Mineworkers march

Today, I went to the CBD to cover a march by mineworkers from the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) to the Chamber of Mines on Marshall street. They are protesting about the safety of SA mines.
They had banners and flags, some saying that the mines had blood on their hands and that they were "dripping in blood".

It kind of makes me think, these people, the ones leaving their families, working underground, doing the labour, getting dirty, getting killed, they really get nothing.
It seems to me, as it has for a while that these large corporations couldn't care less about the people that do the "menial labour", they only look after the top.

The spokesman for one of the mines comes out and says that safety is their top priority, I doubt that, its just talk-Generating a hefty profit to justify large increases for CEO's and the like is top priority, as it always has been.














Protesters from NUM dance outside the Chamber of Mines in Marshall st. Johannesburg.

President Jacob Zuma?

Some polls are out, saying Jacob Zuma is leading the race to become the president of the ANC after their National Conference in Limpopo, South Africa soon.

I've been to a few functions where he has spoke, in fact, I've even had tea with him in his living room once when The Citizen interviewed him a while ago. I really do feel that if he means what he says, he can't be too bad.

Corruption charges and rape charges aside, he is anti-crime, and he even spoke out recently about the death penalty (which I personally think is a must for violent criminals).

I'm no political analyst, but Thabo Mbeki has been very quiet about most things that affect our country, and very interested in things that affect countries thousands of miles from our borders for years now. The only photos you seen of him, until recently, when he jumped on the Springbok bandwagon was of him greeting some obscure country's leader in an elegant office, he knows nothing about the man on SA's street, Zuma at least has that.

So, ... heres hoping that our soon to be President, is really not guilty of rape, that he has changed his opinion on showering fighting HIV, he never knew that Schabir Shaik was organising him a half a million rand bribe and he would'nt have accepted it anyway.

Jukskei River cleanup

I went with a organisation called SOUL (Save Our Universal Land) to clean up sections of the Jukskei river, just as it leaves the township of Alexandra.
You would not believe the filth in this river. Its understandable, I suppose as Alex is one of the poorest places in SA, but there was everything in this river- dead dogs, rats, tyres, blankets, cans, paint buckets, shoes, residential rubbish, carpets, cupboards....I could go on.

On the bright side, we did'nt find a dead body, which I did kind of expect to find underneath all the crud.

Crown Gardens Fire

Firefighters work to contain a fire in a warehouse at China-Mart in Crown Gardens, Johannesburg. The warehouse was full of toys imported from China for the Christmas rush.


I also used this fire as an opportunity to test my new video camera, I plan to shoot some video for this blog occasionally, its taken a while for me to learn how to convert, edit and upload, dont be too critical though, its my first attempt, it will get better :)



Finally, after trying to download free video converters, cracks, demo-programmes , crashing two computers, having to format and reload Windows on my laptop four times because of anti-virus programmes and some 90-odd viruses because of the lack of knowledge about what I was doing , the video is now here...... Check it out.

The Parade

The rain failed to stop thousands of fans from lining the roads of Pretoria and Johannesburg to see the team that won them the Rugby World Cup.Being on the media bus that led the parade, I was able to see first hand, the uniting effect that success in sport has on our people, people of all sizes, color, shapes and creed lined the streets to celebrate. On the highway between Jhb and Pta cars blew their horns, some stopped to take pictures of the team, every single person that I seen had a smile on their face. One thing that I noticed was the sheer numbers of black supporters that seemed intent to congratulate the Boks. That made me think that maybe the controversy about quotas is not really what the man on the street wants, but what a select number of politicians want, because the black people that lined the streets in large numbers seemed to love this team as much as the white onesBryan Habana lifts the Webb Ellis Cup for the crowds in Midrand, near Johannesburg.

Check out the support the Boks had during their parade through Pretoria and Johannesburg.