January 2010

By Gabi Khumalo

Johannesburg - Deputy Minister of Public Works Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu has encouraged women contractors to make their mark in the industry.

Bogopane-Zulu said South Africa was a country that was transforming and every industry, including construction, should be part of that change.

"Construction sites should not make women feel like they need to be men, but rather they need to change because women have arrived," she said, speaking during a roundtable discussion with women contractors on Friday.

She said her department was doing its bit too and putting together plans to establish a gender unit to help in understanding what it is that needs to be done differently and address issues such as the expectations of women in the industry.

"When we say a construction site is 'women-friendly', we've got to ask what is it that determines this, and what are we, as women, bringing to the sites," she questioned.

The minister further challenged the women contractors to ensure that they get a slice of the R800 billion allocated by government for infrastructural development for the next three years.

Press Conference and Dinner February 19, 2010 

AE911Truth will hold a press conference on Friday, February 19, at 11:00 AM at the Marines Memorial Club and Hotel in San Francisco. We will announce and honor the milestone of our achievement of obtaining 1,000 architects and engineers (A/E's) petitioning for a real investigation into the destruction of the 3 World Trade Center skyscrapers.

Invitations are being sent to more than 400 local AIA members, to many local, national, and international media outlets, and to more than 15,000 AE911Truth.org petition signers and supporters from around the world.

Pretoria - A landmark project that converts gas from household waste into electricity has been officially launched in Durban.

A first for Africa, the project will produce enough electricity for thousands of medium-income homes.

It will also inject tens of millions of Rands into the city coffers through the sale of electricity and certified emission reduction credits, also known as carbon credits.

But the real winner will be the environment. Millions of cubic metres of greenhouse gases that would otherwise have escaped into the atmosphere each year, contributing to global warming, will now be converted into clean electricity.

The project is currently operating at the Marianhill and La Mercy landfills and will be extended to the larger Bisasar Road landfill.

Speaking at the official launch ceremony today, Minister of Energy Dipuo Peters said the project will accelerate the use of renewable energy and deal with energy challenges.

The project, she said, was an important part of government's strategic vision to be more sustainable and to tackle climate change.

Pretoria - An underground gas leakage was responsible for the explosion at Telkom's Yeoville building, says the telecommunication company.

"An underground gas leakage in the Yeoville, Johannesburg area was responsible for this morning's (Wednesday) explosion which damaged Telkom's exchange as well as adjacent buildings," said Telkom in a statement.

The explosion, which occurred yesterday morning, resulted in two people being injured. One of the injured, who was a Telkom technician, was hospitalised and is in a stable condition in hospital.

It was earlier believed that a municipal transformer at Telkom's exchange in Yeoville had exploded.

The explosion affected voice, data, DSL and MCO (mobile cellular operator) links with the company citing service restoration as its highest priority.

Telkom, however, added that progress to do this was being delayed because the building which houses Telkom's exchange was declared unsafe by the Johannesburg Fire Department.

"Telkom is continuing investigations into the matter and is determining the most appropriate course of action to expedite service restoration," said company spokesperson Ajith Bridgraj. - BuaNews