POLLSMOOR PROBE CORRECTIONAL Services Minister Sipo Mzimela on Thursday appointed an independent two-member board of inquiry into the recent violence at Pollsmoor prison near Cape Town. The inquiry will look into events last Friday, when nearly 200 inmates were hospitalised after being beaten with batons and pistols during a search for weapons and ammunition in the prison. Mzimela, President Nelson Mandela, and Mandela’s consort Graa Machel visited Pollsmoor on Thursday.
MUGABE A DAD AGAIN ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe’s second wife, Grace, 31, gave birth on Monday to their second son. Last week, President Nelson Mandela told Mugabe, 73, that Mugabe seems to have “grown ever younger and even more vivacious” since his marriage to Grace ten months ago. The family lives with Mugabe’s other children in a R3-million mansion, built with funds intended for low-cost housing.
REBEL POLICE IN COURT THE 32 Lesotho police officers who were arrested after a mutiny in February appeared in the Maseru Magistrate’s Court on Thursday morning, on charges of high treason. They were not asked to plead and a date for their trial will soon be set.
THLOLOE PUSHED BY ANC? THE SA Press Association reported last night that SABC TV news chief Joe Thloloe had quit under pressure from the ANC. Sapa said it had been given a copy of an internal document criticising the “old guard” leadership of TV news. The document was passed on to the ANC which urged SABC chief Zwelakhe Sisulu to “rectify” the situation. The ANC has denied the claim, and Thloloe has refused to comment.
BITTER WEATHER SNOW fell over many parts of the country yesterday, particularly in the Free State and KwaZulu Natal, with temperatures close to or below zero. Residents living near the Vaal dam, now over-full by almost 120%, were warned of possible flood hazards. The only town to escape the freeze was Cape Town, which enjoyed a rare sunny winter’s day. On Thursday, snow was reported for the first time in 20 years near Pietersburg in Northern Province, and for the first time in 30 years in Swaziland.
TV RELIGION CUT RELIGIOUS groups have reacted angrily to announcements that the SABC will cut its allotment of religious programmes by 75%, to 106 minutes per week. Leaders of various faiths have objected that in a religious country with large numbers of faiths, religious broadcasting is “not optional”.
NINETEEN PRISONERS ESCAPE NINETEEN dangerous prisoners have escaped from police custody in Gauteng this week, including the suspected killers of Eliakim “Pro” Khumalo, father of soccer star Doctor Khumalo. There were three separate breakouts, one at gunpoint; one from a prison hospital and one by sawing through cell bars. Eight men have since been recaptured, including Samson Masithulele, 20 one of the suspected killers of “Pro” Khumalo, who was shot dead by car hijackers outside his home last August. Masithulele’s suspected accomplice, Lawrence Mazimba, 22, is still at large.