The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has had enough of the 2010 stadium labour disputes and has now asked Fifa president Sepp Blatter to intervene. There have been a number of strikes over wage disputes by construction workers working on the Green Point stadium in Cape Town, Durban’s Moses Mabhida stadium and the Mbombela stadium in Nelspruit.
Tim Modise’s days at the 2010 local organising committee (LOC) are numbered and the only questions are whether he will fall on his own sword or be axed, say informed sources close to the LOC and in the government. The sources told the Mail & Guardian the one-time star broadcaster is struggling with his role as chief officer of communications and marketing.
Eskom is to begin with ”pre-emptive load-shedding” on March 31, chief executive Jacob Maroga said on Friday. These deliberate power failures would last no more than two hours and would take place between 6am and 10pm. ”The system remains tight,” he told reporters in Midrand.
Allegations of disorder on the main campus of the University of the Free State (UFS) contained in an anonymous email circulated country were untrue, Rector Frederick Fourie said on Thursday. The email apparently makes reference to incidents of intimidation by black students on the main campus in Bloemfontein on March 4.
The African National Congress Youth League calls for a ban on alcohol advertising.
South Africans probably consume almost as much sorghum beer as they do lager, and roughly two-thirds of the traditional African beer is homebrewed.
Power failures have had a significant impact on mining production, the Chamber of Mines of South Africa said on Thursday. The chamber said the statistics released by Statistics South Africa on Thursday showed a 10,7% year-on-year drop in the volume of mining for January.
The rise in production cost of grains such as wheat and maize was ”mind boggling”, Grain SA said on Thursday. The latest cost budgets for the production of wheat due to be planted in the coming months indicate that the variable cost component increased on average by 63%,” said Grain SA chairperson Neels Ferreira.
A confession by a gangster that he took part in the raid in which historian David Rattray was murdered was ruled as admissible evidence against him in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Thursday. Sibonele Xolani Mpanza (28) had contested the confession.
"About half the pupils in my class suffer in some way or another from the effects of alcohol abuse by their parents and people around them."
Driving drunk can change lives forever, yet many South Africans — perhaps lulled by a lack of effective law enforcement — do it every day.
Most South Africans say they don’t drink — about half the men and almost 80% of women claim to be abstainers.
South African high flyers are known to love their drink; how some of them handle it is a different story.
The perfect hangover cure has long been the Holy Grail for barflies and near-teetotallers alike.
Sophiatown is an ironically named bar lounge popular with Johannesburg’s ever-expanding hip set.
Soccer players selected for the national team should be directly contracted by the South African Football Association, the African National Congress (ANC) said on Thursday. This would allow coach Carlos Alberto Parreira to work full-time for two years in preparing a winning team for 2010.
The Democratic Alliance has lambasted the Mpumalanga Rugby Union for including a convicted murderer in the Vodacom Pumas rugby team. Gert van Schalkwyk (22) — one of the infamous ”Waterkloof Four” — has been included in the starting line-up for the provincial team.
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African National Congress president Jacob Zuma’s last-ditch bid to prevent key documents from being used against him came to an end on Wednesday when the Constitutional Court reserved judgement. On Thursday, Zuma stayed away from the court building.
Municipal workers will down tools if ”attacks” on Nelson Mandela metropole employees do not stop, the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) said on Thursday. ”These attacks are aimed at getting rid of workers who stand against any form of crime,” said Samwu general secretary Mthandeki Nhlapo.
Joe Phaahla, the director general of the 2010 Fifa World Cup government unit, is stepping down. He has asked to be relieved of his three-year contract, which expires in August. In a statement on Thursday, the unit said Sport and Recreation Minister Makhenkesi Stofile has agreed to this, and Phaahla will leave the unit this month.
Stifling the private healthcare industry could see it shift resources to foreign operations, placing greater strain on the public sector, a consulting company said on Thursday. Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang announced in Parliament on Wednesday that unregulated private healthcare cannot be sustained.
The apparent détente between the national Health Department and the Treatment Action Campaign is to be applauded, but will it stick?
In order to pursue a civil claim for damages in the high court, regional airline Comair is seeking an order from the Competition Tribunal declaring that an incentive scheme for travel agents that was run by South African Airways (SAA) was a prohibited practice in terms of the Competition Act.
Work on a multibillion-rand hydro-electric plant in Limpopo will start in September, with completion scheduled for 2015, the Sekhukhune municipality announced on Thursday. It forms part of Eskom’s capacity-expansion programme aimed at resolving the country’s energy shortages, municipal spokesperson Sizwe Yende said.
Matthias Rath and his foundation had never claimed their vitamin products were a cure for HIV/Aids, Rath’s advocate told the Cape High Court on Thursday. ”We are not claiming it’s a cure,” Rath’s advocate, Dumisa Ntsebeza, told the court. ”We would like to make very clear, that has never been the claim.”
Solidarity on Thursday welcomed a Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) ruling on a charge of unfair racial discrimination in the trade union’s favour. Solidarity declared a dispute with South African Airways Technical in February and referred the matter to the CCMA.
The chief executive of South Africa’s players’ association on Thursday urged axed fast bowler Andre Nel not to make a decision regarding his future in the heat of the moment. Nel was a controversial omission when South Africa’s squad for three Tests in India next month was announced on Tuesday.
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The documents the state is seeking to obtain from Mauritius may never be used against African National Congress president Jacob Zuma, the Constitutional Court heard on Thursday. State advocate Wim Trengove said evidence gathered ”does not automatically become evidence before the court”.
Trade conditions appear to be out of negative territory after the Trade Activity Index (TAI) increased for the third month in a row, the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry said on Thursday. The TAI, which measures the view of business on current trade activity, increased from 44 in December last year to 48 in January and 50 in February
Durban’s disaster-management team and city officials are busy calculating the cost of damage caused during a heavy downpour on Tuesday night that continued into the early hours of Wednesday. Two oil refineries, hospitals, courts, homes, shacks, railway lines, buildings and roads were affected by the overnight storm.
World markets continued to weigh on the JSE on Thursday — pushing the bourse down 0,93% by midday. At noon, the JSE’s bank index fell 1,87%, financials gave up 1,61% and industrials were 1,4% lower. The platinum mining index declined 1,41%, resources shed 0,38% but the gold mining index advanced 1,69%.
The African National Congress would campaign against the death penalty if a referendum was held on the issue, the party’s secretary general Gwede Mantashe said on Wednesday. Mantashe’s remarks follow last week’s statement by party president Jacob Zuma that a referendum should be held if enough South Africans wanted it.