More than 300 people gathered at the Hector Peterson memorial on Wednesday for a wreath laying ceremony as part of Youth Day commemorations. Peterson, then aged 13, was shot dead by police in the June 16, 1976, schoolchildren’s uprising. He was the first victim of that event.
In an effort to develop a classification of marine habitats for South Africa, the marine science community is working virtually round the clock to meet a July deadline for identifying marine priority areas for the country’s first National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan.
Marthinus van Schalkwyk, the Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister, could be called to testify for the state in the Roodefontein corruption trial which resumes next Monday. Former Western Cape premier Peter Marais and former development planning MEC David Malatsi are accused of taking hundreds of thousands of rands in bribes to smooth the way for provincial approval of a gold estate at Plettenberg Bay.
Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool will have to pay back nearly a quarter of a million rand paid to him as an extra car allowance while he was the province’s finance MEC, his office said on Thursday. Meanwhile, a Democratic Alliance MPL said she had told Rasool a year ago that his allowances — as printed in the budget — seemed too high.
The Department of Public Works did not get enough money in this year’s Budget to carry out all its appointed tasks, including tackling a maintenance backlog at government buildings, says Minister of Public Works Stella Sigcau. In February this year, her department was allocated more than R4,8-billion.
Communities in the Western Cape should get traditional knowledge royalties on rooibos tea products, provincial economic development minister Lynne Brown said on Wednesday. Brown has already promised she will lead the fight to reclaim the rooibos name from the company that has copyrighted it in the United States.
The government should measure the success of its land reform process on whether productivity of the land is maintained after a change in ownership, the Democratic Alliance said on Tuesday. DA MP Kraai van Niekerk claimed that the present reform projects have left a trail of failures.
The future of the New National Party (NNP) lies in strengthening its ties with the African National Congress (ANC), the party announced following a federal council meeting in Centurion on Saturday. The NNP and ANC have agreed to ”strengthen and deepen the relationship of cooperation between the two parties”, NNP leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk told reporters.
The affair of the mystery donor Hans that has plagued the Democratic Alliance for two years was ”100% unsatisfactory”, Democratic Alliance spokesperson Helen Zille said on Friday. She was speaking on Cape Talk radio after the announcement earlier in the day of a secret settlement with the trustees of fraudster Jurgen Harksen’s estate.
The Democratic Alliance has agreed to make an undisclosed payout to the trustees of convicted fraudster Jurgen Harksen’s estate to settle a donation to the party by the mysterious ”Hans”. The trustees were to have taken the DA to the Cape High Court next week over the DM99 000 (about R450 000) which they claimed was part of more than R1-million Harksen said he gave to the party and its former Western Cape leader Gerald Morkel.
The South African Chamber of Business has won a $20 000 award for its simple toolkit to assist small and medium enterprises address HIV/Aids in their workplaces. The chamber also won accolades for its strategy to monitor the implementation of this product through its chamber movement.
Minister of Sport and Recreation Makhenkesi Stofile has scrapped racial quotas for teams, saying they have not helped to accelerate the transformation of sports codes, which are currently not representative of the people of South Africa But national teams will remain lily-white unless selectors and coaches are put under
pressure, writes Rapule Tabane.
On the eve of a federal council meeting to discuss the future of the New National Party following its poor performance in April’s national and provincial elections, the party’s Gauteng administrative office has closed. The move is in no way a sign of the party’s imminent dissolution in Gauteng, provincial leader Johan Kilian said.
Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana on Wednesday stated that more than 600 000 domestic employers have registered with the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) to date. The minister expressed his satisfaction with the process of registering domestic workers.
South African food and industrial group AVI has reached an agreement to acquire Denny Mushrooms for R197,5-million rand, less all interest-bearing debt as at the effective date. Denny is a producer of fresh, canned and value-added mushroom products in South Africa, with a market share exceeding 50%.
The Health Department would not be suspending anti-retroviral programmes for children as had been reported in the media, a spokesperson said on Tuesday. However, it had warned participating hospitals to make sure they had enough supplies of the medication before enrolling new patients, spokesperson Sibani Mngadi said.
The Western Cape’s head of housing has had his employment contract suspended following an internal investigation into alleged malpractices and irregularities within the department, the MEC for housing said on Sunday. The audit was completed in March this year and brought to light underspending of R144-million in the delivery of housing during the 2003/04 financial year.
Sheryl Ozinsky, one of South Africa’s best known tourism players, has resigned from the board of Cape Town Tourism. The board confirmed her resignation in a statement on Saturday, saying that Ozinsky was ”seeking challenges that will enable her to use her passion, experience and energy in tourism marketing”.
Taking his cue from President Thabo Mbeki, Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool — while delivering his maiden premier’s speech in the provincial legislature — committed his government to implementing 20 ”measurable actions” within the next 100 days, including training 515 new railway police.
South Africa’s nine major cities have not fully recognised the importance of ”systematically” managing built-up areas and critical stresses have been placed on natural resources, the first State of the Cities report warns. The report brings together detailed empirical data about the country’s nine largest cities.
The Cape Town Anti-War Coalition (ATC) called on the South African government on Thursday to expel the Israeli ambassador as well as cut all trade and diplomatic ties with Israel, which it accuses of "ethic cleansing". The ATC will be supporting a protest before the gates of Parliament on Friday.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=66642">More die as Israeli army marches on</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=66608">SA govt condemns Israeli incursion</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=66598">Israeli tanks fire on peaceful protest</a>
Erectile dysfunction, although frequently the butt of jokes, is usually an indicator of underlying serious medical conditions, pharmaceutical company Lilly said on Thursday. Although no broad studies had been undertaken in South Africa, seven out of 10 men between the ages of 35 to 79 interviewed at primary health care clinics in the Western Cape said they had had some experience of the condition.
The New National Party’s federal council is to meet in three weeks — on Saturday June 5 — to assess the party’s future after its poor showing in the national and provincial elections. A newspaper report on Tuesday said the Free State region of the party will motivate that the party should disband.
Institutionalised, representative democracy in our country is in trouble. This is not because the African National Congress’s sizeable electoral victory supposedly heralds the imminent arrival of a one-party state. It is simply because, only a decade after the introduction of a universal electoral franchise in South Africa, just more than 50% of all eligible voters participated in the formal process of representative democracy.
As South Africa’s new government braces itself for the task of extending clean water supplies to more people, environmentalists are warning there may soon be little water to distribute if conservation efforts are not stepped up. They believe the country will run out of water by 2030 unless current water resources are better maintained.
Three Cape Flats community leaders, including former gangster Rashied Staggie, were effectively jailed for 13 years on Wednesday for a burglary at the Faure police armoury six years ago. Staggie’s sentence will run concurrently with the 15 years he got last year in the Cape High Court for rape.
The Electoral Court presided over a tug of war on Tuesday over 2 666 votes that could give the African Christian Democratic Party a seventh National Assembly seat but leave the Azanian People’s Organisation with one. The ACDP claims the votes, cast in Khayelitsha on April 14, were wrongly credited to Azapo.
As part of the unbundling of listed black empowerment group New Africa Investments, its subsidiary New Africa Publications Magazines Limited has been sold to unlisted publishing house Cape Media for an undisclosed sum. Announcing the sale on Tuesday, Nail said the main asset in the company is business publication, <i>Leadership</i>.
South African Tourism on Saturday launched a new marketing brand at the opening of the annual tourism Indaba in Durban on Saturday. The new Tourism and Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said at the Indaba that increasing air access to South Africa would be of his priorities.
Human error and adverse weather conditions caused the airplane crash which claimed the life of former national cricket captain Hansie Cronje in June 2002, the Civil Aviation Authority said on Thursday. ”The report indicates the probable causes of the accident to be human factor-related, with weather and mechanical as well as technological factors contributing,” said the CAA.
A leading climatologist has warned that the government should take a long-term view of changing climate conditions, or face potential consequences that could ”seriously compound” the existing challenges facing South Africa. Government is aware of it, but needs to recognise this as a long term issue of seriousness,” said Professor Bruce Hewitson.
Former state president PW Botha had advised a right-wing coup plotter to get out of politics and ”get a movement with an iron fist”, the Boeremag treason trial heard on Thursday. State witness Lourens du Plessis told the Pretoria High Court he had visited Botha at home in June 2001 to discuss the political situation in the country.