Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana has tabled a report in Parliament blaming the PetroSA refinery for a R473-million loss during a shutdown in July 2003. Mushwana’s report clears Minerals and Energy Affairs Minister Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka of any misconduct over a controversial labour and maintenance contract that was awarded by the PetroSA refinery last year.
Neither a 200 basis-point hike in interest rates nor the rand weakening to R8 per dollar will affect South African clothing retailer Edgars Consolidated Stores Limited’s (Edcon) growth, Tessa Christelis, executive manager of investor relations at Edcon, told reporters on Tuesday.
An estimated 400 000 foetuses have been legally aborted between 1997 and 2004, a Christian advocacy group told Parliament’s health portfolio committee on Tuesday. Representatives of the groups were speaking during public hearings on the Choice of Termination of Pregnancy Amendment Bill.
Much of the intelligence that prompted United States authorities to raise alerts around major financial institutions indicated that al-Qaeda studied the sites as potential targets before the September 11, 2001 attacks, The Washington Post said on Tuesday.
We are a nation in danger
South Africa will host a new round of talks on Burundi to finalise a agreement on power-sharing and on holding elections, South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma said on Tuesday. The two days of talks beginning on Wednesday will be attended by all the parties in Burundi except for the Forces for the Defence of Democracy group.
A 34-year-old man appeared in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday in connection with the killing of three people during a road-rage incident at the weekend, Johannesburg police said. Three people were killed and another one wounded in the incident at Unigray on Saturday night.
The queen likes simple unspiced food and abhors waste to the extent of warming up leftovers, according to a BBC documentary to be broadcast next week. Celebrity chef Gary Rhodes spills the beans on life backstairs at Buckingham Palace, revealing details such as the ”traffic lights” on the corridors that turn to red when a royal approaches so that junior footmen can disappear into a handy closet.
The government was setting itself up for failure if it introduced its further education and training (FET) curriculum for grades 10 to 12 in 2006, the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa) said on Tuesday. Naptosa president Dave Balt was commenting after Education Minister Naledi Pandor’s said on Monday that, as far as she was concerned, the deadline remained 2006.
Nasa launched a messenger to Mercury on Tuesday, the first spacecraft in 30 years to head to the sun’s closest planet. The probe, named Messenger, rocketed away in the pre-dawn moonlight on what will be a eight billion kilometre, six-and-a-half-year journey to Mercury. Messenger will view Mercury from all sides.
There was laughter in the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday when "Rottweiler" and "KGB" emerged as some of the <i>noms de guerre</i> assumed by the alleged Boeremag coup plotters. One called himself "Motherfucker" and another "Volla", accused-turned-state-witness Henk van Zyl told the court.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=119751">Whites were to be ‘slaughtered'</a>