Fifa president Sepp Blatter arrived in South Africa on Monday for talks with organisers of the 2010 Soccer World Cup and for his first on-site inspection of work to build and upgrade the stadiums. This is the Swiss’s first visit to the 2010 World Cup hosts since work began to build and upgrade stadiums.
South Africa needs to create jobs that will last beyond the 2010 Soccer World Cup, Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) president Willie Madisha said on Monday. ”In some countries that have hosted the World Cup, the jobs that were created collapsed after the Cup. [We] need to discuss what happens beyond the Cup and what do we do to sustain these jobs.”
The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is to sue the Premier Soccer League (PSL) for breach of contract after the PSL agreed to sell exclusive television rights to the pay-channel Supersport. The PSL announced last week that it had sold the right to broadcast soccer matches to Supersport for about R1-billion.
It was regrettable that immigration officers had joined the public-service strike, the Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA) said on Monday. TBCSA spokesperson Reynold Thakhuli said the decision by the essential services committee to allow the officers to join the strike was detrimental to competitiveness.
A 12-year-old boy helped his dad fight off a gang of armed robbers in Pretoria in one of at least 19 violent incidents that Gauteng paramedics dealt with at the weekend. Netcare 911 spokesperson Mark Stokoe said three people died in the 19 incidents.
It was the result Bafana Bafana wanted, but hardly a classy and composed display as they were outplayed by Congo for much of the frantic 1-1 African Nations Cup qualifying draw at the Municipal Stadium in Pointe Noire on Sunday afternoon. Bafana are now well positioned to qualify for next year’s African Nations Cup finals.
The Nurgalieva twins, Olesya and Elena, do not decide beforehand which of them will cross the line ahead of the other when they compete together. For this reason, Olesya, who won the 2007 Comrades Marathon down run, was champion on merit. Meanwhile, an unidentified runner collapsed on the finish line and later died, organisers said.
Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) affiliates will meet on Monday to come up with a range of percentage increases they are prepared to accept to end the three-week-old public-service strike. It is understood that the Independent Labour Caucus has already set a percentage range within which it can accept a deal.
Harmony Gold team runner Leonid Shvetsov of Russia has set a new mark of five hours, 20 minutes and 49 seconds in winning the 2007 Comrades Marathon down run from Pietermaritzburg to Durban. He was first across the line at the Sahara Stadium in Durban on Sunday and lived up to his pre-race prediction that he was ready for anything.
A devastating strike and looming policy conference are finally prodding the shadowy contest for the leadership of South Africa’s governing party into the open, even if no candidate wants to admit it. The next African National Congress president will be formally elected in December at a party conference.
The South African Football Association (Safa) was on Saturday embroiled in a dangerous confrontation with South Africa Football — its satellite wing delegated to handle the financial affairs of the country’s international teams. The new organisation has been perceived as usurping the functions and responsibilities of Safa itself.
Bafana Bafana arrived in Pointe Noire for Sunday’s key African Nations Cup qualifier against Congo and soon a storm of discontent had enveloped the South African camp. Coach Carlos Albert Parreira was fuming over the failure of the Congolese to provide his players with the kind of ball that will be used in Sunday’s game.
Education Minister Naledi Pandor has called for a meeting to discuss the effects of the public-sector strike as well as recovery plans with provincial education minister. The Sunday Times reported that high-school pupils disrupted a Youth Day speech by President Thabo Mbeki on Saturday, demanding that he end the strike.
A campaign to record the names and burial places of all those killed on June 16 1976 was launched on Saturday, Youth Day, in Soweto at the memorial of Hector Petersen, one of the first children to die in the uprising. ”We need to know more about who they were,” said Ali Hlongwane, chief curator at the adjacent Hector Petersen Memorial.
Abandoned in a bar as a baby and given just weeks to live by doctors seven years later, Tommy Jarvis is living proof Aids is no longer an automatic death sentence for youngsters in South Africa. Tommy, now a strapping 13-year-old who spends his spare time riding his bike and practising karate, makes light of the day that medics gave up on him.
The 12Â 000 runners in the 2007 Comrades Marathon were sent on their way at 6.30am on Sunday from outside the Pietermaritzburg City Hall to the sounds of a Zulu praise singer and the traditional Chariots of Fire theme music. The first runners were expected at the Sahara Stadium in Durban at about 11am. A fast time was anticipated in both the men’s and women’s races.
Replacement back Francois Steyn knocked over two late drop goals to give South Africa a nail-biting 22-19 win over Australia at Newlands in Cape Town on Saturday in the Tri-Nations opener of 2007. Trailing 10-19 after 44 minutes, the Springboks rallied to score 12 unanswered points in the second half.
At Youth Day celebrations in East London on Saturday, President Thabo Mbeki questioned whether this generation is living up to the tradition of past youth leadership. Also, African National Congress deputy president Jacob Zuma called on the party’s youth to go to its upcoming policy conference and be clear on what they want.
The development and empowerment of South Africa’s youth must form one of the focal points of the country’s reconstruction and development programmes, President Thabo Mbeki said in his weekly online letter. But, he questioned whether the youth is well organised to play the role of drivers of progressive change.
More than 2Â 000 jobs in road construction and maintenance in Gauteng will go to young people, Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa told a Youth Day rally at the Johannesburg Stadium on Saturday. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change said the ”spectacular courage” shown by the youth of South Africa on June 16 1976 inspires Zimbabwe’s youth.
First National Bank (FNB) was granted leave on Friday to appeal a high court decision that outlawed a savings product which has created 27 millionaires. Bank spokesperson Xolisa Vapi said the Supreme Court of Appeal granted the leave to appeal a high court decision against the ”million-a-month account”.
Concern over the elitist nature of pay TV was the gist of reactions on Friday to an exclusive broadcast deal between SuperSport and the Premier Soccer League (PSL). The furore was described by the PSL as ”a mountain manufactured out of a molehill”, as 140 games would be sold to free-to-air broadcasters.
Gauteng is to get about 10 new mixed housing developments in the current financial year, provincial housing minister Nomvula Mokonyane said on Friday. They will be in Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, Mogale City and Johannesburg, she told the Gauteng legislature in her 2007/08 budget speech.
Police will not join the public-service strike until at least Wednesday, under an undertaking by the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union that was made an interim order of the Labour Court on Friday night. Meanwhile, public-service unions will consult their members on the government’s revised salary package.
Claims that African National Congress (ANC) Western Cape provincial secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha used his influence to steer a land deal to party cronies were scurrilous and untrue, the party said on Friday. It was reacting to an article in Friday’s Mail and Guardian. Nic Dawes, associate deputy editor of the M&G, said that the newspaper stands by its article.
A security officer was stoned to death on Friday when residents of an informal settlement outside Pretoria resisted an attempt to evict them, Gauteng police said. The residents then set fire to a truck that was to be used to move their belongings, said police spokesperson Inspector Paul Ramaloko. Three Nissan 1400 bakkies were also set on fire, he said.
Public-service unions will consult with their membership before deciding to accept or reject government’s revised salary package, which includes a 7,25% wage-increase offer. The unions also said they were concerned that the salaries of some public servants had been withheld on Friday.
Business and political leaders attending an annual conference meant to focus entrepreneurial attention on Africa hailed China’s and India’s huge appetite for raw materials as a powerful driving force to move the African economy up a gear. But the discussion at the World Economic Forum’s annual conference on Africa was tinged with anxiety.
South African electricity tariffs are likely to keep rising steeply as the country tries to fund a massive spending programme to upgrade its power network, Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin said on Friday. Africa’s largest economy has suffered a series of power failures over the past couple of years as it struggles to keep up with faster economic growth.
The Springboks will draw on inspiration from former president Nelson Mandela when they meet Australia at Newlands on Saturday. The sides meet in a Mandela Challenge Plate match which doubles as the first Tri-Nations game of the 2007 season.
The Gauteng transport department is playing double standards with the new number-plate system, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Friday. DA’s transport spokesperson James Swart said it is not clear how much the new number plates will cost motorists.
The government’s plans to centralise the public service, purportedly in the interests of improving ”delivery”, set alarm bells ringing, Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille said on Friday. ”The real aim must be bluntly stated: it is to centralise the African National Congress’s power, to erode the opposition’s chances of setting up alternative models of ‘delivery’,” she said.