South African news – praag.co.za

Farmers face dangerous holiday season

A dangerous festive season lies ahead for farmers and those living on farms, the agricultural union TAU SA warned on Monday.

The number of farm attacks in November in the northern regions of South Africa had exceeded the total for the first six months of this year, it said in a statement.

"The levels of physical abuse, and [the] cold-bloodedness of the attackers, seems to be unique to cases involving farm dwellers; this indicates increased intolerance and revenge," said TAU SA president Paul van der Walt.

He called on farmers to get actively involved in security efforts to protect lives and property in rural areas.

паркет деревянный topcargo

South Africa won’t condemn rape

South Africa’s refusal to condemn the use of rape as a means of achieving political or military objectives and its calls for the broadening of the definition to include “all forms of sexual violence in all its forms and manifestations” may sully its international image, analysts say.

Last week the United Nations General Assembly attempted to adopt a resolution to eliminate the use of rape as a weapon of war and intimidation but was thwarted by South Africa. It was reminiscent of South Africa’s refusal to discuss Zimbabwe at the UN Security Council and its vote that blocked a resolution demanding an end to human rights abuses in Burma.

Hannah Botsis, a political researcher at the South African Institute of Race Relations, questioned South Africa’s record on human rights since assuming its position at the Security Council. “It seems that South Africa wants to throw its weight around, that they want to be taken seriously. What is a pity is that they seem to be objecting to all the wrong issues.”

Botsis argues that there would be no harm in South Africa endorsing the resolution on rape as a weapon of war, and questions the motives behind the move. “If South Africa thinks that the United States is raising this resolution for political reasons, then South Africa could take that political issue up with the US elsewhere. Again South Africa has failed to come out strongly on the side of human rights … Is this about human rights or is it about being vocal against the Western world?” asks Botsis, pointing out that South Africa’s oppositional stance “does more harm than good”.

The Western media’s coverage of the issue has not helped Africa’s reputation, particularly in light of South Africa’s high levels of sexual violence, says Abdul Lamin, senior lecturer in international relations at Wits University.

“The reports coming out seem to suggest that South Africa condones sexual violence when in fact they are putting forward a principled argument,” Lamin said. “We should condemn rape wherever it is being perpetrated, including by the occupying forces of Iraq,” he added.

Rape under any circumstances is “a cause for concern” and should be condemned, says Lisa Vetten, researcher at the Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre, adding that the international community should not lose sight of the bigger picture by targeting only specific states.

Adam Habib, deputy vicechancellor at the University of Johannesburg, points out that US-led resolutions have manipulated genuine human rights issues in order for it to push country-specific agendas “against people whom they dislike”.

Habib points to the fact that US President George W Bush specifically mentioned Burma and Sudan in endorsing the rape resolution but he has never acknowledged atrocities committed by American soldiers in Iraq.

Habib said while there was a definite human rights issue to be addressed, those who condemned South Africa’s actions at the UN were “not seeing the politics at play”.

Habib does concede, however, that “in opposing the [US’s] hidden agenda South Africa has opposed the resolution and that is a problem”.

“It presents an interesting dilemma. The answer is not to oppose the resolution but to revise it so that the language applies evenly across all countries,” he says, adding that this might be why South Africa has insisted on a redraft to address a broader definition of rape.

Democratic Alliance MP Sheila Camerer was part of a South African delegation to the Fourth World Conference on Women where the Beijing Declaration was signed and rape was recognised as a war crime. “I remember we worked long and hard on that declaration and the wording thereof … It had the UN’s ‘blessing’ and serves as an advisory which one hopes would be influential in the international court [setting],” she says.

Camerer says she finds it “strange” that South Africa had been a part of that declaration but was now calling for a broader consideration of rape. “Perhaps he [South African ambassador to the UN Dumisani Kumalo] doesn’t know about the declaration.”

South Africa’s position on Zimbabwe and Burma is simply about South Africa following the lead of India and China, says Francis Kornegay, a senior researcher at the Centre for Policy Studies. He explains that if South Africa failed to toe the line it would certainly jeopardise the bargaining power it has with the two emergent superpowers.

“Zimbabwe is on the doorstep of South Africa in the same way that Burma is close to China and India.”

topcargo отзывы

Erasing the Afrikaner Nation

CNN’s Kyra Phillips has led her viewers to believe that dangling a noose—an impolite and impolitic form of expression—is a hate crime; a black man beating a white man to a pulp—not so much. Being maimed or murdered, evidently, doesn’t compare to being insulted. Phillips and the feminized establishment media have difficulties differentiating a felony from an affront to feelings. No wonder these wonder men and women are mum about who’s killing whom in the democratic South Africa, the pride of the liberal press.

While black South African criminals are not neglecting other blacks, they are, overwhelmingly, targeting Indians and whites. According to the South African Institute of Security Studies, “Only 32 percent of all blacks questioned knew someone who was a victim of crime,” compared to 66 percent of Indian adults and 56 percent of white adults. The color of crime and its casualties both in America and South Africa is the proverbial elephant in the room—to be touched upon only if the victims can be vilified as racists.

The BBC as well as New Zealand and Australian television news-networks have covered the racially motivated killing campaign Africans are conducting against the Afrikaner farmers of South Africa. Not Kyra and her colleagues at Fox, MSNBC, ABC, and CBS. No wonder, then, that the orchestrated ethnocide against the entire Afrikaner people has not been brought out into the open, as they like to say on CNN.

Ethnocide, as defined by Michael Mann, a leading historical sociologist, is “state-induced cultural assimilation, through hegemony and suppression.” The warmed-over Marxists governing South Africa with the West’s blessing are leading the charge against the country’s Afrikaner past, patriotism, and institutions.

Afrikaans, in particular, has come under the ANC’s attack, as the government attempts to compel Afrikaans schools to adopt English. Afrikaans-speaking universities, for example, have been labeled racist in the New South Africa and have been forced to merge with “third-rate black institutions so that campuses may be swamped by blacks demanding instruction in English,” to quote the Afrikaner intellectual, Dan Roodt.

The ANC’s attempts to tame and claim South-African history have been extended to landmarks in the annals of the founding people—these are being slowly erased, as demonstrated by the ANC’s decision to give an African name to Potchefstroom, a town founded in 1838 by the “Voortrekkers” (Dutch pioneers). The leader of those pioneers, Marthinus Pretorius, founded the capital, Pretoria. It is now Tshwane! Durban’s Moore Road (after Sir John Moore, the hero of the Battle of Corunna) is Che Guevara Road; Kensington Drive, Fidel Castro Drive. The cherry on the cake is Yasser Arafat highway, down which the motorist can speed on the way to the Durban airport.

As a subject in the school curriculum, history was initially neglected during the transition to majority rule. The establishment of the “South African History Project” changed that. The Project’s aim, according to Sasha Polakow-Suransky of the Chronicle of Higher Education, has been “a resurrection of the subject as a prominent field of study in the national school curriculum.” Unfortunately, following the American academy’s example, the trend has been away from “the pursuit of objective historical truth,” toward a postmodern, politically correct reconstruction of historical events, with the aim of fostering “certain values,” in the words of Kader Asmal, the minister of education in 2000.

“You have books appearing that interpret the history of South Africa only according to the perspective of the liberation struggle,” avers Pieter Kapp, a retired professor of history at Stellenbosch University. Indeed, “Since 1994, tales of European conquest are slowly beginning to disappear from the nation’s classrooms, giving way to epic accounts of black anti-apartheid heroes,” writes Polakow-Suransky.

Like it or not, the modern marvel that was South Africa—with its space program and skyscrapers—was not the handiwork of the black nationalist movement now dismantling it; but the creation of those persecuted, pale, patriarchal Protestants.

Ilana Mercer is a columnist for WorldNetDaily.com, and a Fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies. Her website is at www.ilanamercer.com , her blog at http://blog.ilanamercer.com

topcargo отзыв

Racial tensions rise at UKZN

A student representative council at the University of KwaZulu Natal (UKZN) lashed out at the institution’s management Thursday, saying that remnants of apartheid still existed on the campus.

Central Student Representative Council (CSRC) secretary-general Mshengu Kwazi was reacting to meetings held at the campus to discuss the recent rape of an American exchange student at on the Howard College campus.

Kwazi said meetings had ended in chaos and the deputy dean of students was man-handled on Monday by "some white academics".

"This because he was not giving pre-determined answers on the rape case… We regard it as nothing but a shameful expression of political frustration by a brood of fangless vipers."

Kwazi added that the meeting on Wednesday was similar. "If the deputy dean was white he wouldn’t have been man-handled…. those who came on behalf of the university were not attacked and we
believe this was because they were of another race."

Kwazi said the CSRC was upset by the behaviour of varsity management and the fact that its views were being sidelined.

"The dramatisation and distortion of our views at the meeting yesterday (Wednesday) proved to us that there are still remnants of apartheid in our institution – that will do anything to pursue their
politically-naked agenda of silencing and threatening those who are not shy to speak about their demonic tendencies," Kwazi said in a statement.

"These are the very same remnants that continue to ensure bad publicity of our institution – that is why every time they call a meeting, they also mobilise the media and attack the university.

"We are convinced that these barbaric styles of expressing anger are due to the fact that they are not comfortable with serving under the leadership of a black vice-chancellor," he said.

Kwazi said following the rape on November 13, a few meetings were held which resulted in "racist tendencies manifesting from the incident".

Police Inspector Michael Read said the rape took place at the university’s Howard College campus residence.

The girl was taken to King Edward VIII Hospital where she was treated, and anti-retrovirals administered.

"A number of our students have been victims of rape attacks and robberies but there has never been any commotion as we are witnessing now. In fact, two weeks prior to the incident in question, another student was raped and she unfortunately committed suicide thereafter," Kwazi said.

He said the institution was not speaking out on black students who were being raped.

"This latest incident has been blown out of proportion," Kwazi said.

He said "racial statements" made during meetings had also convinced the CRSC that the university was still living with remnants of apartheid.

Ian Smith ‘was overthrown’

The former prime minister of Rhodesia, Ian Smith, has died aged 88.

The cause of his death is unknown but he had been ill for some time at a residential home in South Africa.

He illegally declared independence from Britain in 1965 and his white minority government led the country for 14 years amid international scorn and sanctions.

Following a bitter bush war with black nationalists, his government was overthrown by Robert Mugabe in 1979, leading to the creation of Zimbabwe.

Ian Smith’s supporters continued to laud him as a political visionary and a man who understood the uncomfortable truths of Africa.

To his detractors, however, he was an unrepentant racist.

Mr Mugabe’s deputy information minister, Bright Matonga, described Ian Smith as a man who brought untold suffering to millions of Zimbabweans.

"We offered him the hand of reconciliation which he never accepted. Good riddance," Mr Matonga was quoted by AFP news agency as saying.

The BBC’s James Robbins says that to the end of his days Ian Smith was convinced that Rhodesians, black and white, would have fared better under his leadership than that of Robert Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party.

He died believing he had been vindicated by Zimbabwe’s current crisis, with its massive inflation and unemployment.

Steeped in the colonial values of his Scottish immigrant father, our correspondent says Mr Smith was a born leader with a distinguished war record as an RAF fighter pilot.

He helped to found the right-wing Rhodesian Front, which came to power in 1962, and when the-then prime minister, Winston Field, baulked at the prospect of seizing independence, the party turned to Mr Smith, who gave them what they wanted.

He became prime minister of the then self-governing British colony of Rhodesia in 1964. The following year he made his Unilateral Declaration of Independence and years of civil war ensued.

Ian Smith denied this was caused by the actions of his regime and insisted there was nothing wrong with five million blacks being ruled by 200,000 whites.

In the end, Mr Smith maintained, it was not his enemies who beat him, but apartheid South Africa’s threat to cut Rhodesia’s lifeline.

Margaret Thatcher’s UK government brokered a peace deal in the Lancaster House talks in 1979 and a black-majority government took over Zimbabwe.

Ian Smith remained a key player in Zimbabwean politics until seats reserved for whites were abolished in 1987.

When in retirement he failed to create a united opposition to Robert Mugabe, Mr Smith was finally relegated to the sidelines.

low stakes casino топкарго кидалы

ANC Gauteng Branches Opt for Zuma

THE majority of African National Congress (ANC) Gauteng branches have come out in support of Jacob Zuma in the party’s leadership race set to come to a head at its conference in 34 days.

In Johannesburg, Gauteng’s most influential region, not a single branch voted in favour of President Thabo Mbeki’s bid for a third term. More than half of Johannesburg’s branches have completed their nomination processes. The region produces a quarter of ANC’s Gauteng delegates going to the elective national conference in Polokwane.

Meanwhile, nothing has come of reports of Mbeki’s imminent nomination by the ANC’s Sandton branch.

An insider said yesterday the Sunday afternoon branch general meeting "did not materialise" as delegates "failed" to pitch.

Commentators are looking to the ANC’s nomination process, which closes on November 26, for an early indication of the state of the Zuma-Mbeki race.

To add to Mbeki’s re-election woes in Gauteng, businessman Cyril Ramaphosa has secured more presidential nominations than Mbeki has in the province. Ramaphosa has five nominations, while Mbeki and another presidential hopeful, Tokyo Sexwale, have three each.

With just more than a quarter of the 354 branches in Gauteng having finalised their preferences for the ANC’s top posts, Zuma has already secured 57 presidential nominations.

Gauteng is the ANC’s fourth- largest voting bloc at the national conference, after Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo.

Steven Friedman, senior research associate at policy think-tank Idasa, said the Gauteng picture was a bigger problem for Mbeki than the news for Zuma that he was losing the nomination race in Eastern Cape.

"This must weigh heavily for Mbeki, and surely will make him pause for thought. The question of how important it is for him to beat Zuma has to arise. What happens to his legacy? What if he ends up losing, what if he ends up winning but only by 52% or 54 % of the vote ?" Friedman asked.

Another insider said that the ANC Youth League in Gauteng had been "instrumental" in ensuring the upsurge of support for Zuma in the province.

The league remains Zuma’s key backer, while KwaZulu-Natal is regarded as his strongest constituency.

Mbeki’s main support base is Eastern Cape, while his lobbyists are also pursuing the ANC Women’s League’s nomination .

Brain drain cannot be reversed

South Africa’s skills shortage has reached calamitous proportions, and the belief that expatriates will come home to reverse the situation is an illusion, a recruitment expert told a labour conference in Midrand.

Gusti Coetzer, of Leaders Unlimited, said there was a world-wide shortage of talented people and South African recruiters were "fishing in the same pool" as their competitors elsewhere in the world.

Speaking at the Labour Market conference in Midrand last week, Coetzer said the workforce had become globally integrated.

"There is a world-wide shortage of top people and executives can now pick and choose jobs.

"While job satisfaction and the quality of the company play a major role in attracting talent, ultimately the remuneration package and how it is structured remains the deciding factor.

"Mobility has created a world without boundaries where top executives can select who they want to work for. To think that South African executives who are working for multinationals are going to come back out of a sense of patriotism is completely unfounded," Coetzer said.

A more realistic approach to the skills shortage would be to nurture local talent by improving the country’s educational institutions.

She told the conference that in a recent Global Talent Index Survey, South African business schools were ranked 27th out of 30 (ahead only of business schools in Iran, Nigeria and Indonesia). More disturbing was the finding that South Africa’s proclivity to attract talent was ranked last.

She said among the things senior executives looked at when being head-hunted in South Africa was the company’s record in attracting and retaining staff.

Coetzer said it was not true that South African executives were overpaid.

"Salaries and benefits like performance bonuses and share options are set internationally and top men and women in the boardroom earn much the same across the world because of the global fluidity of the workforce," she said.

Among the prime jobs on which recruitment efforts were focused, were chartered accountants to be employed as chief financial officers. There was also a huge shortage of qualified engineers.

Project managers, supply chain and logistic managers, and research and development staff were also difficult to recruit.

She said it was imperative that South African universities reversed the appalling pass rates notched up in the engineering disciplines.

"Recent figures show that between 1998 and 2004, of the 50 570 students who were enrolled at tertiary institutions, only 8 900 graduated, which represents a pass rate of only 17,7 percent."

She also revealed that only about 700 engineers entered the economy yearly, while the demand for new engineers would be about 11 000 by 2010.

While black economic empowerment had generally been embraced, the sector that needed to be commended was financial services, where 52 percent of analysts were black.

игры дляя девочек Фильчаков

Barclays bankrolling Zimbabwe

Controversy has brewed once again for the British Barclays Bank over its alleged bankrolling of the Mugabe regime. This time the bank is accused of providing loans to Robert Mugabe’s land owning Ministers, to ‘improve productivity in agriculture,’ despite the fact that the farms were taken illegally and violently. The revelations come only months after it was revealed that a Barclays subsidiary was funding fuel supplies for the Zimbabwean government, including jet fuel for military planes, which is under a trade ban.

According to a report in The Sunday Times UK, Barclays has lent Â£750 million to at least 5 ministers in the first half of this year alone. The beneficiaries include the national security minister who is also in charge of Land Reform, Didymus Mutasa, Information and publicity minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, Agricultural Minister Rugare Gumbo and Webster Shamu, Minister for policy implementation.

At issue is the question of ethics and corporate responsibility. Barclays is providing funds to Ministers who took farms illegally under the violent and chaotic land reform programme, which displaced hundreds of thousands of farm workers, thousands of commercial white farmers and led to the destruction of agriculture in Zimbabwe. Now these same ministers are gaining even more personal wealth under the guise of agricultural improvement, while their oppressive policies continue to deprive Zimbabweans of their basic Constitutional rights.

The Sunday Times report said Barclays made £34 million in profit in Zimbabwe last year, which is extremely negligible in terms of the bank’s profits worldwide. So the question remains as to why Barclays chooses to continue funding the government by operating in Zimbabwe.

Barclays made headlines earlier this year when it was alleged that ABSA, its subsidiary in South Africa, was funding fuel supplies for the Zimbabwean government, which included jet fuel for military airplanes. The allegations were made by a British NGO called Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID), which monitors corporate ethics in third world development.

At the time the group said they had reported the matter to the British Foreign Office, which is responsible for sanctions, and the Department of Trade and Industry which handles corporate governance and ethical behaviour by British registered companies and banks.

Meanwhile, lands and security minister Didymus Mutasa reportedly admitted, during closed hearings in a court in Paris recently, that the government was wrong to seize white farms which belonged to a group of 10 Dutch citizens 5 years ago. The Dutch citizens were not compensated for their properties and the court is now reportedly considering what amount the Zimbabwe government should pay.

Five years after their homes and livelihoods were taken by President Robert Mugabe’s supporters, a group of 10 Dutch citizens who farmed in Zimbabwe have presented their case for compensation to an international tribunal in Paris.

Lands and security minister Didymus Mutasa appeared in the Paris court, despite a visa ban by the European Union on Mutsasa and members of the ruling Zanu PF.

The ban was temporarily lifted to allow him to travel to Paris to give evidence at the tribunal ten days ago. The hearings were closed to the media and the public.

The farmers took their case to the Washington-based International Center for Settlement of the Investment Disputes calling for the Mugabe government to admit breaching a bilateral investment treaty with the Netherlands. Mutasa admitted in court that the treaty had been broken.

The court is expected to present its ruling on the amount of compensation the farmers should receive before March next year.

If Mugabe’s administration fails to pay compensation to the farmers, they would have the right to seize any Zimbabwe government property outside the country including loans from the World Bank and export earnings.

There are an additional 50 farmers from Switzerland, Germany and Denmark whose lands have been seized and who are also preparing to go to the tribunal to get compensation. All of them come from countries that have similar treaties with Zimbabwe.

More than 4,000 white farmers and hundreds of thousands of their workers lost homes and incomes during the land seizures. The land grab began after President Mugabe suffered his first political defeat in 2000 when he lost a referendum for a new constitution that same year.

Zimbabwean Bob Fernandes, now living in Britain, is chairman of a group called AgricAfrica, which helps pay for the farmers’ legal fees. He said he hoped this case would eventually lead to fair compensation for all Zimbabwe farmers who were evicted from their homes.

A source close to the Dutch farmers, who have now all left Zimbabwe, said they have claimed about $48 million (33 million euros).

British lawyer Matthew Coleman, who represented the farmers at the tribunal said in an email: "The Zimbabwean government acknowledged that certain ‘deprivations’ had taken place without payment of compensation." He added that it would "pay compensation in full as and when it is able to do so."

Mutasa defended the seizure of white-owned farms citing the colonial era in which he said the best agricultural land was taken by white settlers, mostly British.

Most of the nearly 20 million acres seized by the government from white farmers since 2000 is now lying idle. Less than 10 percent of evicted white farmers have received compensation in the last seven years at less than 3 percent of the value of the properties.

The collapse of commercial agriculture triggered the dramatic downturn of the Zimbabwe economy which now has the highest inflation in the world at nearly 8,000 percent. Once the breadbasket of Africa, Zimbabwe now depends on international aid to feed at least a quarter of the population.

люстра Данильченко

China pays Sasol to aid Zim

National Machinery and Equipment Import and Export Corporation has provided US$4,5 million to Zimbabwe for the importation of 10 000 tonnes of ammonium.

The ammonium will be supplied by Sasol, a diversified South African chemical company, and is convertible to 20 000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate. Sources said Government brokered the deal although it was not clear how the debt would be settled. "The money has already been paid to Sasol and we are waiting for the delivery of the consignment," said one source who spoke on condition of anonymity. About 800 000 tonnes of both AN and basal fertilizers are required for the 2007/08 farming season. Last week, Agriculture Minister Mr Rugare Gumbo said Government was targeting to import 800 000 tonnes of basal and top dressing fertilizers to avert the looming shortage of the critical farming input.

Mr Gumbo said strategies were being pursued to finance and boost the capacity of the local industry. Industry and International Trade Minister Mr Obert Mpofu could not comment. Fertilizer companies were currently operating at 30 percent capacity, according to industry players. Presently Sable, the country’s sole producer of AN, is surviving on toll manufacturing contracts from local companies such as the Cotton Company of Zimbabwe, Cargill and Alliance Ginneries, among other players in the cotton industry.

The company, whose maximum production capacity is 240 000 tonnes per year, has only been operating at half mast, churning out 120 000 tonnes per year. No comment could be obtained from Sables general manager Mr John Mhunduru as his mobile phone went unanswered. Apart from raw material shortages, the company is also facing recurrent breakdowns at its plant. Sables indicated that it needed US$40 million to refurbish the plant.

Conglomerate TA Holdings owns 51 percent in Sables. Government plans to put 3,2 million hectares under maize, small grains, cotton and oil seeds during the 2007/08 farming season.

Schools close as Zim teachers resign

A South African recruitment drive for teachers, combined with an exodus of education professionals escaping Zimbabwe’s seven-year recession, is creating staff shortages so severe that some schools are closing.

At least four schools have closed and several more are facing the same situation. The students are being transferred at a time when they are preparing to write their year-end examinations, placing even greater pressure on the recipient schools.

Teacher’s salaries have not kept pace with Zimbabwe’s official inflation rate of more than 6,000 percent, while neighbouring South Africa has embarked on a recruitment drive for teachers in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) to bolster their own teacher numbers.

Firoz Patel, director-general for planning and monitoring in South Africa’s education department, has reportedly said they were seeking to recruit at least 4,000 mathematics and science teachers from the region by April 2008. The department had already recruited 1,500 teachers, who were being deployed to posts in remote areas, often shunned by local teachers.

The Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ), the biggest grouping of educators in the country, said this week that 15,200 teachers had migrated to neighbouring states, such as South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Swaziland, since the beginning of 2007.

Raymond Majongwe, secretary-general of PTUZ, confirmed that the mass exodus of teachers was forcing schools to close, while many institutions were operating with a skeleton teaching staff.

"There are two schools in Matabeleland North [Province] which have shut down as a result of teacher shortages, while in Matabeleland South [Province] there are reports that one headmaster was forced to close down the school after all the teachers left," Majongwe told IRIN. He said 8,000 teachers had left Zimbabwe after the first term, while another 7,200 left after the second term.

"There has been a mass exodus of teachers … the situation this term is worse because, in the last two weeks alone, hundreds of teachers resigned en masse and the figures of teachers who have now left the country could be double those of the beginning of the year. We are still compiling the statistics," Majongwe said.

Last week, Inyathi High School in Matabeleland South Province transferred its students to nearby Gloag High School after all the science teachers resigned, while Lumene Primary School, in the same district, failed to open for the third term when none of the teachers arrived for duty. Other schools that have failed to open in Matabeleland South are Chibila Primary in Binga, Sizinda and Gundwane Primary School.

Zipora Mudenda, Acting Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education and Culture, confirmed that teachers had resigned but said she was unaware of any schools closing as a result of staff shortages.

"As far as we are concerned all schools have been operational, and if there are such cases of schools not being opened or closing down, this has not been brought to our attention – and in such cases the education directors are supposed to staff those schools with relief teachers," Mudenda said.

She conceded there was a brain drain affecting the education profession, and said the ministry was implementing a skills-retention fund in a bid to retain teachers, but the initiative was dismissed by the PTUZ.

"The government has not done anything to retain teachers. The retention fee of Z$200,000 (US$0.40 at the parallel market rate of Z$500,000 to US$1) a month is a joke, and teachers will continue to leave until government gets serious," Majongwe told IRIN.

The staffing shortages at schools have become a serious concern for the parents of school-going children, who are about to start writing their final year exams.

"Since the beginning of the term the students have not been learning anything due to a shortage of teachers, and the situation is made worse by the fact that the government has embarked on an exercise to recruit untrained teachers to fill the gaps," Martha Tshuma told IRIN. Her child attends Sobukhazi Secondary School in the high-density suburb of Mzilikazi in Zimbabwe’s second city, Bulawayo.

Students in many schools in and around Bulawayo, interviewed by IRIN, said most teachers at their schools were untrained relief teachers. "Right now all teachers at school are temporary teachers, and they do not seem to be in charge, as they are confused by a lot of things in our syllabi," said a final-year student who declined to be named.

Majongwe said the government was using relief teachers, but this was not a solution and was compromising education standards in a country once widely regarded as setting some of the best educational standards in Africa after Zimbabwe won its independence from Britain in 1980.

Last week 25 teachers resigned from Kuwadzana High School in the capital, Harare, while at Mzilikazi High School, in Bulawayo, 20 teachers resigned, Majongwe said.

Hyperinflation has played havoc with teachers’ salaries of about Z$5 million (US$10) per month. A promise by the ZANU-PF government that salaries would increase to Z$15 million (US$30) has been dismissed as nothing more than a perpetuation of poverty wages.

в тренажерный

3000 Harmony miners trapped

About 3,000 miners were trapped underground Wednesday when a water pipe burst and probably caused a shaft to collapse in a South African gold mine, officials said.

There were no immediate reports of any injuries at Harmony Gold’s Elandsrand Mine near Johannesburg. A company executive said officials have been in contact with the trapped workers and expect to rescue them over the next 24 hours.

Harmony’s acting chief executive, Graham Briggs, said on MSNBC that the miners have been receiving food and water.

He said the rescuers would evacuate the miners over the next day using a small cage in another shaft, but the process would be a slow one.

"It’s a case of getting a large number of people up in cages," he told MSNBC, according to Dow Jones news service.

Briggs said that the workers – consisting of the mine’s entire morning shift – became trapped after damage to a shaft made it unsafe for workers to use.

"Nobody was injured, but there was extensive damage to the steel work and electrical feeder cords," said Harmony Gold spokeswoman Amelia Soares, according to the South African Press Association.

The spokesman for the National Union of Mineworkers, Lesiba Seshoka, said the managers were meeting with union members.

"It’s a terrible situation," Seshoka told The Associated Press. "The only exit is blocked, probably by a fall of ground."

Officials said burst water pipe probably caused soil in the underground shaft to collapse. Seshoka said it wasn’t clear how deep the miners were underground but gold mine shafts in South Africa are typically about 1 1/2 miles below ground.

The union feared the men could be trapped without oxygen because of collapsed ground, or impeded by rock falls and mud slides by the burst ware pipe.

Seshoka charged the shafts had not been properly maintained. "Our guys there tell us that they have raised concerns about the whole issue of maintenance of shafts with the mine (managers) but they have not been attended to," he said.

Last year, 199 mineworkers died in accidents, mostly rock falls, the government Mine Health and Safety Council reported in September.

‘Blue, orange and white’…

The Madiba Banqueting Halls in Potchefstroom were defaced sometime on Thursday, the Tlokwe City Council said on Saturday.

The defacement was discovered on Friday morning by workers at the building, said the council – the building had been defaced with the old apartheid flag colours of blue, orange and white.

"Those behind these acts of vandalism are people with a political agenda.

"There are people who are mobilising for a rent boycott in protest against the name changes," said the council.

The council condemned "racist graffiti" found across the city as "completely unacceptable.

They contained insults, political defiance, and attacks on black people, their leaders and government.

The council said they had lodged a complaint with the police and would be studying their CCTV cameras for more information about who was behind these acts.

The city’s new street names were being removed and dumped in the Vaal River.

Others had been defaced with black paint, said the council.

"One of the Nelson Mandela Drive street name-plates was painted with black paint to read "Dela rylaan".

"We are now convinced that those engaged in these acts of political vandalism are people with a clear political agenda," said the council.

мокрый ротор купить topcargo развод

SA experts sound ebola alarm

Fear that infected travellers arrive in SA.

South Africa’s medical experts are alarmed by an outbreak of the deadly ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo — fearing that infected travellers could spread the disease here.

This comes after World Health Organisation officials confirmed yesterday that five people had tested positive for the virus in the Congo.

Authorities have reported some “120 deaths among 300 sick people” over just the past four months, said its spokesman, Gregory Hartl.

Professor Robert Swanepoel, a consultant in the special pathogens unit at South Africa’s National Institute of Communicable Diseases, said while the fatal disease occurred mainly in the Congo, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, infected people are known to travel to South Africa and other parts of the world for medical treatment.

The World Health Organisation has now activated its global outbreak alert and response network , asking health organisations to send epidemiologists and other medical experts to the Congo.

Ebola, which causes death in 50percent to 90percent of cases, is transmitted by contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected persons.

Symptoms begin with fever and muscle pain, followed by vomiting and diarrhoea.

Foreign affairs ministry spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa said: “ An ebola outbreak is an ongoing problem in the region. However, I am not aware of South Africa being asked to assist with any outbreak.”

Swanepoel said it was not uncommon for medical evacuation companies to transport infected patients to South Africa, as was the case recently when an doctor infected with ebola was brought into the country.

The doctor, from Nigeria, was treated at the Unitas Hospital, outside Pretoria.

Swanepoel said: “He obviously died as there is no cure for the disease. It is known that people come to South Africa for treatment.”

Three airlines — SAA, Hewa Bora Airlines and Kenya Airways — operate flights between Johannesburg and the Congo capital of Kinshasa.

SAA is the only carrier that flies direct between the two destinations, four days a week, while the other two carriers have stop-overs in Lumbumbashi and Nairobi respectively.

SAA said it had noted the reports of “a suspected haemorrhagic fever outbreak in a remote part of the Congo”.

SAA spokesperson Sarah Uys said if the situation worsened , passengers would be warned about a possible danger.

“But for now we don’t foresee problems,” she said.

Swanepoel said viruses such as ebola usually stem from war- torn areas, and regions where there was bad governance.

He said: “I can’t explain why this is, but this outbreak in the Congo is yet another in a long succession.”

Jaco Folmer, medical director of SAA-Netcare Travel Clinics, said the people most at risk were health workers in the affected areas.

In 1996, a nurse in Johannesburg was diagnosed with ebola haemorrhagic fever and a frantic search ensued to locate the source, a doctor in Gabon who had sought treatment for his illness in South Africa.

The nurse died, but the spread of the infection was prevented.

Folmer said the risk of contracting the virus was greater when travelling.

He said: “Infected people start bleeding from the nose and ears and [should be] kept in strict isolation.

“What is even scarier is that there are no tell-tale signs for the disease, so you can’t tell one infected person from another just by looking at them.”

топкарго

Farms seizure warning in SA

Farmers in South Africa have been warned that they could have their land taken from them unless they stop "abusive" policies towards workers.

Most highly productive farmland in South Africa is still in the hands of white farmers. While the government has enacted a "restitution" policy of handing plots to blacks under a willing buyer, willing seller system, critics have said progress has been too slow.

While the situation is far from that witnessed in neighbouring Zimbabwe, tensions have soared recently over alleged illegal lay-offs of workers and mistreatment by farm owners.

Lulu Xingwana, the agriculture and land affairs minister, said at the weekend that some farmers could face tough punishment.

"We are obviously disturbed by the persistent reports of abuses on farms," she said. "For those people who are not keeping [within] the law, the government has the right to expropriate."

Mrs Xingwana was reacting to claims on Wednesday by Dirk du Toit, her deputy minister, that white farmers had a lingering feudal attitude towards their staff.

In response to a question about farmers who lay off and evict workers unlawfully, Mr Du Toit told MPs: "Those people who don’t want to hear, we are not only going to take them to court, we are going to also take their land away from them."

The leading opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, called Mr Du Toit’s statement racist. "As a senior member of the ANC, he [is] insinuating that all of [white farmers] assault their farm workers," said Maans Nel, the party’s land affairs spokesman,.

The country’s largest farmers’ union, Agri SA, said it was not aware of any illegal farm evictions this year.

камни для бани топкарго отзывы