A black economic empowerment (BEE) consortium is to be set up in a bid to save the embattled Rex Trueform clothing company, Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool said on Tuesday. This follows talks between textile-factory owners and trade-union leaders on ways to avert the closure of a Rex Trueform plant outside Cape Town.
An off-duty police officer allegedly killed five relatives, including two four-year-old twin girls, in a bloody killing spree in the Cape Town area on Tuesday night, police said. The 48-year-old inspector, who had taken leave, shot each of his victims in the head, execution-style, said a Western Cape police spokesperson.
The impact of climate change on Africa in 30 to 40 years will be as significant as that of malaria and Aids, the chief scientific adviser to the British government said in Johannesburg on Monday. Sir David King is in the country to promote Zero Carbon City, the British Council’s awareness campaign on global warming.
The court case against vitamin entrepreneur Matthias Rath is a distraction from the real work of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), its national chairperson Zackie Achmat, said on Friday. Earlier, Rath’s lawyer argued Rath should have a chance to reply to ”vilifying statements” Achmat and the TAC made against him in their papers.
It seems the coffers of the Western Cape government haven’t been entirely flattened by the publicly funded drol-spoeging contest between Premier Ebrahim Rasool and pretender to his throne, Mcebisi Skwatsha. No, there’s just enough in the kitty to launch an ad campaign intended to make the world think differently about the province that launched the Great Trek, among other things.
The owners of the hake trawler that collided with a container vessel killing 14 people near Port Elizabeth on Sunday are still investigating ways to reach the trawler with the aim of recovering bodies that might be trapped in the wreckage. This is according to a statement issued on Tuesday by the Mossel Bay municipality.
Eskom has lit up the night, albeit with only a ”dim flicker”, at a farm dam in the Western Cape’s Overberg in a bid to stop blue cranes flying into nearby power lines. The power lines, on the farm Hillside near Caledon, have been responsible for the deaths of at least 30 of the elegant birds in the past eight years.
The Department of Correctional Services says it is sure an amicable solution will be found to the issue of a Muslim staffer suspended for wearing a headscarf. A spokesperson said on Tuesday that the department’s Western Cape office has been instructed to meet with the suspended staffer and Worcester prison management.
The time has come to get out the winter woolies because very cold conditions and snow is expected over the Northern and Western Cape this coming weekend. The South African Weather Service said that very cold and windy conditions are expected over the high ground of the Northern and Western Cape on Friday, with rain over the Western Cape and the western escarpment of the Northern Cape.
South Africa will pay dearly for global industrialisation and other activities that generate greenhouse gases, a new study revealed on Thursday. A report by the South African National Biodiversity Institute, released in Cape Town, warns that rising temperatures will change the face of the country by 2050.
Taxi owners cautiously welcomed a new government code unveiled on Thursday for minimum wages and basic employment conditions in the industry. Workers embraced the announcement and warned employers that attempts to violate or undermine the initiative will face ”vigorous challenge”.
Minister of Correctional Services Ngconde Balfour’s plan to reduce the sentence of some prisoners could free ”potentially violent” individuals, the Democratic Alliance said on Wednesday. At a Freedom Day rally in George in the Western Cape, Balfour said categories of prisoners that qualified for the reduction have been ”carefully identified”.
The Western Cape’s education budget has risen by 10% to R6,5-billion, with the extra money to go to ”human capital”, provincial education minister Cameron Dugmore said on Tuesday. Cameron, addressing the provincial legislature during his budget speech, reflected on past achievements and future challenges.
Horses are dying in their hundreds from an outbreak of African horse sickness and the problem is worsening, the Cape Times website reported on Tuesday. It said 586 horses in KwaZulu-Natal’s Midlands area and two horses in the Western Cape had died of the disease in the past two months.
Western Cape local government minister Marius Fransman has instructed the mayor of the central Karoo District Council to suspend Beaufort West municipal manager Truman Prince immediately. Prince is facing charges of public violence, crimen injuria and assault following incidents in the past two weeks.
The official opposition Democratic Alliance on Friday threw its support behind "the pyjama protest" action taken by South African nurses over their uniform allowances. DA spokesperson Diane Kohler Barnard said that the allowances in all provinces are far too low to actually buy uniforms.
Growing coloured perceptions of an African threat on the jobs and housing fronts in the Western Cape have been thrown into relief by new research on race relations in the province. Tensions between black and coloured groups ebb and flow with pressure on social and economic resources, and the politics that plays on inter-group competition.
The first snow of winter has dusted peaks in the Western Cape. Hex River valley resident Andries Brown said that in the wake of the cold front that moved in on Tuesday, the Matroosberg had a fair coating of snow. Above Tulbagh, there was light snow on the Groot Winterhoek peak on Tuesday.
Feuding taxi organisations in the Western Cape have pledged peace as provincial transport minister Mcebisi Skwatsha announced the reopening of violence-racked taxi ranks closed a week ago. Skwatsha also said he has not been facilitating negotiations with a gun against his head.
Former Independent Democrats Western Cape leader Lennit Max on Thursday sought to link the party’s national leader, Patricia de Lille, to the Travelgate affair. De Lille heatedly denied any wrongdoing, and said that as one of a number of clients of one of the implicated travel agencies, she had given her full co-operation to investigators.
A planned media briefing on Friday morning to articulate the latest developments surrounding taxi violence in the Western Cape was called off at the last minute to accommodate a march by one of the protagonists, Codeta. Provincial transport minister Mcebisi Skwatsha decided to postpone the meeting to allow all parties a chance to express their concersn.
Child-rights activists on Wednesday called on Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool to ensure controversial Central Karoo municipal manager Truman Prince is removed from office. Prince, who has been embroiled in a series of controversies, including involvement with child prostitutes, was suspended and then reinstated last month.
The Western Cape transport department is open to resolving the taxi conflict in the region amicably, provincial transport minister Mcebisi Skwatsha said on Tuesday. He was responding to a memorandum handed over after a march earlier in the day by disgruntled taxi operators and drivers.
A crowd of taxi drivers and operators besieged the Western Cape transport ministry building on Tuesday to protest against a proclamation closing several violence-wracked taxi routes. The proclamation, in effect since midnight on Monday, was issued by the provincial transport minister after months of shootings between rival taxi associations.
The Western Cape government has been asked to airlift food parcels to thousands of families affected by torrential rains in the Overberg region, particularly Arniston and Napier. Rivers burst their banks and towns were cut off from the outside world in Sunday and Monday’s deluge, with Bredasdorp among the worst hit.
Prices commanded by some of South Africa’s top wines at the 2005 Nederburg auction, which took place in Paarl on April 9, have skyrocketed by 90%, boosted by a more restricted, higher quality offering, with the average price per nine-litre case of wine rising to an all-time high of R2Â 145 from R843,36 in 2004.
A deluge in the drought-stricken Western Cape has been both welcomed and cursed, as early-morning traffic was severely disrupted on Monday. A weather forecaster said a black south-easter, caused by a ”cut-off low pressure system”, had brought heavy rainfall to the region over the 24 hours to 8am on Monday.
In an attempt to quell violence, the Western Cape transport department will close certain taxi ranks and routes in the Cape Town area from 4pm on Monday. The measure follows unsuccessful attempts at resolving a dispute between rival taxi associations. At least three people have died in shootings related to the dispute.
The Western Cape government was on Thursday finalising plans to close certain taxi routes and ranks to quell violence. The provincial transport minister said on Thursday that following an unsuccessful meeting with taxi associations, he ordered the closure and suspension of routes in Kraaifontein, Brackenfell and Bellville.
Billed as ”Africa’s grandest gathering”, the Cape Town International Jazz Festival has become a shining example of organisational professionalism, media excellence and technical sophistication, writes Mike van Graan.
Cape Town police were monitoring taxis in the city on Thursday following a decision to close some ranks to quell recent violence. Certain ranks were ordered closed on Wednesday, with the South African Broadcasting Corporation reporting that this was related to at least four recent deaths linked to disputes among local taxi organisations.
The Western Cape agriculture department will on Wednesday announce quarantine measures and other plans to curb the spread of the blue-ear virus among pigs, the department said on Wednesday. Western Cape agriculture spokesperson Ali van Jaarsveld said an assessment would be done on Wednesday to establish the exact area to be quarantined.