For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Sane Dhlamini.

Making headlines: Ntshavheni jets off to Russia for 'security matters', political will is needed to turn education tide around and, Tshwane testing whether water in tankers or from rivers is the source of Cholera outbreak

Ntshavheni jets off to Russia for 'security matters'

Following weeks of scrutiny on the government's stance on the conflict in Ukraine, Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, is headed to Russia this week for a high-level security meeting. 

Ntshavheni will attend a three-day meeting in Moscow which her department has described as routine. 

The meeting is expected to be attended by high-level officials and will discuss "security matters, general trends in the international security situation including global security". 

Ntshavheni, whose departmental responsibility includes the Ministry of State Security, is expected to engage Russian authorities on the peacekeeping mission by African leaders who hope to try and end the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. 

Political will is needed to turn education tide around

Stellenbosch University associate professor Nic Spaull has warned that there will not be any progress from the recent Progress in International Reading Literacy Study which revealed that 81% of Grade 4 pupils in South Africa cannot read for meaning in any official languages.

He pointed to no catch-up plan set up by the Department of Basic Education and stressed that political will is a critical factor that is needed to help turn the results around, noting that this approach has worked for Brazil.

Spaull spoke to Polity in an exclusive interview where he said South Africa was last among the 50 countries participating in the PIRLS survey, a set back from 2011 levels of achievement. 

The survey revealed that average Brazilian Grade 4 is three years ahead of the average Grade 4 child in South Africa.

Tshwane testing whether water in tankers or from rivers is the source of Cholera outbreak

The City of Tshwane says it has 52 water tankers going to informal settlements, but it is still being determined whether the cholera source is water in the rivers or water from the tankers.

On Sunday, the Gauteng health department announced that ten people had died of cholera in Hammanskraal, north of Pretoria.

By Monday the number of deaths had risen to 12. 

Lab results from patients at the Jubilee District Hospital, with symptoms of diarrhoea, stomach cramps and nausea, came back positive for the bacterial disease.

There were 37 confirmed cholera patients at the hospital.

Ferrial Adam, the executive manager of WaterCAN, Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse said the government had to test the water for pathogens, like cholera or hepatitis, in areas with sewage spills.

That’s a roundup of news making headlines today

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