Pretoria - Bafana Bafana want to win the Nelson Mandela Challenge clash against the Super Eagles of Nigeria on Wednesday evening to send a strong message to the continent that they are progressing.

Kick-off of the much anticipated thriller match is 8:15pm at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban.

“This game is important to us and it will be nice to go out there and beat Nigeria, and I believe we are capable of doing that. We need to send out a strong message to the rest of the continent that we are progressing.

“Nigeria is without doubt a quality team, but we also have lot of quality and it will not be an easy game for both teams. In my view, only one goal will separate the two teams,” said Bafana Bafana head coach Gordon Igesund.

His sentiments were echoed by Bafana skipper Itumeleng Khune.

“This is going to be a nice challenge for us. Winning this match will put us in a better position on the FIFA rankings. We have to perform to the best of our ability because we are meeting a really formidable side.

“I would also like to appeal to the fans to come in their numbers to support us as they have been doing all along. We believe with our fans behind us, we can go all the way,” he said.

Although it is friendly match to honour former President Nelson Mandela, the pride of both countries will play a part in the game as both national teams will want to win for national honour.

With the Nigerians being the current Africans champions, it is not going to be easy for Igesund and his team, who will also have to avoid embarrassing local fans by losing the match.

Igesund had a fruitful first training session on Monday at People’s Park in Durban, in which all but three of the 24-man squad took part in training.

Defender Bevan Fransman has been released from Wednesday’s match due to personal matters, but he will join the squad on Thursday ahead of Saturday’s match against Africa Cup of Nations runners up Burkina Faso at FNB stadium.

The Belgium-based duo of Anele Ngcongca and Tokelo Rantie are expected to join the camp today, while England-based midfielder Dean Furman met up with his teammates in Johannesburg on Monday.

Left back Marc van Heerden, who replaced the injured Innocent Mdledle, has also arrived at camp.

Both Bafana Bafana and Nigeria arrived in Durban on Monday and were welcomed by a group of dancers and school children wanting to catch a glimpse of their football heroes.

Meanwhile, tickets for the annual Nelson Mandela Challenge are already on sale.

The tickets are selling for R50 and R100 and can be bought at Computicket, Shoprite, Checkers and Shoprite/Checkers outlets around the country. - SAnews.gov.za

Pretoria - President Jacob Zuma has appointed five commissioners to the South African Law Reform Commission (SALRC), the Presidency said on Monday.

Pamela Schwikkard, Vinodh Jaichand, Mahlape Sello, Irvin Lawrence and Namhla Siwendu were all appointed for a period of five years.

"We wish the members of the South African Law Reform Commission well in this critical endeavour in the service of our democracy and Constitution,” President Zuma said.

The field of experience of the members range from human rights law, administrative law and corporate governance law.

Professor Schwikkard, who is also Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Cape Town, and practising Adv Mahlape are both returning members of the SALRC, and both bring with them a wealth of experience and knowledge.

Jaichand is Professor and Head of School at the University of the Witwatersrand School of Law, while Lawrence is a practising attorney and Director at Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs.

Siwendu is a practising attorney and the Founding Partner and CEO of Thina Siwendu & Associates.

The SALRC is a statutory body established in terms of the South African Law Reform Commission Act, 1973 (Act No. 19 of 1973).

The commission does research with reference to all branches of the law in order to make recommendations to government for the development, improvement, modernisation or reform of the law.

Last month, President Zuma appointed Judge Mandisa Maya as the chairperson, and Judge Jody Kollapen as the vice chairperson of the commission. – SAnews.gov.za

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Pretoria - The Department of Rural Development and Land Reform has created nearly 35 000 jobs and further provided 17 279 people with various skills.

According to a statement the department said the enterprise development arm of the rural development branch generated 16 044 of these jobs, while the infrastructure development created 5 838 jobs.

National Rural Youth Service Corps

“This was reinforced with the enrolment of 12 881 rural youths into the skills training programme, National Rural Youth Service Corps (Narysec),” the department said.

Narysec youths are recruited from the 3000 rural wards between the ages of 18 and 35 years of age, irrespective of gender and the disability.

These youths are trained in various skills like waste water management, water purification, construction, electricity and agriculture so they be marketable and also that they can open up their own businesses.

Government’s aim is that the youth should be able to develop their own rural areas once they are fully skilled.

Recapitalisation, Development Programme

The department said during the past four years, another 7 000 jobs were created during its implementation of the Recapitalisation and Development Programme that saw 1 269 farms that have been lying fallow, being converted into 100 percent productive farms.

“This brings to more than 40 000 jobs that have been created by the department’s service delivery programmes.

“The various rural development jobs have come about through various rural initiatives such as building of bridges, schools, health facilities, construction of roads and other infrastructure related activities,” the department said.

The infrastructure jobs were created during the first phase of rural development at identified rural development pilot sites and the Comprehensive Rural Development Programme (CRDP) sites in all nine provinces.

The department said the introduction of the second phase of rural enterprises saw a huge jump in the number of jobs created in the rural areas between 2009 and June 2012.

“During the implementation of these infrastructure and enterprise projects several rural villagers, especially the youth and the women benefitted from the skills development that went together with these projects.

“This initiative culminated into 17 279 people being skilled in various trades such brick-making, road paving, construction of houses and bridges,” the department said.

Youth benefit from agriculture programmes

According to the department, the youth benefitted immensely from agriculture programmes that were introduced by the department.

The Eastern Cape benefitted from 26 03 enterprise development jobs, plus 1971 infrastructure jobs and an intake of 2400 Narysec youths while KZN scooped a total of 5047 jobs.

The other provinces had rural development jobs of 1613 for Free State, 3993 for Gauteng, 4274 for Limpopo, 2635 for Mpumalanga, 2275 for Northern Cape, 3048 for North West and 4405 for Western Cape.

Even though the impact of the international economic downturn has depressed the property market, the activities surrounding deeds registration is buoyant and continues to play a major role in the economy, as evidenced by the monetary values of transactions which amount to trillions of rands each year.

In 2012, land registrations were effected, totalling R314 billion, whilst mortgage bonds were issued for R3.4 trillion. From 2009 to 2012 there were R9.1 trillion mortgage bonds issued. - SAnews.gov.za

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Bushbuckridge – President Jacob Zuma has encouraged women to participate actively in the economy as entrepreneurs and as workers depending on their choice and circumstances.

Speaking at the National Women’s Day commemoration held at Thulamahashe Stadium on Friday, Zuma told the thousands of South Africans who packed the stadium to capacity, that the country has specific objectives for women’s empowerment.

“We want to promote access to land ownership by women in order to promote food security for many households in distress. We want young women to develop their self-confidence and to seize leadership opportunities.

“Women should play a role in the ongoing pursuit of all these goals and should not just be beneficiaries. More girls must take up science, technology, engineering and mathematics and more education opportunities must be made available for women and girls," said Zuma.

South Africa celebrates 100 years of the contribution of women to the struggle for liberation and also in building a better South Africa.

Whilst challenges and gaps still remain, a lot has been achieved to work towards the emancipation of South African women of all races in the past 100 years.

Women Empowerment

With regards to women’s access to decision making positions, the South African Parliament which had a mere 2.7 per cent representation of women before 1994, now has 42 per cent since the 2009 democratic elections following a consistent improvement after each election.

“This puts our country in the fourth position worldwide with regards to women’s representation, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2012. We have 13 women Cabinet Ministers and 16 women Deputy Ministers. Out of nine premiers, five are women, which means the majority of provinces are governed by women,” Zuma noted.

He acknowledged that the government has not reached the 50/50 parity goal, but progress is being made towards that destination.

“More must still be done to promote equality in the public sector but even more work in the private sector which continues to lag behind. The Commission for Employment Equity Annual report 2013 indicated that white males occupy 80% of top management positions in the private sector.

“At senior management level, white males account for 69% of all positions. Thus the achievement of equality at both race and gender levels remains stagnant in the private sector. Government is finalising work on the Women Empowerment and Gender Equality Bill, which will enforce gender equity compliance within both government and the private sector,” he said.

Besides leadership at decision making level, Zuma added that government judges its success in terms of access to basic services such as quality health care, education, safety and security, water, sanitation, electricity, roads and housing which reach the majority of South African women.

Zuma also called for an end to the violence and the abuse of women and girls, reiterating that government’s commitment to the fight against women and child abuse continues to rank high in its priorities.

“We announced earlier this week the reopening of sexual offences courts so that we can deal decisively with those who commit crimes against women and children. The courts will complement the work of the police Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences units.”

Conviction rates continue to improve in crimes committed against women and children. A total of 1 194 life sentences were handed out by the courts to offenders between 2010 and 2013.

For crimes against children below 18 years, the conviction rate was 75 percent during the last financial year and for crimes against women 18 years and above the conviction rate was 83 percent.

Emancipation of Women

Minister for Women, Children and People with Disabilities, Lulu Xingwana noted that the country’s Constitution is the foundation upon which all initiatives towards the total emancipation of women are grounded.

“We are pleased to note that in this year our government has undertaken to ensure that women will be prioritised to access land. As a Department, we are working with rural women and are giving support to many rural women’s cooperatives, in partnership with the DRDLR and our traditional leaders.

With regards to violence against women, Xingwana said the department remains confident that the strengthened and integrated approach coordinated by the National Council Against Gender Based Violence will go a long way to address the scourge.

She said the strengthening of law enforcement measures, particularly the re-establishment of the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences (FCS) units within the SAPS will go a long way in fighting this scourge.

“We also commend our courts for the life sentences that will serve as a deterrent to perpetrators of heinous crimes such as rape of women children and people with disabilities including lesbian women. This shows that government is serious in dealing with this scourge,” she said.

She also commended the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development for re-launching the Sexual Offences Courts which will help cut the backlogs of sexual offences cases.

“I am pleased to also announce that the Women Empowerment and Gender Equality Bill is under consideration. We believe that the Bill will go a long way towards enforcing programmes aimed at empowering women in South Africa.”

Thulile Ntuli, 25, said that progress has been made with regards to women empowerment as through government programmes, she and other women, have been exposed to skills to improve their lives.

"Government avails opportunities, especially for us young women, through skills development and its up to us to grab them and use them wisely. There is so much progress since we've seen democracy, especially now, where government ensures that more women are exposed to education and acquiring skills, which were previously dominated by men," said Ntuli. – SAnews.gov.za

Pretoria – Two in every three young people believe that the lives of women in South Africa are getting better.

As the country prepares to celebrate Women’s Day on Friday, a survey conducted by Pondering Panda has found that out of the 3 258 interviewed, about 64% felt the lives of women in this country were improving, compared to 21% who felt they were getting worse.

The remaining 12% felt that the quality of women’s lives was staying the same.

Shirley Wakefield, spokesperson for Pondering Panda, said: “If the opinion of young people is anything to go by, the lives of the majority of women in South Africa appear to be getting better.

“While this is good news, we shouldn’t get complacent – 1 in 3 still feel the lives of women either aren’t changing or are getting worse.

“Women’s Day is therefore still of great importance to highlight the issues and challenges facing women in South Africa – and is something more than 9 in 10 young people support.

“It’s also nice to know that for more than 80% of young people, the women in their lives can look forward to something special this Women’s Day.”

Some 91% of those interviewed felt celebrating Women’s Day was important, with 41% of those interviewed claiming they already had plans for Women’s Day.

About 40% intended to do something special, but were yet to plan anything, while 18% were either unsure, or not planning to do anything at the time of the survey. – SAnews.gov.za

Pretoria - Russia’s State Nuclear Power Corporation, Rosatom, which is planning to bid for the construction of nuclear power plants in South Africa, has decided to start training nuclear industry specialists for the country.

Rusatom Overseas, a Rosatom branch that specialises in the promotion of the corporation’s projects abroad, says it had signed a memorandum of cooperation with the North West University, the only school of higher learning that offers training in nuclear technologies.

The memorandum envisions the development of collaboration programmes, including in research, exchanges of experts, joint seminars and the writing of textbooks. The list of specific projects will be drawn up by a bilateral task force.

Rector of the Potchefstroom Campus of the North West University, Prof. Herman van Schalkwyk said: “We are pleased to announce the signing of the MoU with our Russian colleagues. We recognise that nuclear energy remains an important option for South Africa.

“The intention is to explore the potential for future collaboration, ranging from education to specific technical projects in nuclear engineering, hydrogen technologies, energy, etc.”

Jomart Aliyev, the Director General of Rusatom Overseas, said: “The memorandum offers great opportunities. On the one hand, it will promote the development of technical education in South Africa. On the other hand, [it will promote the] possibility to find out more about modern Russian technologies and joint research and scientific developments will provide a solid foundation for the development of Rosatom’s business relations in South Africa.”

South Africa’s Koeberg nuclear plant is the only nuclear power-generating facility on the African continent. The government plans to build new plants with a total capacity of 9 GW.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said after meeting his South African counterpart Jacob Zuma in Sochi in May that Russia was ready to assist South Africa in building up a comprehensive nuclear power engineering industry. – SAnews.gov.za-Itar-Tass