Legendary golfer Gary Player has come under fire in South Africa over his company’s business ties with Burma, where a golf course he designed is allegedly used by members of the brutal ruling junta. South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called for a boycott of all foreign companies doing business in the Asian country.
There is a tacit belief in a number of archival disciplines that making documents related to the history of liberation struggles in Southern Africa more widely accessible via the Internet and stockpiling new resources on the web will result in new and better histories. However, a survey of a range of digitisation projects currently underway in Africa suggests that this may be a naïve expectation, writes Premesh Lalu.
This month the University of the Western Cape (UWC) formally approved the formation of the Institute for Microbial Biotechnology and Metagenomics (IMBM). Comprising more than 30 researchers and support staff, the institute is led by Professor Don Cowan of UWC’s department of biotechnology.
There was still no word on whether Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) veterans would get voting rights at the upcoming African National Congress (ANC) national conference, the MK Military Veterans’ Association (MKVA) said on Tuesday. ”We are trying to get representation at the conference,” said newly elected MKVA president Kebby Maphatsoe.
Intelligence authorities are to investigate Cape Town mayor and Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille’s claims of ”agents provocateurs” in the city, and the mudslinging in the media regarding the issue must be stopped, Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool announced on Monday.
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/ 28 September 2007
The builders of Cape Town’s Green Point Stadium have admitted they are behind schedule because of several strikes by workers, but have promised to catch up soon. The admission differs markedly from the denial by Cape Town and 2010 officials, who insist all is on track.
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/ 27 September 2007
Western Cape police were involved in a plot to plant agents provocateurs within an organisation waging peaceful protest marches against drugs, Cape Town mayor Helen Zille said on Thursday. Zille, who recently participated in People against Drugs, Liquor and Crime (Padlac) marches, said she had information confirming that police were intending to infiltrate Padlac.
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/ 25 September 2007
The government is committed to meeting its target of eradicating the bucket-toilet system in all formal settlements established before 1994, it said on Tuesday. To ensure this deadline was met an amount of R1,6-billion had been made available ”to provide better and more acceptable sanitation for all”.
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/ 21 September 2007
Kroonstad blogger Juan Duval Uys (39) stepped free from the dock of the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Friday, after a charge of crimen injuria, laid by Independent Democrats politician Simon Grindrod, was withdrawn. Uys said that he in turn had laid charges of crimen injuria and harassment against Grindrod.
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/ 19 September 2007
The special investigating unit (SIU) on Wednesday confirmed it is investigating thousands of government officials believed to have fraudulently received housing subsidies. In its initial findings, the SIU identified 53 000 public servants receiving housing subsidies, for which more than 31 000 did not qualify.
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/ 19 September 2007
Floor-crossing politicians managed to shift the majority party in control in 12 of the country’s 128 municipalities during the two-week crossing period, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said on Wednesday. The African National Congress gained the most councillors, the IEC figures showed.
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/ 18 September 2007
Despite the Western Cape having scored the highest matric pass rate in the country last year, only half of its learners reach matric, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Tuesday. Addressing a sitting of the provincial parliament on expenditure trends and service delivery, Manuel said the high number of learners who dropped out of school was a cause for concern.
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/ 17 September 2007
South Africa’s decision to invest in a nuclear power future has raised concerns about what will happen to the nuke waste generated. Last week it emerged that nuclear power would account for about half of Eskom’s planned new generating capacity. At present South Africa’s nuclear waste policy is vague and does not list a clear end-plan of what will happen to high-level nuclear waste.
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/ 17 September 2007
When Ahmed Mursal was held up by a drug-desperate gunman in the tuckshop where he was working in the Cape Flats township of Delft, he offered to buy the gun for R250. He told the gunman he could pay only R30 then, but would speak to his Somali brothers, one of whom was sure to want to buy the gun. If the gunman brought the gun the next day, Mursal would pay the balance of R220. The gunman accepted.
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/ 16 September 2007
Cape Town mayor and Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille’s Sunday march against drugs almost landed her in trouble with the police again. Zille, who was leading a community march targeting at drug lords in Atlantis outside Cape Town, was denied permission to march in a street whose residents were said to be mostly drug lords.
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/ 14 September 2007
The Independent Democrats (ID) came out winners on Friday in a last-minute flurry of applications to the Cape High Court by ID defectors to retain their seats. The party said bids by four former ID local councillors in the Western Cape to keep their seats were rejected by the court with costs. Two of the four were members of the Cape Town city council.
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/ 14 September 2007
The Western Cape legislature’s public accounts committee has cleared African National Congress provincial secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha of wrongdoing in a lucrative Cape Town land deal, the ANC said on Friday. Allegations that Skwatsha had interfered in the sale of a province-owned 2,4ha erf in Tamboerskloof were referred to the committee by the Democratic Alliance.
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/ 14 September 2007
Democratic Alliance (DA) leader and Cape Town mayor Helen Zille has accused the police and Western Cape provincial minister of community safety Leonard Ramatlakane of trying to justify their actions by disseminating misinformation and conducting smear campaigns. ”Those who will not learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” she said in her weekly online newsletter on Friday.
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/ 13 September 2007
The African National Congress (ANC) in the Western Cape has accused the Independent Democrats (ID) of attempting to lure ANC councillors to cross the floor with job offers. ANC provincial secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha told a media briefing on Thursday the ANC was in possession of a letter in this regard, signed by ID provincial chairperson Sakkie Jenner.
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/ 13 September 2007
The provincial auditor general never gave any assurance that over-expenditure on the security upgrading of Western Cape provincial minister of community safety Leonard Ramatlakane’s residence did not constitute fraud and corruption, a committee heard on Thursday.
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/ 12 September 2007
Thanks to floor-crossing, the African National Congress (ANC) has at last secured a clear two-thirds majority in the Morkel family. The decisive moment came on Wednesday when the last of the Morkel brothers, Craig, joined the party. But the patriarch, former premier Gerald Morkel, has no intention of following in his sons’ footsteps.
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/ 12 September 2007
Thirty years after dying in prison in apartheid South Africa, Steve Biko remains a historical icon, even if his black consciousness movement no longer carries political weight. A fervent anti-apartheid and freedom activist, Biko’s popularity in the new South Africa is rooted in culture, providing ideas for the shaping of the identity of young black South Africans.
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/ 11 September 2007
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s statement concerning dual-therapy HIV treatment was a ”gross distortion of the truth”, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) said on Tuesday. According to Tshabalala-Msimang, a 2001 court judgement limited her department to implementing only monotherapy nevirapine to HIV-positive pregnant mothers.
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/ 11 September 2007
The arrest of Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille was an attempt to settle political battles with state resources, the Western Cape office of the Congress of South African Trade Unions said on Tuesday. The Cosatu statement coincided with a brief appearance by Zille and 10 other people in the Mitchells Plain Magistrate’s Court.
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/ 11 September 2007
The United Independent Front (UIF) lost both its representatives in the National Assembly on Tuesday when they crossed the floor to the African National Congress. Its single proportional seat in the National Council of Provinces could also be in danger after one of its two Western Cape MPLs also defected to the ANC.
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/ 11 September 2007
The Social Assistance Act unfairly discriminates against a group of men who are among the poorest of the poor in South Africa, the Pretoria High Court heard on Tuesday. The Act entitled men to apply for state old-age pensions, based on a needs test, when they reached the age of 65, but entitled women to start receiving the pension at the of 60.
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/ 11 September 2007
A Mitchells Plain court on Tuesday postponed a hearing for Cape Town mayor Helen Zille and 10 others who were arrested on Sunday during a protest against drug lords in a suburb of the city. Zille made a brief appearance in a magistrate’s court to face charges that she had participated in an illegal gathering.
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/ 11 September 2007
There has been much speculation that South Africa’s nine provinces could be downscaled to administrative hubs because of their apparent inefficiency and ineffectiveness. I believe this is a knee-jerk reaction, not a solution, to the present malaise. My party and I have always believed that South Africa is simply too large and diverse to be administered as a unitary state, writes president of the Inkatha Freedom Party Mangosuthu Buthelezi.
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/ 10 September 2007
Cape Town city councillor Badhi Chaaban said on Monday he is a member of both the African Muslim Party (AMP) and the newly formed National People’s Party (NPP), as both allow dual membership. But he has asked the AMP leadership for permission to formally cross to the NPP, taking his council seat with him.
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/ 10 September 2007
Police arrested Democratic Alliance (DA) leader and Cape Town mayor Helen Zille on Sunday in connection with a protest she led against drug lords wreaking havoc in Cape Town’s poor districts. DA councillor Grant Pascoe said Zille was arrested after she went to a police station to inquire about the arrest of a religious leader who had participated in the protest.
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/ 6 September 2007
The newly formed National People’s Party (NPP) on Thursday claimed that five former members of the Independent Democrats (ID) had crossed the floor, bringing their Cape Town metro seats with them. However, the ID said two of the five — Abdulla Omar and Aaron Kallie — were expelled from the party before the floor-crossing window opened.
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/ 5 September 2007
The Pan African Congress (PAC) on Wednesday became the first casualty of the floor-crossing season as its former deputy president launched a new party. Themba Godi announced the launch of the African People’s Convention (APC) at a hotel near Kempton Park. APC spokesperson Mafemane Maringa said the party had been joined by 40 councillors.