Cricket South Africa denied on Monday that it had offered to host the one-day international (ODI) series between Australia and Zimbabwe. Earlier, the Australian government announced that it would not permit the Australian cricket team to travel to Zimbabwe for the three-match series, scheduled for July.
Almost half of about 220Â 000 members of the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union have voted in favour of joining the public service strike. Public servants have rejected a government offer of a 6% pay rise and called for a 12% increase. The government, however, has said it is waiting for organised labour to ”engage”.
South Africa must act to stop its marine resources disappearing in a world where the biggest consumers of fish products are cows and pet cats, warned environmentalists on Monday. The Endangered Wildlife Trust warned that plans to open up one of the country’s oldest marine protected areas could have serious implications.
Exploitative wages in the hospitality industry will be outlawed following the Labour Department’s announcement on Monday that minimum wages for workers in the sector will be introduced in July. Briefing the media in Cape Town, Deputy Director General of Labour Les Kettledas said the wages will apply to all the sector’s entities across the country.
The six companies singled out last year by Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana for failing to comply with employment-equity legislation still continue to defy the law, the Labour Department said on Monday, describing as ”horrifying” the extent to which the companies are disobeying the Employment Equity Act.
Infighting has clouded an African National Congress (ANC) disciplinary inquiry into the conduct of one of its most senior councillors in the Msunduzi (Pietermaritzburg) municipality, Themba Zungu, media reports said on Tuesday. Zungu is the head of the city’s corporate strategic planning committee.
South African environmental inspectors discovered 10 venomous snakes smuggled in video-cassette cases when they searched a suspicious package at a post office, officials said on Monday. Working on a tip-off, the inspectors seized the package from the Czech Republic.
The South African National Defence Force is to be challenged in the Pretoria High Court on whether its HIV-testing policies are constitutional, the Aids Law Project (ALP) said on Monday. The ALP, acting for the South African Security Forces Union, has filed court papers.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) on Monday questioned the Gauteng health department’s rejection of 22 out of 50 applications for new private hospitals and clinics in the past seven years. Jack Bloom, the party’s Gauteng health spokesperson, said it was ”crazy” to turn down so many proposals by the private health sector.
There was no schooling in Khutsong on Monday despite a 90% attendance by pupils at some schools after a month-long boycott. ”We have confirmation that where learners turned up in large numbers, teaching never took place,” said North West education spokesperson Charles Raseala.
An application by losing national lottery bidder Igwija Gaming to force the Lotteries Board to supply detailed information on other bidders was premature, a Pretoria judge ruled on Monday. Judge Francis Legodi said it would be prudent not to deal with Igwija’s application at this stage.
The Springbok training rugby squad comprises the best 46 players available, even if some selectors did not agree, SA Rugby said on Monday. ”We accept that not all role players in the selection process were in agreement on some of the players selected,” the South African Rugby Union (Saru) said in a statement.
Public service unions did not understand government’s wage increase offer and could therefore not negotiate seriously about it, Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi said on Monday. Speaking at a press conference in Pretoria, she said the government wanted workshops to explain its offer.
The heads of education committee moved on Monday to quash ”misleading reports” on the draft Education Laws Amendment Bill, gazetted for comment by Education Minister Naledi Pandor last week. Meanwhile, Pandor paid her first surprise visit to a Western Cape school in the Khayelitsha area on Monday.
Families of the seven South Africans killed in a plane crash in Cameroon last week will be compensated, Kenya Airways said on Monday. It was obliged to compensate them under the Warsaw Convention, said the airline’s Southern African marketing manager Glenn Lewington, dismissing reports that this would not be the case.
State doctors on Monday came out in support of wage negotiations that have deadlocked ahead of an ”unavoidable” national public strike, the South African Medical Association (Sama) said. ”We fully support the public service’s 12% wage-increase demands,” said Professor Mac Lukhele, chairperson of the Sama committee for public-sector doctors.
Deputies and experts attending the Pan African Parliament on Monday called for Western countries to help reverse the environmental damage to the continent that they had helped create. "This problem is generated by countries in the West," said the African Union Commission’s rural development and agriculture commission director Babagana Ahmadu.
Corrie Sanders’s mission to regain a slice of the world heavyweight boxing title has suffered a major blow after he hurt his hand during his bout against Brazilian Daniel Bispo at Emperors Palace outside Johannesburg at the weekend. Sanders hurt his left hand in the first round, forcing him to fight virtually with one hand for the full 10 rounds.
The 2010 Soccer World Cup will contribute at least R51,1-billion to gross domestic product (GDP) between 2006 and 2010, R21-billion more than estimated during the bidding phase of the World Cup in 2003. Of this revised amount, R15,6-billion will be created by foreign tourists, Business Report wrote on Monday.
Four people were slightly injured when a helicopter fighting a veld fire in the Table Mountain National Park made an emergency landing on Monday, said firefighting officials. The helicopter was one of two being used by the government-sponsored Working on Fire programme to douse the wildfire in the park near Cape Town.
A 42-year-old Guguletu man was shot dead in his car in central Cape Town on Monday during an argument with another motorist, apparently over a parking spot. The shooting took place at the corner of Adderley and Strand streets in the city centre shortly after midday.
SuperSport United and Bloemfontein Celtic earned a point each after they drew 2-2 in their Castle Premier Soccer League clash at the Loftus Versfeld on Sunday. The result means SuperSport jump to fifth while Celtic remain in eighth place. Kaizer Chiefs, who beat Maritzburg United 3-0, stay in ninth with 42 points.
Cosmo City is a place of hope for the new working class looking for an affordable home and a dream come true for people from informal settlements who now live in more than an enclosure of zinc sheets. It brings together sectors of the country’s population who would never have imagined living side by side.
The Independent Democrats (ID) on Sunday described a move by the education department to force school governing bodies to take responsibility for poor performance as ”deplorable”. ”The ID finds it deplorable that the education department wants to shift responsibility,” said the party’s education spokesperson.
Pupils were returning to schools in Khutsong on Monday after almost a month’s boycott in protest at incorporation from Gauteng into North West. ”In my school, learners are here,” said Khutsong Representative Council of Learners president Sibusiso Kula, who is a grade-12 pupil at Babiri High School.
Lichtenburg came to a standstill at the weekend amid fears of a bomb after a ”suspicious” bag was seen in front of a retail shop. Police spokesperson Pauline Montwedi said the bag had been left unattended for hours in front of an Edgars store on Saturday afternoon.
The Constitutional Court on Monday released an abridged record of the proceedings in the appeal by former National Intelligence Agency (NIA) director general Billy Masetlha. The record was released minus pages 114 to 175, or the whole of an affidavit made in camera by Masetlha.
Former Zimbabwe opposition lawmaker Roy Bennett said on Sunday he has finally won asylum in neighbouring South Africa, becoming the first senior government figure to achieve the political feat. The ”happy” Bennett — who has been in the country for over a year — told the media that the Home Affairs department granted him the asylum papers on Friday.
Global warming isn’t just a matter of melting icebergs and polar bears chasing after them. It’s also Lake Chad drying up, the glaciers of Mt Kilimanjaro disappearing, increasing extreme weather, conflict, and hungry people throughout Africa.
Former world heavyweight champion Corrie Sanders’s return to the ring was not a memorable one as he laboured to a points decision over Brazilian Daniel Bispo at Emperors Palace near Johannesburg on Saturday night. The 41-year-old Sanders started well and battered Bispo from pillar to post with a stoppage looking inevitable.
Thugs in a KwaZulu-Natal community are robbing people living with HIV/Aids of their antiretroviral (ARV) drugs — and then smoking them to get high. Patients collecting their ARVs at St Mary’s Hospital outside Pinetown have complained to community outreach coordinators that criminals are stealing their Stocrin.
A lawyer for Nelson Mandela, Iqbal Meer, has stated that he is disappointed by a London’s judge ruling in which he [Meer] was accused of ”classic blind eye dishonesty.” London high court judge Peter Smith made the remark while ruling that two London law firms were involved in a conspiracy to launder part of -million ”plundered” by a former Zambian president Frederick Chiluba.