South Africa News

PRINCE Harry's Zimbabwean girlfriend Chelsy Davy has ended their relationship because Britain is too cold, it was reported today. via The Courier Mail

“Politics is just beginning to catch up. African nations are realising that they are losing economic development opportunities by allowing their coast and marine resource-base to continue to be degraded.”

Around a third of Africa's existing coastline could be swallowed up by rising water levels brought on by global warming, the United Nations' top environment official said on Thursday. via Raw Story

“It's unreal. It's not real. It doesn't exist”

President Thabo Mbeki has denied that the government is behind Koni Media Holdings' bid to buy media giant Johncom, the SABC reported on Sunday. via The Star

“We are dealing with very depressed people. They feel like they are in prison, but it's the only way”

Behind high fences patrolled by guards to prevent escape, a drab building once used for smallpox victims houses patients with a new, virtually uncurable strain of tuberculosis.

Patients sleep or sit listlessly in the 12-bed women's ward, which is equipped with a TV, a fridge and a table with a couple of loaves of bread. It's a similar scenario in the men's ward, home to a minibus taxi driver who reluctantly agreed to be admitted after exposing hundreds of people every day to his potentially lethal germs. Read more

South African rugby bosses today suspended a decision to ban overseas-based players from appearing for the Springboks clearing the way for John Smit to lead the world champions in a one-off Test against Wales. via The New Zealand Herald

“They are cheap, simple and readily available in most countries. "However a lack of meaningful partnerships between TB and HIV programmes in many countries means that lives continue to be lost unnecessarily.”

Lives were being lost in many countries through lack of co-operation between tuberculosis and HIV and Aids health programmes, a senior UNAids official said in Cape Town on Friday. via Independent Online

“We use the most sophisticated testing equipment, called Nucleic Acid Amplification Testing (NAT)”

The SA National Blood Service does not use race profiling as an indicator for collecting or issuing blood. via Independent Online

“The courts must ultimately decide on that, because a patient's liberty is at stake”

The department of health says it is looking for ways to make it easier to commit people with drug-resistant tuberculosis to treatment facilities against their will. via The Mercury

“A life is unimaginable by anyone other than the person living the life.”

Remote, Machiavellian, paranoid, brilliant, strategic, bumbling, obscure, technocratic, visionary, denialist, unifier, divisive - all these terms and more have been used to describe President Thabo Mbeki. via The Mercury

The Civil Aviation Authority on Saturday ordered domestic carrier Nationwide to ground its fleet of Boeing 737-200s for engine checks. via PR-inside.com

“We have been showing people the same thing for thirty years, it needs some revamping, if we want people to queue outside the museum we must show them the originals”

Like the Mona Lisa, she has a strange allure; the almost sad eyes looking at you across 2.15 million years. via Independent Online

The case against a 36-year-old man, accused of murdering ten KwaZulu-Natal women and dumping their bodies in sugarcane fields, was remanded on Friday in the Umzinto magistrate's court for further investigation. via Daily News

SA Express was on Friday battling to explain the circumstances surrounding a double booking which led to a passenger being led off a plane to make way for a prominent ANC official. via Independent Online

“The NPA will have to decide next year - after the Constitutional Court has decided on some aspects of the case - whether or not it will charge Zuma”

By Deon de Lange ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma should now be allowed his day in court. via Pretoria News

“The difference here is that the scale of the problem is such that nobody gets the chance to catch their breath and see what's been achieved”

For the first time, Mona Miller has a real roof, solid walls and glass windows. Lights come on at the flick of a switch, water flows from the tap and she has the dignity of a toilet. via Ann Arbor News

“The management pays so much to use the building equipment for the stadium but they can't pay us our money”

Hundreds of construction workers striking at Durban's Moses Mabhida stadium began dispersing on Friday, the National Union of Mineworkers said. via The Mercury

“We want to ensure that the past does not continue to dictate our future”

President Thabo Mbeki on Thursday again dismissed suggestions that the South African Government participate in a class action in the United States against 23 multinational corporations that did not disinvest ... via TNT Magazine

“You really have to think about a new regimen. We must have at least another three or four classes of antibiotics to be safe on this. "I don't foresee that anything like that will be available before 2015”

Growing resistance to available tuberculosis drugs is threatening the world with a new untreatable strain of the deadly disease, experts said at a global lung health conference on Thursday. via New Straits Times

“The Commission reiterates that incidents like this one can be avoided in future if regulations are complied with”

The SA Human Rights Commission has called for the training and education of old people on how to handle fires following the deaths of 12 people in a fire at a KwaZulu-Natal old age home. via Independent Online

“He got on this guy's back and he took him out. He was freaked out ... His board was new and he asked, 'How does my board look?' ”

By Murry Williams A teenage surfer is recovering in hospital after he kicked his feet free from the jaws of what appeared to be a shark. via The Mercury