Eight people are feared drowned during floods in the Eastern Cape over the weekend, emergency services said on Tuesday. Captain John Fobian said the missing people were from the former Transkei, Queenstown and Grahamstown. Four bodies have been recovered in the province since Monday.
At least 70 people were killed on Tuesday when a strong earthquake hit the Indonesian island of Sumatra, toppling buildings and sparking panic in the streets of nearby Malaysia and Singapore. CNN reported that hundreds of buildings had collapsed on the island, and local officials said hospitals were quickly overwhelmed.
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/ 22 February 2007
Roofs were blown off, trees uprooted and power lines cut by the force of a tropical cyclone that slammed into coastal regions of already-beleaguered Mozambique on Thursday, officials said. There were no immediate reports of casualties after Cyclone Favio made landfall in the Southern African nation.
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/ 21 February 2007
Disaster officials and aid agencies are closely monitoring Tropical Cyclone Favio, due to make landfall in flood-drenched Mozambique on Thursday, as it crosses the narrow sea channel from Madagascar. By 6pm local time on Wednesday afternoon, Favio was a very intense category-three storm with winds of about 185km/h.
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/ 15 February 2007
Minister of Correctional Services Ngconde Balfour on Thursday ordered that convicted Durban businessman and fraud convict Schabir Shaik be immediately removed from St Augustine’s Hospital in Durban and sent to Westville Prison. Balfour made the decision after viewing medical reports on Shaik’s condition. Shaik has been in Durban’s St Augustine’s Hospital for the past 83 days.
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/ 11 February 2007
Police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi lives with violent crime on his doorstep in Waterkloof Ridge, Pretoria, but he is spared due to protection by armed guards, the Sunday Times reported — and at least seven armed robberies were reported in President Thabo Mbeki’s Pretoria neighbourhood in one month.
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/ 10 February 2007
African National Congress Adelaide Tambo’s death at the end of January came at a time when she was needed the most, President Thabo Mbeki said on Saturday. The ANC and South Africans need to draw on the example set by Tambo, Mbeki told a crowd of thousands at her funeral in Wattville, outside Johannesburg.
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/ 8 February 2007
A major computer failure at OR Tambo International airport on Thursday morning led to several delays. Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) spokesperson Solomon Makgale told the Mail & Guardian Online that some flights ”on one or two airlines” had been delayed.
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/ 5 February 2007
Shipped halfway across the world to Asia as a seafood delicacy, abalone has become a prized commodity for South African entrepreneurs as well as criminals who have poached the mollusc almost to extinction. Known colloquially in South Africa as ”perlemoen”, abalone is so endangered the government has drastically reduced the total allowable catch.
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/ 2 February 2007
The National Civil Safety and Security Action (Nacissa) has asked how government and the ruling party can promote a better life for all if crime is out of control. "We are not against strategies that the government has put in place; we are here to assist," Nacissa chief executive Ockie van der Schyf said in Pretoria on Friday.