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/ 28 November 2003
The Bond van Boerekrygsgevangenes (League of Boer Prisoners of War) on Thursday said it would complain to the International Committee of the Red Cross about the conditions under which a 1994 bomb planter was being held.