A total of 91 Heads of State and Government and 10 former Heads of State will attend the historic National Memorial Service of former President Nelson Mandela tomorrow, says Minister in the Presidency for Performance Monitoring and Evaluation Collins Chabane.

“By noon today [Monday], 91 Heads of State and Government and 10 former Heads of State had confirmed that they would attend the National Memorial Service at FNB Stadium. Kings and queens, princes and princesses will also join in at FNB,” said Chabane, briefing the media.

The official memorial service for Mandela, who passed away at his Houghton home on Thursday, 5 December, will be held on Tuesday. Large numbers of ordinary South Africans as well as dignitaries from across the globe are expected to attend the memorial.

“We extend a warm welcome to them [visiting guests] at this time of mourning and celebration,” Chabane said.

Government had advised the visiting leaders, some of whom arrived today, to attend tomorrow’s memorial service, rather than Sunday’s burial.

“This in view of the logistical challenges in Qunu,” he said.

The man regarded as the father of the nation will be buried in Qunu in the Eastern Cape on Sunday.

Chabane emphasised that not all members of the public will be accommodated at the main venue. He said the public can make use of Ellis Park Stadium and Orlando Stadium to view the memorial on big screens, where free transport to the stadia will be available.

“We ask people to cooperate with officials when venues are full,” he said, urging people to arrive early at the stadia. Stadia will open at 6am, with a cultural programme commencing from 8am to 11 am. The formal programme will get underway at 11am to 3 pm.”

Chabane said the list of speakers, particularly those from abroad, had not yet been finalised.

Meanwhile, the Department of Social Development has requested that parents taking children to major public events must write their cell phone numbers in permanent marker ink on the inside of children’s forearms.

“There are always instances of lost children at big events and this is very traumatic for the children and parents or guardians, and it is time-consuming for police and social workers,” said Chabane. – SAnews.gov.za

An anonymous bidder has paid $1,466,574 for the Olympic gold medal won by Jesse Owens in Berlin in 1936, this is the highest amount ever paid Olympic memorabilia. The price easily broke the previous record of $$867,266 (£541,250/€661,171) paid at an auction in London in April 2012 for a silver cup won by Spyros Louis, [...]Owens medal sells high is a post from: Time-4-Sport


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Pretoria - The residents of the City of Ekurhuleni will join the world in mourning and honouring the world icon, statesman of note and former President Nelson Mandela at various memorial parks across the city.

Following the passing of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate on Thursday evening at the age of 95, the City of Ekurhuleni has activated memorial parks fitted with big screens to allow local citizens to unite and witness both the memorial and the funeral services of Madiba.

The memorial service is scheduled for Tuesday, December 10, while the funeral will take place on Sunday, December 15.

Ekurhuleni residents are encouraged to gather in unity at various memorial parks to share in the sombre of the occasion of the loss of the African jewel and rejoice in commemorating the legacy and life of the transformational leader.

The memorial parks are as follows:

• Makhulong Stadium - Thembisa
  
• Dries Niemand Park - Kempton Park
  
• Sinaba Stadium - Daveyton
  
• Buluthando Park - KwaThema
  
• Tsakane stadium
  
• Kwanele Park - Katlehong
  
• Katlehong stadium
  
• Germiston lake
  

Pretoria - At 11am this morning, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) paused trade to mark the passing of former President Nelson Mandela. In a...

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South African Football Association (Safa) President Danny Jordaan has added his voice to the global chorus of condolences to the family of former South African President Nelson Mandela.

“The association, on behalf of the football community in the country, wants to send its most heartfelt condolences to the family of Madiba.

“The football community will fondly remember everything that is good about this proud hero of our struggle against everything that divided this nation,” he said.

In paying tribute to the 95-year-old former statesman, Jordaan said Madiba was responsible for lifting the spirits of the football nation - from the talks to unite the association, to victory at the 1996 Africa Cup of Nations.

According to Jordaan, Madiba was the catalyst in South Africa’s bid for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

“While we had been watching Madiba's deteriorating health over the last year, we are all still shocked by his passing, which will always remain untimely as our nation still has much to achieve.

“However, his encouragement to our players on the field of play will forever be etched in our collective memories.

“We call on the entire football community of our nation to observe a moment of silence before every match they play in honour of this hero, who inspired our nation to achieve in our sport and to work to emulate his example,” he said.

Tribute from Mandela’s former private secretary

Zelda la Grange, Mandela’s former private secretary, said the late former President inspired people to forgive, reconcile, care, be selfless, tolerant, and maintain dignity no matter what the circumstances.

“I can attest to each of these because these are the ways in which he changed my life over the past 19 years. I am blessed and honoured by the privilege to have had the opportunity to serve him.

“As we grieve the departure of Madiba, I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that I will never see him again, but heroes never die.

“As sad as it makes me that I will never walk into a room again and see his generous, infectious smile or hear him say ‘Oh Zeldina, you are here’, I have come to terms with the fact that Madiba's legacy is not dependent on his presence.”

La Grange said his legacy will live on beyond everything that has been named after him.

“It will live on in how we feel when we hear his name, the respect and love, the unity he inspired in us as a country but particularly, how we relate to one another.

“Madiba will forever be present in my life because he made me into the human being I am today,” she said. - SAnews.gov.za

Pretoria - Former President Thabo Mbeki says the passing of world icon Nelson Mandela signals the end of an historic era characterised by the heroic deeds of his generation.

“President Mandela and his generation discovered the mission of their generation. They were at all times faithful to it, as a result of which they fulfilled it,” said Mbeki in a statement.

He said Mandela’s departure “demands of those of us who remain, South Africans and all Africans on the rest of our continent, that we commit ourselves selflessly to address the many challenges we face”.

“As we mourn President Mandela’s passing, we must ask ourselves the fundamental question - what shall we do to respond to the tasks of building a democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous South Africa, a people centred society free of hunger, poverty, disease and inequality, as well as Africa’s renaissance, to whose attainment President Nelson Mandela dedicated his whole life?”

Mbeki said Madiba’s death was a sad moment of grief for the stateman’s family.

He passed away at the age of 95 on Thursday, 5 December. - SAnews.gov.za

Steady doses of government intervention over the past 20 years have put South Africa’s healthcare system on the road to recovery, with citizens now enjoying longer, healthier lives.

HIV infections have decreased, life expectancy increased, anti-retroviral (ARVs) are freely available, and the National Health Insurance (NHI) promises greater access to healthcare for those who need it the most.

Over these past two decades, the national Department of Health has been hard at work, introducing and prioritising a number of initiatives to achieve these successes.

The department targeted four key areas to improve the health system, which included increasing life expectancy; decreasing maternal and child mortality; combating HIV and Aids and decreasing the burden of disease from Tuberculosis (TB) and strengthening the effectiveness of the health system.

HIV and Aids and TB

In 2009 President Jacob Zuma gave the country’s HIV and Aids policies a facelift when he announced that all children under one year of age would get treatment if they tested positive and that treatment would not depend on their CD4 count.

All patients with both TB and HIV would get ARV treatment if their CD4 count was 350 or less.

In addition, pregnant HIV positive women with a CD4 count of 350 or with symptoms regardless of CD4 count would have access to treatment. Previously, HIV positive pregnant women were eligible for treatment if their CD4 count was less than 200.

All other pregnant women who did not fall into this category were to be put on treatment at 14 weeks of pregnancy to protect the baby. In the past this only started during the last term of pregnancy.

All these policies were to be effective from April 2010.

Also in 2009, the department announced the HIV Counselling and Testing (HCT) Campaign, which was to be the cornerstone for the prevention and early entry into ARVs.

According to the department by 2012, 1.6 million people were receiving ARVs and 20.2 million people had tested for HIV.

As part of the HCT campaign, government also introduced the male circumcision campaign and in 2012 alone, 619 000 males were circumcised.

According to the department’s 2012 Mid Term Review Report, the rate at which TB was being cured rose to 73 percent, still short of the 85 percent target.

This achievement has resulted from a combination of interventions, such as using the new Genexpert technology, which was introduced in 2011.

From March 2011 to February 2012, South Africa had conducted almost 300 000 Genexpert tests to detect the disease.

The report also notes the progress in reducing new HIV infections with the mother-to-child transmission rate dropping from 3.5 percent in 2010 to less than 2 percent in 2012.

In another development with regards to HIV and Aids, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi officially launched the Fixed Dose Combination Drug in April. With the new pill, patients take one tablet once a day instead of three to five pills per day.

The South African National Aids Council meanwhile, recently announced that the country was making progress in the Millennium Development Goal set by the United Nations of reducing HIV infections by 50 percent, by 2015.

South Africa’s Anti-Retroviral Treatment Programme now reaches more than two million people, making it the largest HIV treatment programme in the world.

In addition, Deputy President Kgalema Motlhante announced at the 6th Aids Conference recently that the number of HIV related deaths reported had decreased from 613 108 in 2006 to 543 856 deaths in 2010.

Most researchers, as well as Statistics South Africa (Stats SA), have attributed this decline to the HIV programme – both the distribution and use of condoms as well as the ARV programme.

South Africans are also enjoying longer lives, according to statistics. Stats SA’s 2013 mid-year population estimates shows that life expectancy increased from 52 years in 2004 to 58 years in 2011 and is estimated to have increased further, to just under 60 years (or 59.4 years) in the 2013 estimates – with life expectancy of women at 61 years and men at 58 years.

Government can also channel more money to the country’s HIV and TB programmes after receiving R3 billion from the Global Fund to support these.

The fund will provide support in the following areas:

· Antiretroviral treatment for 350 000 patients.

· HIV testing for more than one million people, including people living in rural areas and in farms.

· Full screening for TB of all inmates in 258 correctional services facilities;

· Screening for more than 400 000 miners and communities in the surrounding areas.

· Prevention and referral services for 33 000 sex workers in all nine provinces.

· Prevention and referral services for 150 000 men who have sex with men.

· Care and support for more than 40 000 orphans.

· Medical male circumcision for 94 500 men.

The National Health Insurance

South Africa is also making significant progress with the NHI - a financing system that will make sure all South Africans get essential healthcare, regardless of how much they earn.

In March last year, Motsoaledi announced the 10 districts where the NHI would be piloted. These included Dr K. Kaunda in the North West, Pixley ka Seme in the Northern Cape, Thabo Mofutsanyane in the Free State, Eden in the Western Cape, OR Tambo in the Eastern Cape, Gert Sibande in Mpumalanga, Vhembe in Limpopo, Umzinyathi and Umgungundlovu in KwaZulu-Natal and Tshwane District in Gauteng.

The department has been auditing health facilities to evaluate health infrastructure and to determine what would be needed for the NHI.

By April this year, 3 880 public health facilities were audited. This covers all clinics, health centres and district, regional, specialised and tertiary hospital in all nine provinces.

The department has appointed 102 hospital managers as part of the NHI and about 500 private doctors to start providing services in the NHI pilots in under-served area.

Primary Health Care

Primary health care (PHC) has also been high on the department’s agenda. Some of the focus areas of PHC are the building of clinics and hospitals, managing diseases and ensuring there are enough health professionals.

Motsoaledi has intensified the focus on PHC and introduced three streams - district specialists, school based health programme and municipal ward based PHC agents.

District specialists include a principal obstetrician, principal paediatrician, principal family physician, advanced midwife and senior primary care nurse.

These specialists train interns, community service doctors and medical officers. They are the link between the prevention and management and cure of diseases.

As of November 2012, 163 district specialists were appointed to the 46 districts in the country.

With regards to the school based health care programme, school health teams visited 1 610 poor schools between July and September 2012. They offered services, which focused on eye care problems, dental and hearing problems, as well as immunisation programmes in school.

As part of efforts to improve PHC, 10 000 primary health care workers were trained and assigned to municipal wards in the country

In each ward there is a team comprising a professional nurse and six community health care workers.

World Aids Day

On World Aids Day, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe launched the Medical Male Circumcision (MMC) campaign. He said the target was to circumcise one million men over the next 12 months and cumulatively four million men by 2016.

He added that medical male circumcision had proven to be an effective component of government’s HIV prevention package.

He said that once 80 percent of men had been medically circumcised, half a million new HIV infections would be prevented and 100 000 deaths over the course of the next decade.

World Aids Day was marked on 1 December in Piet Retief.

With all these initiatives the healthcare services offered to South Africans has significantly improved over the years and can only get better in the years ahead. – SAnews.gov.za

South Africa and China have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen political and economic relations between the two countries.

The MoU was signed by Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba at a bilateral meeting with Huang Shuhe, the Vice-Chairman of the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) of China in Johannesburg on Tuesday.

After the signing ceremony, Gigaba said: "In 2010, South Africa and China entered into a comprehensive strategic partnership, particularly to strengthen political and economic relations as well as to improve the current trade structure between the two countries. Today's meeting and MoU signing is an attempt the further to give impetus to this comprehensive strategic partnership."

The MoU will see the two countries further cooperating in various areas like the state-owned companies (SOCs). Gigaba said state-owned enterprises were vital for the economic development of the two countries.

He expressed happiness at the existing political and economic relations between the two countries and said South Africa would want to see that growing.

"We must continue collectively to explore the value that we can derive from the BRICS economic partnership, leveraging off each other's strengths. Both our countries possess key SOCs, whose strengths can complement each other for the mutual benefit of both our countries," he said.

China and South Africa will continue examining how the two countries can enhance their relations for the mutual benefit of both, said Gigaba. Some of the areas the two countries can cooperate in include skills development, creation of new employment opportunities, improving access to basic services and reducing poverty.

Gigaba invited Chinese state enterprises to form joint ventures on the African continent, saying such partnerships would result in further investments in infrastructural development in Africa. – SAnews.gov.za-Xinhua

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