The Democratic Alliance (DA) on Monday welcomed the dismissal of Central Karoo district municipality manager Truman Prince, saying it had lost confidence in the controversial politician. DA Western Cape chairperson Theuns Botha said the party was glad Prince has been ousted.
The national office of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has once again called its Western Cape region to order, this time over a call to boycott all Chinese imports. Last week, the region called on its members and working-class communities ”to not purchase Chinese-made products”.
New land acquisitions have enlarged two of the Northern Cape’s national parks to more than 100Â 000ha. The parks’ bigger footprints will allow them to cope better with climate change, Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said on Monday.
Table Mountain will be patrolled by police and guards from South African National Parks after a spate of muggings at the popular tourist spot, the Western Cape’s community safety department said on Monday. On Thursday a meeting will be held to discuss further security measures after at least 18 muggings were reported between January and August 2007.
Most media coverage of Zimbabwe unthinkingly repeats and reinforces a Western and neoliberal perception of the history and causes of that country’s political and economic crisis. The dominant view is that "socialism" explains Zimbabwe’s economic collapse and political repression.
More than half the construction sites visited by inspections from the Labour Department in the past week failed to comply with safety regulations. A statement from the Department of Labour said that inspectors visited 115 construction sites and of these, only 55 contractors (47,8%) were found to be fully compliant.
A presidential bodyguard facing a murder charge was rearrested on Thursday after allegedly breaking his bail conditions. Timothy Sabata Mvula will spend a night in the Kuils River police cells before appearing in the Blue Downs Magistrate’s Court on Friday to apply for bail on the new charge.
A prosecutor on Wednesday expressed concern in the Cape Town Regional Court over the tendency of gangsters involved in territory warfare to lay criminal charges against their rivals, but then fail to attend proceedings as crucial witnesses. Prosecutor Harold Engelbrecht was speaking during the trial of an alleged gangster.
One of President Thabo Mbeki’s VIP protection unit bodyguards will appear in court on Thursday after allegedly shooting a man dead at a shebeen in June. Timothy Sabata (35), a police sergeant, is to appear in the Blue Downs Magistrate’s Court in Cape Town on charges of murder and attempted murder.
The majority of public schools in our country can be regarded as sites of a moral panic that highlights criminality, vandalism, bullying and violence, as well as ”drop-out” and academic failure. Middle-class kids experience an education that is largely unchanged in terms of quality and resources from pre-1994 practices.
Suspected sex blogger Juan Duval Uys of Kroonstad on Monday made his second appearance in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court, where he faces a charge of crimen injuria reportedly relating to an allegation that he had stated on a blog that a City of Cape Town mayoral committee member had used Uys’s services as a male prostitute.
Almost two years after arriving in Cape Town, nine containers of clothes donated by Taiwan are finally ready to be given to the needy, mayor Helen Zille said on Monday. The containers of new clothes arrived in Cape Town harbour in November 2005 and were held up by unfinished paperwork and customs processes.
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African National Congress (ANC) members should not be misled into believing that the media would assist and find solutions for the many challenges facing the organisation, party deputy president Jacob Zuma said on Sunday. He said the media’s only objective was to sensationalise ANC problems.
An Independent Democrats (ID) councillor in the City of Cape Town has sworn loyalty to the party after an anonymously sent fax suggested she was planning to defect in the coming floor-crossing window. ID caucus leader Simon Grindrod released copies of the fax at a media briefing on Thursday, saying he believed it was a tactic to influence other councillors.
The Cape Town Medi-Clinic has laid a charge of theft at the Cape Town police station in connection with missing medical records belonging to Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. Western Cape police spokesperson Captain Randall Stoffels said on Wednesday the investigation was ongoing and police were busy compiling statements.
More than R45,6-million was lost by national and provincial government departments due to financial misconduct in the 2005/06 financial year, the Public Service Commission (PSC) said on Tuesday. Releasing the commission’s report on financial misconduct in government departments, PSC chairperson Stan Sangweni said there were 771 reported cases.
Money is pouring in for the 2010 World Cup as the country anticipates an economic kick from hosting the world’s largest sporting event. With government providing billions of rands to upgrade infrastructure and depressed inner-city areas, there are indications that the private sector is following suit, particularly in Gauteng.
Some MPs protested on Wednesday at the Bill to regulate internet gambling. The National Gambling Amendment Bill was introduced to the trade and industry portfolio committee by Fungai Sibanda, the acting director general of the Department of Trade and Industry.
Thomas Siebert shifts uncomfortably on the wooden court bench and flinches occasionally at the testimony of the man who sodomised and then strangled his six-year-old son to death 18 months ago. He tries to avoid staring at the 48-year-old killer, Theunis Olivier, instead peering around the courtroom and making occasional notes.
The average abused woman leaves her husband 37 times before she divorces him. After every lame excuse, every bunch of flowers and every empty promise, she takes him back again. And again. And again. Why? Women’s rights activists, social workers and clinical psychologists agree: abused women are kept in abusive relationships by a combination of fear, emotional or financial dependence, low self-esteem or a false sense of loyalty.
It took the human species about one million years to reach a population of one billion. Nowadays, we add another billion at the rate of every 14 years. Whereas a century ago, only 10% of the population lived in cities, by 2050 it will be closer to 75%. Tens of thousands of people migrate to cities every day. New megacities are sprouting, many of them on coastlines.
Winter had one last blast before making way for spring as snow fell in parts of South Africa on Tuesday. Snow had fallen near the Hex River in the Western Cape, in Sutherland in the Northern Cape, near Tiffendell in the Eastern Cape and in parts of Lesotho and the Drakensberg, according to South African Weather Service forecaster Elke Brouwers.
Limpopo is the country’s safest province, the South African Institute of Race Relations said on Tuesday. It had the lowest rate of murders, rapes and armed robberies, according to a study based on police statistics released in Polokwane. Limpopo is also one of South Africa’s poorest provinces with a very high rate of unemployment.
South Africa’s workers in the petroleum sector said they were hopeful that talks with their employers later on Monday could end their strike over pay, which has severely affected fuel delivery. "We have a meeting tonight [Monday] beginning at 8pm with the employers of the workers and we are hopeful," a union spokesperson said.
The latest HIV-infection figures of 29% among pregnant women suggest a first-time decline may be starting for the pandemic, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said on Thursday. ”The overall picture suggests that HIV-prevalence in South Africa may be at a point where we should begin to witness a downward trend,” Tshabalala-Msimang said.
Rosheni Allie, Sisi Khampepe, Carole Lewis, Mandisa Maya, Yasmin Shenaz Meer and more …
Anet Ahern, Helena Dolny, Tina Eboka, Ingrid Johnson, Faith Khanyile, Elizabeth Maepa, Angela Mhlanga, Nombulelo Moholi and more …
Failure to ”saturate” a patient, causing another to suffer ”importance” by not referring him to a urologist, and a fractured ”fumer” are among the reasons given by Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang for public hospitals being sued for more than R26-million last year.
Six firemen died on Sunday while trying to bring raging fires in Mpumalanga under control, the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry said on Monday. The department’s commercial manager Kim Weir said five firefighters died after they could not get their vehicle away from the front of the fire.
People who take the law into their own hands will have to face the consequences, Western Cape minister of community safety Leonard Ramatlakane warned on Saturday. ”The government has proven it will not tolerate lawlessness. There have been a number of arrests related to recent vigilante activity,” he said.
The first new vaccine against tuberculosis (TB) in more than 80 years has entered mid-stage trials in South Africa, where the killer disease is rife, scientists said on Saturday. If the tests are successful, a new shot against M tuberculosis bacteria could be available within eight years.
A court action opposing the construction of the new Green Point Stadium for the 2010 Soccer World Cup was postponed to an unspecified date by the Cape High Court on Friday. The action was brought by an environmental group, the Cape Town Environmental Protection Association.