No image available
/ 1 November 2004
Pupils and teachers at Brandwacht Primary School near Mossel Bay on Monday were mourning the death of an 11-year-old pupil, Aubrey Peterson, killed by a collapsing wall. The Western Cape education department said four other pupils were injured in the accident on Friday. The wall that collapsed was under construction at the time.
No image available
/ 29 October 2004
An 11-year-old pupil died and four others were injured when the wall of a classroom under construction collapsed on them at a school near Hartenbos in the southern Cape on Friday. Aubrey Peterson, who was in grade five at Brandwacht Primary School, and his school mates had been playing on the site.
No image available
/ 28 October 2004
Eight New National Party MPs will cross the floor to the African National Congress during the defection window period in September next year, ANC chief whip Mbulelo Goniwe said on Thursday. The eight — including party leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk — will defect to the ANC as individuals, not as a group, he said.
No image available
/ 22 October 2004
Defending the government’s recent signing of trade deals with Israel, Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad said on Friday they are designed to benefit the entire Middle East region. Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with South African President Thabo Mbeki briefly on Friday at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.
Tony Leon welcomes Israeli visit
No image available
/ 21 October 2004
Are the ruthless hierarchs of the ruling Zanu-PF in Zimbabwe finally facing up to the fact that Zimbabweans are going hungry? With Amnesty International releasing yet another report about the worsening food crisis, there were reports this week that the Zanu-PF politburo was preparing to debate the issue. Typically, more pressing bureaucratic matters swamped the agenda.
No image available
/ 20 October 2004
Scores of United States citizens cast their ballots on Tuesday in Cape Town, ahead of the November presidential election in the US, with the number of voters taking officials by surprise, a US consulate spokesperson said. The consulate staged a ”voting event” for the November 2 election, in which citizens living in the Western Cape could come and cast their ballots, said Louis Nazer.
No image available
/ 19 October 2004
Deputy President Jacob Zuma gently chided the religious on Tuesday for not doing enough to challenge the portrayal of violence and sex in the media. ”There is something wrong in society if religious people are afraid to challenge things,” said Zuma, delivering the inaugural Desmond Tutu Peace Lecture.
No image available
/ 19 October 2004
Listed retailer Pick ‘n Pay has managed the current South African environment of very low inflation and deflation in some categories by improving its operational efficiencies as well as encouraging higher sales volumes, reflected in an improvement in its operating profit margin to 2,6% from 2,4% a year earlier.
No image available
/ 18 October 2004
The South African government has confirmed that Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will visit South Africa from Wednesday to Saturday and has defended the visit "in the context of ongoing efforts by South Africa to assist Israelis and Palestinians to find a long-lasting resolution to the political crisis currently affecting the Middle East".
No image available
/ 14 October 2004
The first witness in the Schabir Shaik fraud and corruption trial, Independent Democrats deputy leader Themba Sono, was in the witness box in the Durban High Court on Thursday. Sono said he met Shaik in 1996 through a colleague.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=123695">Tangled web of intrigue at Shaik trial</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=123679">Zuma debt aired in Shaik trial</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=123667">State shows link between Shaik, Zuma</a>
No image available
/ 13 October 2004
Two districts in the Western Cape, Khayelitsha and Gugulethu/Nyanga, have HIV rates touching 30%. This translates into at least one in four people being HIV-positive. A disrict survey done at 374 facilities, involving the testing of 5 964 people, revealed that Gugulethu/Nyanga had a prevalence rate of 28,1%, Khayelitsha 27,2%, Helderberg 19,1%, Oostenberg 16,1%, Knysna/Plettenberg Bay 15,6% and Caledon/Hermanus 14,2%.
No image available
/ 12 October 2004
Black economic empowerment (BEE) financial services group Arch Equity is rapidly building up its asset base to become one of the largest BEE players in the Western Cape, with plans to list on the JSE Securities Exchange before year-end. CEO Desmond Lockey said the company has already started the process to list the company on the JSE.
A policeman was killed by armed robbers in Khayelitsha who were trying to steal his firearm, police said on Friday. Constable Chimani Lucwaba was driving with a colleague along Sigenele Road on Thursday evening when he was approached by four men, one of whom was armed, said police spokesperson Captain Billy Jones.
A cold front will hit the Western Cape province from Wednesday evening and should continue moving over South Africa, while at the same time bringing rain, until Tuesday next week, said South African Weather Service (Saws) forecaster Evert Scholtz. There should be heavy showers over parts of the Western and Eastern Cape up until Friday.
Foreign interest in South Africa’s plans to develop a small, safe, clean and cheap nuclear pebble bed modular reactor (PBMR) is high, says Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin. ”There are constant requests for information from different governments, utilities and research institutions on the PBMR technology,” he said in a written reply, tabled on Monday, to a parliamentary question.
In what the Scorpions described as an ”historic development” the elite unit registered the Western Cape’s first racketeering and money laundering conviction against the ”Marx syndicate”. Members of the notorious perlemoen smuggling gang were convicted in the Hermanus Regional Court on Thursday afternoon, said Scorpions spokesperson Sipho Ngwema.
No image available
/ 29 September 2004
Either 4,6-million or 8,4-million people had no jobs in South Africa in March this year — depending on whether one used official or expanded unemployment figures released on Tuesday. This translated into an unemployment rate of either 27,8% or 41,2%, according to the results of Statistics SA’s latest Labour Force Survey.
No image available
/ 28 September 2004
Food retailer Pick ‘n Pay has donated over 800 computer workstations to the Shuttleworth Foundation’s tuXlab programme to assist them in their drive to increase the usage of open source software in South African schools. This single donation will enable the establishment of tuXlabs in up to 40 schools.
No image available
/ 24 September 2004
Twice a year the Chrissiesmeer shop owners put up signs on their doors that say, "Gone Frogging". Instead of preparing for World Tourism Day on September 27 by publishing a set of platitudes about the most prominent places to visit, we decided to abide by the spirit of these intrepid merchants and prepare a portfolio of the country’s more unpredictable and out-of-the-ordinary travel destinations.
No image available
/ 21 September 2004
The madness of the floor-crossing period for municipal government councillors is over and once again the ruling African National Congress has snatched up swathes of support from the opposition. In the period of September 1 to 15, it reaped 326 councillors and only lost four to the opposition — two of them to Patricia de Lille’s Independent Democrats.
No image available
/ 21 September 2004
Mahatma Gandhi’s iron-fisted control over the life of his son is the focus of a newly released book in South Africa, written by his great-granddaughter. Controversially titled Gandhi’s Prisoner? The Life of Gandhi’s Son, Manilal, the 400-page book released last week is written by Uma Dhuphelia-Mesthrie and explores the Gandhi family’s early years in South Africa in the early 1900s.
No image available
/ 21 September 2004
Aggravated robbery was the only violent crime to show an increase over the past two financial years, national police commissioner Jackie Selebi announced on Monday. Murders dropped by 9,9%, attempted murder by 17,8%, serious assault by 4,3%, common assault by 2,6% and common robbery by 7,8%, he told reporters in
Pretoria.
No image available
/ 16 September 2004
The jury was out on the effectiveness of Thursday’s public-service strike in the Western Cape as unions claimed a massive turnout while the provincial government sought to downplay its impact. In Cape Town, police estimated about 17 000 strikers snaked their way through the city.
No image available
/ 16 September 2004
Congress of South African Trade Unions secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi has called on public servants to stay home on Monday and Tuesday next week. As Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi arrived to address a massive protesting crowd in Pretoria, Vavi told the public servants the department was robbing them.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Business&ao=122277&t=1">Strikers are ‘gatvol'</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Business&ao=122266">How strike will impact on economy</a>
No image available
/ 16 September 2004
There’s nothing like patting yourself on the back (something Lemmer has given up doing as it puts his spine out of place) when no one else is willing to hand you the kudos. The African National Congress Premier of the Western Cape placed prominent advertisements in newspapers to mark the first 100 days of his government elected in April.
No image available
/ 15 September 2004
Black economic empowerment company Akani Leisure Investments has taken over the Halcyon Hotels Group — which includes in its portfolio the prestigious Bay hotel and Blues restaurant in Camps Bay. The acquisition represents the first major empowerment transaction at the top end of the Western Cape hospitality industry.
No image available
/ 13 September 2004
The department of health is being taken to court again by Aids pressure group the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), which is demanding the department release its detailed anti-retroviral rollout programme. Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has already filed notice of her intention to oppose it.
No image available
/ 13 September 2004
Legendary South African communist and trade unionist, Ray Simons, died in Cape Town on Sunday night, the SA Communist Party said in a statement. Simons was born Rachel Alexander in Latvia in 1914. When she came to South Africa at the age of fifteen she was already a political militant, SACP spokesperson Mazibuko Jara said in the statement received in Johannesburg.
No image available
/ 10 September 2004
Beer giant South African Breweries (SAB) says its lawyers are considering whether to appeal a Labour Court judgement that it wrongly dismissed 115 workers in 2001. The announcement was made on Friday to a group of about 40 of the workers who gathered at the gates of the company’s brewery in Newlands, Cape Town, demanding to be taken back into service.
No image available
/ 10 September 2004
Like many South Africans I was devastated by the news that a baker’s dozen of our most respected senior politicians have been accused of not revealing to Parliament the full details of their accumulated prosperities. ”The MPs who tried to cover their assets”, jibed the front-page headline in this very paper in a patently clear attempt to hide terrible and hurtful slander behind subtle wordplay.
No image available
/ 9 September 2004
Women in labour so intoxicated they do not know they are giving birth, children fed alcohol to keep them quiet, and low grade wine cheaper than bread. These are realities in South Africa, the country with the worst foetal alcohol syndrome in the world.
No image available
/ 9 September 2004
When examining the Fair Trade movement it is important first to understand the concept of social consciousness. Becoming socially conscious does not require a paradigm shift in lifestyle — joining a commune, hugging trees or lying down in front of bulldozers. What it does require is lateral thinking and that you ask a few earnest questions about the products you buy, and, in this case, the places you go to on holiday.