The June 30 deadline for banks to verify the identities of their clients was deferred on Thursday to an array of new cut-off points starting on December 31. Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said banks would have to confirm the identities of their highest risk customers by the end of the year and banks would themselves determine the profile of this group.
Seventy South Africans being held in Harare on suspicion of plotting a coup d’état in Equatorial Guinea, will have to stand trial in Zimbabwe, the Pretoria High Court ruled on Wednesday. Their advocate said his instructions were to lodge an application for leave to appeal to the Constitutional Court in the event of their Pretoria High Court bid failing.
Leon calls for ‘words and action’
Mugabe to seize all farm land
On the eve of a federal council meeting to discuss the future of the New National Party following its poor performance in April’s national and provincial elections, the party’s Gauteng administrative office has closed. The move is in no way a sign of the party’s imminent dissolution in Gauteng, provincial leader Johan Kilian said.
Ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide is not a refugee in South Africa, but a free person and a guest of the government, Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said on Wednesday. She told reporters in Pretoria that Aristide will be allowed to make political speeches while in the country.
Eugene Terre’Blanche’s release from prison next Friday would kick-start the revival of the right-wing Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) he founded 31 years ago, his lawyer said on Wednesday. The organisation was put on ice while Terre’Blanche served more than half of an effective five-year jail term for assaulting security guard Paul Motshabi in 1996 — leaving him disabled.
Environmental lobby group Biowatch sought a Pretoria High Court order on Monday compelling the government to divulge details of all genetically modified (GM) organisms brought into or manufactured in the country to date. The body wants the state to make available an extensive list of facts concerning each permit.
The Supreme Court of Appeal reserved judgement on Thursday in a defamation case lodged by African National Congress deputy secretary-general Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele against the Mail & Guardian newspaper. At issue is whether Cabinet ministers can sue for damages in a defamation claim where it relates to their performance as Cabinet ministers.
Surprise, surprise, M&G wins case
Former state president PW Botha has rejected a claim that he encouraged a right-wing coup plotter to leave politics and "get a movement with an iron fist". State witness Lourens du Plessis earlier testified at the Boeremag treason trial in Pretoria that he had visited Botha in 2001 to discuss the political situation in the country.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=65906">PW Botha ‘advised right-wingers'</a>
Former state president PW Botha had advised a right-wing coup plotter to get out of politics and ”get a movement with an iron fist”, the Boeremag treason trial heard on Thursday. State witness Lourens du Plessis told the Pretoria High Court he had visited Botha at home in June 2001 to discuss the political situation in the country.
The leaders of the New National Party and Azanian People’s Organisation got senior posts in the new cabinet unveiled by President Thabo Mbeki on Wednesday. New National Party leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk becomes Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism while Azanian People’s Organisation leader Mosibudi Mangena got the portfolio of Science and Technology.