http://onlyinsa.com What makes South Africa so special Sat, 06 Sep 2008 16:29:16 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en This hilarious account is guaranteed to set the tone for a good weekend.  Sipho and his mates decided to go on an affirmative shopping trip to the East London Museum. Clearly Sipho is a lover of the fine arts, and a veritable SBG (Sophisticated Black Gentleman) culture vulture to boot when ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/09/06/self-impaling-technique/ Home owners account; Yet another show of lack of services For two years I couldn't get a water/electricity/tax bill from the city of Johannesburg. Water and electricity are socialist enterprises here. I didn't have an account number, nor did I know how much to pay. I tried calling the bureaucrats, but ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/09/06/johannesburg-how-it-works/ Teacher skills, No wonder this is happening, all the skilled properly qualified teachers have left. Bloemfontein - Seven young schoolchildren were allegedly repeatedly beaten on their backs by a teacher with a fan belt - as they helplessly hung in the air. Shortly afterward, they had to pack their bags and ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/09/06/corporal-punishment-in-schools/ By Citizen columnist Andrew Kenny As the skills shortage in South Africa worsens and the exodus of white artisans, engineers and maths teachers continues, racial affirmative action dominates all job adverts. Suppose you are a highly experienced white technician or project manager. You are looking for a job. In the careers ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/09/06/no-choice-but-to-leave/ Africa is giving nothing to anyone -- apart from AIDS By K. Myers of the Irish Independent No. It will not do. Even as we see African states refusing to take action to restore something resembling civilisation in Zimbabwe, the begging bowl for Ethiopia is being passed around to us, yet again. ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/09/04/apart-from-aids/ Being transported from the Melkbosstrand area through to Cape town at a cost of about R4 million rand. The boat is impressive in size out of the water, but guess in the water very small considering it was the Capes notorious storms that sent this boat sand surfing in the ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/08/28/fishing-boat-going-home/ Much of life can never be explained but only witnessed NAIROBI (AFP) - A baby hippopotamus that survived the tsunami waves on the Kenyan coast has formed a strong bond with a giant male century-old tortoise in an animal facility in the port city of Mombassa , officials said The hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen and ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/08/28/the-hippo-and-tortoise/ Three contractors - one from Soweto, another from Pretoria, and the third from Benoni - are bidding to fix a broken fence at the Union Buildings in Pretoria. They go with a Union Buildings official to examine the fence. The Pretoria contractor takes out a tape measure, does some measuring, and then works some figures ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/08/27/how-contracts-work/ Many have been forced to flee Zimbabwe. Millions have suffered years of threats, poverty and intimidation at the hands of Robert Mugabe's men. Is this a glimpse of what South Africans can expect in the near future? Black Power Farm is now used as a headquarters for the war veterans in the ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/08/26/paradise-lost/ Mud races refuse to use toilets even when made available - they prefer to go around crapping on the ground. Forty-eight percent of India still squat down and crap whenever and wherever the urge strikes. Everywhere you drive in South Africa, you will be treated by the sight of Africans ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/08/26/refuse-to-use-toilets/ Robber shot dead in Sandringham heist A 30-year-old man was shot dead by police as a gang of five gunmen attempted to rob a cash-in-transit van in Sandringham in Johannesburg on Wednesday, Gauteng police said. Inspector Moses Maphakela said security guards from a cash-in-transit company stopped at a Shell garage in ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/08/21/deadly-heist/ Black cop sexually assaults woman, baby dies Durban - A Pietermaritzburg policeman arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman at a satellite police station is expected to be served with formal suspension papers this week, the Witness newspaper reported on Monday. An unemployed 32-year-old woman claimed that she had gone to the ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/08/21/south-africa/ JOHANNESBURG - The South African police are allowing convicted murderers, rapists, armed robbers and corrupt officials to run around with guns and police uniforms. Responding to a parliamentary question by the opposition Democratic Alliance, the Minister of Safety and Security revealed that despite being found guilty of serious and violent crimes, ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/08/21/convicted-murderers-rapists-in-uniform/ An interesting story about SAA. Taken from a reader at news24. Never fly SAA. Some time ago there was some discussion around the airlines that might have to raise their tariffs to compensate for the increase in fuel costs. Some airlines also came out and indicated that they will be raising ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/08/21/saa/ One of South Africa's controversial new submarines, the SS Constitution, has broken the record for the deepest dive after its novice crew accidentally sank the vessel and wedged it into a seabed canyon in the South Atlantic. The navy has confirmed that the crew are "elated and will savour the ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/08/13/sinking-record/ Hyperinflation is raging so fiercely in the beleaguered African nation of Zimbabwe that it threatens to wipe out the supply of local currency. With prices in the country doubling every few days, the official inflation rate is running at more than 2 million percent — and at least four times ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/08/05/zimbabwe-running-out-of-money-%e2%80%94-literally/ Here is a report that the ANC will lose the 2009 elections in the Western Cape and most probably the Eastern Cape as well. They do not mention the Northern Cape, but based on service delivery then they will loose there too. I am glad to see that the “Two ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/07/24/godzilla-and-patricia/ FOR the sake of about R200, metal thieves plunged a large swath of the south Durban region, including major industries, which will suffer millions of rands in losses, into darkness yesterday. The Toyota plant in Prospecton, KwaMakhutha, Isipingo and Umlazi will all be without power for a few days because the ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/07/24/two-hundred-rand/ Radio and transmitting equipment that stood on a 30m-high tower at the airport here was stolen at the weekend by suspected scrap-metal thieves. One of eight transmission towers at the airport was pulled over on Sunday to reach the equipment that contains a lot of copper. The thieves escaped in an ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/07/22/airport/ Harare - The annual rate of inflation in Zimbabwe, already the highest in the world, has hit a new high of 2.2 million percent, the central bank's governor revealed on Wednesday. "Statistics provided by the CSO (central statistical office) indicate that it is now at 2.2 (million percent)," Gideon Gono ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/07/17/robert-mugabe/ People are being attacked simply because they are from other countries or other races. The locals are even attacking people who have been here for four or five generations. The issue is supposedly over concerns of people taking their jobs. But if you saw what is really going on, you ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/07/15/smash-and-grab-2/   Some 17 Xhosa-women were tortured while witchdoctors allegedly 'harvested' their wombs and genitals at the Mzamza village  which is located right next to the East Coast Casino at Bizana. Most of the women and girls who were so cruelly tortured to death worked at the nearby Casino. GENITALS  WERE REMOVED WHILE ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/07/15/witchcraft/ If there was a brown flag that could be hoisted above the province's dirtiest beaches, then Ballito on the north coast would have had good reason to pin one to its mast. Rivers of raw sewage leaked on the main beach after a major failure in a pump station on Friday, ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/07/15/durbans-north-coast/ Business robberies have increased in central Durban by a staggering 361% and by 185% in Pinetown over the period between April 2007 and March this year. This is according to the regional crime statistics that were released on the South African Police Services website. The national crime statistics were released ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/07/15/durban-cbd/ More than a quarter of the Mother City's 250 street sex workers (28%) who have been arrested, were offered their freedom in exchange for sex with police officers, while 12% were raped by a police officer. Furthermore, 63% were verbally abused by a police officer and 47% were threatened with physical ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/07/15/cape-town-sex-trade-shock/ Letter from Zimbabwe sent in by John Winter I reckon that these are the last days of TKM and ZPF. The darkest hour is always before dawn. We are all terrified at what they are going to destroy next........I mean they are actually ploughing down brick and mortar houses and ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/07/09/letter-from-zimbabwe/ So here we have it, at last. It has been a while coming, but come it has. Not that it has been unexpected. It was bound to happen eventually, in one way or another. Many very astute and able writers have been trying - for some considerable time - to show ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/07/03/descending-into-the-abyss/  PRETORIA. The South African government says that its latest crime statistics are disturbing, and that it fully intends to do something about crime, at some point in the future, possibly closer to 2010. According to a spokesman, the Minister of Safety and Security was "deeply shocked" by the latest figures, ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/07/02/latest-cutting-edge-astrological-charts/ Pornographic movies will now be shown on a little television set next to a petrol pump at all major garages, so that you can watch someone else get screwed while you fill-up. Then on the other hand filling up at petrol stations and driving off paying is quite popular now days ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/07/02/garages/ Hijackers are using pool acid to attack motorists, KwaZulu-Natal police warned. In a recent case in Rivonia, a motorist had stopped at a traffic light when a well-dressed man approached the car. He used a syringe and sprayed pool acid on the victim's face. He suffered severe burns. Motorists should be careful and ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/07/02/pool-acid/ Jordaan infuriated by 'Plan B' Johannesburg - Only an act of God will prevent the 2010 World Cup finals being hosted in South Africa. That was the reassurance given on Tuesday by the chief executive officer of the 2010 Soccer World Cup Local Organising Committee (LOC). Danny Jordaan Jordaan ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/07/01/insane/ Johannesburg - Eight people - including a one-year-old baby - were killed in an accident during a high speed car chase on the M1 South in Johannesburg on Monday, police said. "Police became suspicious of a silver-grey Toyota Corolla, with five occupants, parked at a Sasol garage in Booysens around 01:30," ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/06/30/high-speed-brings-death/ Cape town lost is place as the cleanest city recently but ar least its not as filthy as Pretoria! This new locking system invented in South Africa is patent pending! Get this, The SABC sends out letters of final demand for TV license fees. Even the dead are not exempt from not ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/06/28/tourists-love-south-africa/ Soaring food prices have hit millions of South Africans hard: more than half of the 47-million population lives below the $1 a day bread price. Increasingly food is being looted during organized protest campaigns by trade unions and residents. During a riot in Carltonville near Johannesburg on May 1 2008, ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/06/28/plundering-food/ South Africa has come under fire for blocking a move by the United Nations to declare Friday's one man run-off election in Zimbabwe as illegitimate. Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change says the election was a sham and that President Robert Mugabe remains in power because of President Thabo Mbeki's help. The ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/06/28/zimbabwe-free-and-fair/ An extensive campaign has been launched by trade union Solidarity to break through the silence which surrounds the growing poverty of many hundreds of thousands of white South Africans - mostly Afrikaners. They say that the government is ignoring the fact that the Poor White ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/06/21/white-poverty-grew-by-95-black-poverty-by-137/ Check out the depth of this pothole on a major thoroughfare in Secunda in the Free State. Local residents increasingly are teaming up to repair their own roads because municipalities are either collapsing, have no engineering staff or have run out of money in spite of sky-high municipal taxes ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/06/21/potholes/ ! Above Maputo in 1980 Maputo in 2007, a picture is often worth a thousand words, long live Africa. Johannesburg's central business district has also suffered from the African democratic  style of city management. http://onlyinsa.com/2008/06/21/independent-africa/ The government is importing hundreds of Cuban engineers and architects, in addition to doctors from Cuba and Tunisia. One can only despair at the Byzantine machinations of the government. Shortages of skills approach 48% in some departments, leading to a deterioration in essential services to citizens of the country. However, the ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/06/21/whites-un-desirable/ This border post between South Africa and Namibia in the bone-dry Kalahari region is now being turned into a 'farming area' by the ANC-regime, which has actually taken some of this useless desert land and handed it over to some 315 Nama-speaking 'previously disadvantaged' women, and now refers to these ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/06/21/congo-fever-onseepkans-kalahari-north-cape/ Newly discovered facts about chimpanzees' behavior confirms that these primates are humans' closest relatives. Certainly female chimps have nothing to learn from the wiliest woman, according to a study by British university researchers. They keep mum about having sex to avoid other females giving them a hard time for luring the best ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/06/21/monkey-business/ Raw sewerage if killing off Zululand 's fish-breeding grounds, with many thousands of fishes in the Umgeni River's mangrove breeding grounds being wiped out because raw sewerage is spilling into the river because the electricity blackouts have cut out the local pump stations. More bad news for ecologists near ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/06/21/durban-and-sewerage-generators/   The UN warns personnel in SA to never land at night at the Johannesburg International Airport because of violent crime gangs. SA employees say the UN now views SA as so dangerous that they are at the same alert level as conflict-driven countries such as the Sudan'. Specific regions may ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/06/21/travellers-warned-against-landing-at-joburg-airport-nights/ 4,000 white pensioners face starvation in Zimbabwe May 29 2008 -- Malalane truck-driver Hannes Botha (55) since 2002 makes a monthly 2,100-km round trip to Zimbabwe - hand-delivering life-saving food parcels to 350 destitute Afrikaner and other white pensioners. There's some 4,000 Afrikaner pensioners living a hand-to-mouth existence in Zimbabwe ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/06/21/starvation-in-zimbabwe/ The International Space Station photographed Joburg's population's close proximity to lethally radioactive uranium-dumps, waste from the goldmines: the angular patches,arrowed.Millions live on and next to these lethal uranium dumps.A Jan 2008 report by the SA nuclear regulator shows lethal radiation levels in groundwater and crops near the mines - and ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/06/21/johannesburg-mine-dumps/ Consumers are losing millions of rand every year as credit card fraud skyrocketed in South Africa over the past three years. This had increased in the 2006/2007 financial year to 97 percent. From last year up until present, it had gone up by another 57 percent. Gauteng was at 46,7 percent, the ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/06/21/fraud-credit-card-boom/ The eThekwini metro has taken top honours in the National Cleanest Town Competition 2008, adjudged the cleanest metro in the country. The annual competition is organized by the environmental affairs department and judged by an independent panel of adjudicators. The judges assessed pollution levels, general cleanliness, community awareness and waste management to ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/06/16/durbans-river-of-shame/ Cape Town Council will (with the tariff increases) ease its financial woes. The Greenpoint Stadium is in financial difficulties as building costs escalate. As usual homeowners will be burdened with these un- realistic tariff increases. A year has almost gone by and rates assessment blunders have yet ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/06/14/stadium-and-tariff-increases-scam/   Life in a foreign country is no picnic, and South Africans should provide support to foreign nationals rather than be hostile towards them. South Africa and Zimbabwe presidents are  oblivious to  crisis affecting their respective countries. http://onlyinsa.com/2008/06/06/what-are-they-complaining-about/ This is an ‘agro cheque’ . It looks like it has been printed on ordinary office paper and it feels like it too! Zanu PF’s PR skills reached new heights with this one. Zimbabe's new ‘currency’ note that captures the mood of the country . Most people are feeling fairly ... http://onlyinsa.com/2008/05/30/zimbabwe-currency/