The first race in the Spur KZN Trail Series took place at Inanda Dam this Sunday with almost 200 runners converging on the beautiful venue for a great morning of trail running. Runners were treated to cool and cloudy conditions but the rain thankfully stayed away, paving the way for some fast finishing times. In [...]KZN Trail Series starts is a post from: Trail Running South Africa


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South Africa and Kazakhstan are set to strengthen bilateral relations when International Relations and Cooperation Deputy Minister Ebrahim Ebrahim hosts Kazakhstan's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Kairat Sarybay, later this week.

Sarybay will be in South Africa on a one-day working visit on Thursday, where he will co-chair the 3rd Round of Inter-Governmental Consultations.

Prime on the agenda of the consultations, according to the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, will be the review of progress made in respect of outstanding draft agreements to be signed during the planned State Visit by the President of Kazakhstan in December 2013.

In their last meeting in May 2012, the two sides discussed in detail the question of multilateral cooperation in international organisations and held discussions on international issues of mutual interest and concern.

South Africa and Kazakhstan have substantial economic interests, which overlap in several important areas such as trade, production and collaborative marketing of strategic minerals, technology exchange, machine production, as well as oil procurement for South Africa.

Total trade between South Africa and Kazakhstan has been fluctuating but has remained in South Africa’s favour since 2009.

It increased from R44 million in 2009 to R137 million in 2010; it dropped to R88 million in 2011 and increased to R90 million in 2012.

Exports increased from R42 million in 2009 to R101 million in 2010 compared to imports of R2 million in 2009 and R36 million in 2010.

In September 2009, the R26-million SumbandilaSat was launched in Kazakhstan. The low-orbit satellite was commissioned by South Africa's Department of Science and Technology and implemented by Stellenbosch University's engineering faculty.

It formed part of an integrated national space programme, developed by government to provide the country with affordable access to space technology and data. The satellite was expected to orbit about 500 km to 600 km above the earth, carrying high resolution cameras to produce images of Earth. – SAnews.gov.za

Rome - Search teams on Sunday discovered more bodies from the fishing boat that sank on Thursday near to the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, bringing the number of those confirmed dead to 195.

According to the 155 survivors, there were a total of 518 African migrants on the ship coming from Libya, meaning that more than 165 bodies are still missing.

The 20-meter fishing vessel, carrying asylum seekers mainly from Eritrea and Somalia, including dozens of women and children, caught fire and sank early on Thursday -- the latest in a string of such incidents that occur each year off Lampedusa.

The island, Italy's southernmost point, is less than 115 km away from Africa and has offered rescue efforts and shelter for some of the 30 000 migrants this year alone.

According to experts, most migrants trying to cross to Italy have the goal of a different final destination in Europe.

Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta said last week that the victims of this latest disaster have been posthumously awarded Italian citizenship. - SAnews.gov.za-Xinhua

South Africa will tomorrow join the world in honouring and commending teachers for the sacrifices they make in ensuring learners get quality education, even under trying circumstances.

Celebrated annually on 5 October across the globe, World Teachers’ Day was set aside by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 1996. The day pays tribute to teachers, raises awareness, understanding and appreciation for the contribution teachers make to education and development.

Held under the theme 'A Call for Teachers', the 2013 celebration will be a societal engagement that calls on all stakeholders, including aspiring young teachers to join in the celebrations of this noble profession.

President Jacob Zuma will mark the day by opening and handing over Ethridge Junior Secondary School to the community of Redoubt, Mbizana, in the Eastern Cape.

The school has been built by Anglo American Platinum as part of compliance with the Social and Labour Plan of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act.

The project, according to the Presidency, was facilitated by the Department of Mineral Resources and has been identified as one of the projects that would contribute towards rural development in one of the labour-sending areas in the Eastern Cape.

Appreciation for local teachers

Messages of support have started to trickle in for the country’s educators.

In her message, Mpumalanga Education MEC Reginah Mhaule said teachers were and will always remain the backbone of the struggle for people emancipation and socio-economic development.

“The pride of every nation is its children and more importantly the education of children is used as a gauge and tool to make future projections for socio-economic progress and development.”

Mhaule said the country must pride itself in the dedicated, creative and effective teachers to encourage best practices in schools. The MEC also urged parents to encourage their children to make teaching a career of choice, because “without good teachers, all other professions will suffer”.

“We thus make a call to all our teachers to strive for improvement in the quality of teaching and learning, particularly in public education as well as to develop learners' abilities to build a sustainable future with citizens who are able to take action in their own communities and contribute to developmental challenges,” said Mhaule.

She said her department will continue to work side by side with teachers' labour formations to accelerate all efforts aimed at creating an enabling environment for teaching and learning to take place.

Free State Education MEC Tate Makgoe said schools should be centres of learning and teaching, not sites of bullying, gangsterism and criminality.

He was referring to the recent shooting of Tourism and Business Studies teacher, Johan Jordaan, by a learner at Sasolburg High School -- an incident which Makgoe condemned.

“As we celebrate the World Teachers’ Day, we urge all education stakeholders -including parents, learners and community members - to unite and stand against any form of school-based violence,” said Makgoe.

He called on teachers to continually develop the professional skills throughout their careers.

According Makgoe, his province has allocated more than 80% of the skills levy for Continuing Professional Teacher Development (CPTD) to revitalise the profession and to reward those who commit themselves to “raising the bar and leaving no child behind”.

Makgoe also thanked teachers for moulding ordinary children into extraordinary citizens.

“Thank you for igniting the spark of curiosity in children. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and making the world a better place.” – SAnews.gov.za

Cape Town – The Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Tina Joemat-Pettersson, has described as “historic” a new amendment bill which will give small-scale fishers collective fishing rights for the first time, and help root out poverty and poaching in the country’s 150 fishing communities.

The Marine Living Resources Amendment Bill, which is expected to come before the National Assembly’s portfolio committee on agriculture, forestry and fisheries next Tuesday, allows for the allocation of fishing rights to identified small-scale fishing communities, which have previously been excluded from the commercial fishing rights allocation process.

The bill intends to bring into force the department’s small-scale fishing policy, which supports the setting up of community-based legal entities – in the form of co-operatives – by small-scale fishers to allow fishing communities access to fishing rights.

Under the policy, the department proposes that certain areas along the coast be demarcated and prioritised for small-scale fishers.

Desmond Stevens, the department’s acting Deputy Director-General of Fisheries, said the department had engaged with about 80% of stakeholders so far – including small-scale fishing associations and large fishing companies – and that a broad consensus had been reached on the need for fishing rights for small-scale fishers.

Stevens said the small-scale fishing policy will introduce a co-management approach where each fishing community, together with local authorities, the department and scientists, will have shared responsibility for management of the fishery sector.

He said once the fishing community has established a community-based legal entity, the community would then be able to apply to the minister to have an area designated a small-scale fishing community area.

It is proposed that comprehensive regular assessments are conducted to determine which species should be made available to small-scale fishers, sustainable harvesting targets and, where appropriate, the boundaries of areas demarcated for small-scale fishers.

In its current strategic plan, the department envisages that 70% of eight of the current 22 fishing sectors will be allocated to small businesses and small-scale fishers – including sectors like line fish and lobster.

The department has identified 150 fishing communities as well as possible areas to be demarcated exclusively for small-scale fishers and the number of species that can be included in fishing rights.

While the National Development Plan states that the country has about 29 000 subsistence fishers, Stevens said the department has about 8 000 such fishers on its books.

However, he said the department intends appointing an independent organisation to conduct a count of the fishers, and a list will be then published for members of the public to comment on.

Through giving communities access to fishing rights, the bill, he said, will also help reduce the incidence of poaching, as communities will be more likely to protect marine resources if they are also able to make a livelihood from it.

Support for the bill

While the Department of Trade and Industry supports fishing co-operatives and small fishing companies through its Fishing Cluster Project, Stevens said a number of other departments already supported the bill and would, together with commercial fishing companies, provide resources and support for small-scale fishers.

Steven’s department also plans to assist small-scale fishers to expand into the full fishing value-chain of not only harvesting, but also processing and marketing by offering facilities and other resources to co-operatives.

Naseegh Jaffer, the director of the Masifundise Development Trust -- a non-governmental organisation which works with small-scale fishing communities -- said the bill would also help unify fishing communities, who would now work together rather than competing for individual fishing rights.

Since the adoption of the Allocation and Management of Long Term Fishing Rights in 2005, Masifundise Development Trust, along with other small-scale fishing groups, has campaigned to see the realisation of collective fishing rights for small-scale fishers.

Jaffer said the establishment of community-based legal entities would help provide small-scale fishers with better incomes. At present, many fishers have to loan money from middle-men to fund their fishing activities - only to have to repay them with up to 90% of the value of their catch.

In keeping with the policy, small-scale fishers are expected to be awarded the rights for near-shore fishing (within 10 nautical miles of the shore, according to Jaffer) in those areas designated by the minister.

Jaffer called on the department to work with fishers in local communities to ensure that genuine fishers were identified for participation in each community-based legal entity.

Fishers should know their rights

The chairperson of SA United Fishing Front, Pedro Garcia, warned that many in fishing communities could find themselves exploited if they were not trained and prepared to work in a co-operative to take advantage of collective rights.

However, he questioned whether the planned establishment of community-based legal entities was not unconstitutional, in that it may be in breach of freedom of association ascribed in the Bill of Rights.

Shaheen Moolla of natural resources advisory firm, Feike, said the co-operatives model had also proved problematic in the fishing industry, as many that operated in the past had reaped little income because many were not run by business-minded people.

He raised concern that the granting of collective rights would result in an already dwindling fish stock divided among more fishers, which could in turn lead to increased poverty and poaching in fishing communities.

He pointed to Vietnam, which had in 2010 done away with collective fishing rights in response to dwindling fish stocks.

Some 2 200 small-scale fishers were already operating with individual rights or with exemptions from having to obtain rights, he said.

However, he agreed with the small-scale fisher policy’s call for a territorial user rights system, based on fishers having the rights to access fish stocks in the area in which they reside.

The Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said the National Assembly’s portfolio committee on agriculture, forestry and fisheries intends holding public hearings on the bill on October 15 and 16. – SAnews.gov.za

Pretoria - The Gauteng Department of Education says it welcomes the judgement handed down by the Constitutional Court on Thursday, saying it affirms the role of the Head of Department in school admissions.

Rivonia Primary School refused to admit a Grade 1 pupil in 2011, citing that they had reached their intake capacity, despite it being less than the number required by the Department of Education in all public schools.

This resulted in a court case with the Gauteng Department of Education over who had the power to determine intake capacity between the department and school governing bodies.

The Supreme Court of Appeal ruled in favour of the governing bodies, but the department appealed in the Constitutional Court.

The department’s spokesperson Gershwin Chuenyane said: “The judgement upheld the HOD’s role to admit learners in public schools. We believe this decision is important in terms of ensuring that all Gauteng learners can have equal access to quality schooling. We intend to study the judgement and implement it in a fair manner.” – SAnews.gov.za

Pretoria – The police have responded to media reports regarding paralympian Oscar Pistorius’s forensic investigators and ballistic experts visiting his residence.

“The residence of Mr Pistorius is no longer a crime scene and was handed back to him long ago,” said Lieutenant General Solomon Makgale in a statement on Thursday.

Pistorius stands accused of shooting and killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp at his home in Silverwood Estate on 14 February.

Mkgale explained that the experts were at his residence on 30 September 2013 after making prior arrangements with the police investigating team.

“The purpose of this visit was to enable them to have access to the toilet door and to reconstruct the crime scene. This has been the second time that this has been done during the presence of our investigating team.

“The investigating officer and a ballistic expert from SAPS were present during the examination of the toilet door and the door was never handed over to them. They had controlled access to the toilet door to enable them to conduct their own independent examination,” said Mokgale.

He said Pistorius’s forensic team did not take any evidence from the SAPS storage facilities nor did they have any evidence in their sole possession at any time. No other physical evidence were examined by the forensic investigators.

In terms of South African Law, the state is obliged to make any exhibit or evidence in its possession available to an accused or defence council, upon request, in order for the accused to prepare for his/her defence. – SAnews.gov.za

The Gauteng Department of Health will install 95 new ozone generators at its forensic pathology mortuaries to maintain a healthy environment at the facilities.

Spokesperson Simon Zwane said the department would spend R1.2 million on the ozone generators.

Currently, Zwane said, there were 131 generators at all 11 mortuaries throughout the province. He said a needs analysis on the status and functionality of the existing ozone generators had been concluded.

“The process of replacing the old ones is set to commence as soon as the procurement process is completed. The needs analysis has indicated that the province is required to replace at least 95 ozone generators,” Zwane said.

The generators assist with the elimination of bad odours, kill airborne and surface bacteria within the facilities and assist in maintaining clean air in cold rooms and operational areas.

“Testing of these units was done at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital, Mamelodi and Edenvale hospitals, and was found to be effective in eliminating bad odours. The price that the department will pay for the equipment includes supply, fitting and a two-year maintenance plan,” Zwane said. – SAnews.gov.za

Midrand - Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) is an integral part of South Africa’s economic policies and transformation, says President Jacob Zuma.

“(B-BBEE) is part of a broader objective of promoting inclusive growth and economic development,” said Zuma on Thursday, adding that the state will continue to intervene and promote transformation.

The President was speaking at the first ever B-BBEE Summit, hosted by the Department of Trade and Industry (dti) in collaboration with the Presidential B-BBEE Advisory Council, which is chaired by Zuma.

Zuma emphasised to the summit -- which will be held over two days -- that economic transformation was not just about big business deals for a few individuals in society. He said BEE policy should be consistently implemented across all parts of the economy to ensure maximum impact on as many South Africans as possible.

Progress made over 10 years

This year marks a decade of the existence of BEE. Dti Director-General Lionel October today said it was time to critically assess progress made since the implementation of the legislation.

The President said that throughout the decade, there have been successes and challenges in the implementation of the legislation, and that the summit was intended to reflect on what has worked and what has not worked, so as to build a truly inclusive economy.

The South African economy had expanded by 83% over the years, with total employment having increased by more than 3.5 million since 1994.

Zuma noted that there had been growth in the black middle class. He said although progress had been achieved with BEE, the country still faced unacceptable levels of poverty, inequality and unemployment.

Income parity, in particular, remained skewed in terms of race.

Progress made in terms of BEE transactions, according to National Treasury, was that over R600 billion in BEE transactions have been recorded since 1995.

However, there was a need to bridge the gap between the poor and the working class, with the average annual African households income at R60 613 and that of white households at R365 164. There were still unacceptably high levels of poverty, inequality and unemployment.

Zuma encouraged the growth of SMMEs that are owned by black people, women, youth and people with disabilities.

The dti’s Black Business Supplier Development Programme has, since its inception in 2010, approved 2 128 applications to the value of R797 million, with a total 1 213 applications approved in 2012/13 for the support of black owned SMMEs.

The National Empowerment Fund (NEF), which is mandated to grow black economic participation, has approved over 500 transactions worth over R5 billion to black empowered businesses across the country.

Review of BEE Act

Following the recession caused by the global financial crisis in 2009 -- which led to a considerable decline in companies’ contributions to BEE -- a review of the BEE Act commenced in 2011 to tighten up the Act and address challenges such as fronting.

The passing of the B-BBEE Amendment Bill by the National Assembly in June was a huge step forward in promoting transformation. B-BBEE’s review by government was to align it to other legislation such as the New Growth Path, among others.

Zuma condemned the act of fronting, calling it unforgivable.

“It distorts our empowerment picture, giving an impression of progress where there is none,” Zuma told the room full of delegates, ranging from government officials and trade unions representatives, among others.

The President said that business training was crucial so that emerging entrepreneurs can gain confidence and expand beyond ownership to become industrialists.

Zuma said the State would continue to support empowerment.

“The State will continue to intervene and promote transformation,” said Zuma.

Economic Development Minster Ebrahim Patel and Trade and Industry Minister Dr Rob Davies were among those who attended the first day of the summit. – SAnews.gov.za

Pretoria - Government has rejected claims that members of Cabinet were misusing public funds while renting vehicles to carry out the work of government.

“Policy provides that members at a national level may be provided with one vehicle for use in Cape Town and one vehicle for use in Pretoria. It further provides for use of incidental vehicles for official purposes away from respected seats of office,” said acting Government Communications (GCIS) CEO Phumla Williams.

Williams was reacting to media reports that ministers spent R5.18 million on hired cars to travel 368 000km. All Cabinet ministers were asked a parliamentary question to provide expenditure details in this regard.

Williams said: “The executive’s role and duties take place throughout the country, not only in Cape Town and Pretoria. Members may make use of incidental or rented vehicles when on official duty.”

She said the use of vehicles was not for private purposes but for official government business that enabled ministers to work on government programmes.

Hired cars were used on official duty for direct interaction with communities and stakeholders outside Gauteng and Cape Town, as a critical part of the public participation programmes of ministers, Williams said.

These enabled ministers to fulfil their duties.

Williams explained that expenditure by government goes through strict processes.

“Parliament annually approves the budgets of government departments… This expenditure is also audited by the Auditor General annually. There have been no findings of irregular or wasteful expenditure related to any ministers’ hiring of vehicles to carry out official duties across the country.”

Williams noted that figures of expenditure released to the public through parliamentary replies was done “in the spirit of transparency and accountability” to the South African public.

“Attempts to misrepresent expenditure by the executive in the public domain as ‘misuse of public funds’ are misleading, as there are no factual grounds for these untested claims.” – SAnews.gov.za