Tumi Makgetla

Two striking security guards have been arrested for setting fire to a warehouse at a Mondi paper mill, causing millions of rands in damage — this against a backdrop of intensifying industrial action and solidarity strikes. Business Unity South Africa has urged the warring parties to break the two-month-long strike deadlock.

While an interest in alternative energy and green politics is often seen as the preserve of the chattering classes, working-class people in Jo’burg’s inner city are already using renewable energy in their homes. On a pavement in Joubert Park in Jo’burg, shoppers cluster around Tumelo Ramolefi’s stall exclaiming and asking questions about his products.

On March 24 a mob drags an on-duty guard from his car, overturns the vehicle and sets it alight. A month later, a guard is robbed and beaten by men wanting to know why he has not attended union meetings. This is the public face of a strike that has dragged on in fits and starts since March 23 and could continue unless the government intervenes, according to one union official.

In a corner of Joubert Park in Johannesburg’s inner city, a secret garden is blossoming. "GreenHouse’s vision is to become a demonstration of green living," says Dorah Lebelo, the executive director of the GreenHouse People’s Environmental Centre, an inner city environmental resource centre.

International companies operating in South Africa are gearing up for intense debate over codes governing the implementation of black economic empowerment (BEE). Multinational firms and foreign chambers of commerce informally surveyed last week identified a raft of problems, ranging from concerns around ownership requirements to costs and compliance issues.

Of Gauteng’s 15 municipalities, only those led by women — Lesedi, Midvaal, Westonaria and the West Rand — received unqualified audit reports for 2003/04.
"It is encouraging that the four municipalities that have performed with regard to their finances are led by woman mayors," says Gauteng local government minister Qedani Dorothy Mahlangu.

Inflation has been falling, gold is at a 25-year high and the JSE continues to break records. But while the economic news is generally good, don’t expect Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni to announce any interest rate cuts when the monetary policy committee meets on February 1 this year.

If wars and genocides were Africa’s only news, African newspapers and international news networks like CNN would run the same stories. But Al-Jazeera International aims to be different. As part of a "fresh 360 degree [change] to news coverage," the soon-to-be-launched television network plans to run African news stories as part of its normal news cycle — not just when violence occurs.

A series of reported mob justice and vigilante incidents has gripped South Africa in recent weeks, fuelling the perception that the once popular "Township Act" for dealing with political spies and hooliganism is on the upsurge. In one weekend, mob justice incidents left at least four people dead and three injured.