Violence conducted by Zimbabwe’s security forces is spreading as they randomly beat up members of the public while swooping through neighbourhoods on the lookout for opposition supporters, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday. ”There is a broader element of repression that is taking place at the moment,” HRW researcher Tiseke Kasambala said.
A national strike planned for Wednesday by bus workers’ unions was prevented by the Labour Court in Cape Town on Tuesday when it granted an interdict to the South African Bus Employers’ Association. The strike action would have put additional strain on Johannesburg’s public-transport system, which is already chaotic due to strike action by Metrobus employees.
The Supreme Court of Appeal has upheld an appeal by the City of Johannesburg, which wants to remove about 300 people from buildings in its inner city due to health reasons and other dangers. The residents of two of the buildings have one month to vacate the buildings, otherwise the sheriff will be permitted to remove all persons from the properties.
South African gamers can join the queues on Friday when Sony’s long-awaited PlayStation 3 (PS3) hits local stores. It also debuts in Europe on the same day. The PS3 offers games and multimedia in a high-definition environment using the Blu-ray DVD system, created for high-definition TV systems.
Farm workers on KwaZulu-Natal farms are subjected to gross human rights violations, the province’s Premier, Sibusiso Ndebele, said on Human Rights Day on Wednesday. In an address at Besters Farm in Ladysmith, Ndebele said most farm workers are being refused access to water, sanitation, electricity and education.
An eight-year-old boy who nearly drowned when his arm was stuck for more than two hours in an intake pipe in a public swimming pool in Pretoria has died, paramedics said on Monday. Halaletsang Nkome was swimming at the Danville municipal pool in Pretoria when his arm was sucked into the pipe on Sunday afternoon.
Widespread tidal flooding and huge waves, caused by weather conditions combined with a high spring tide, brought chaos to the KwaZulu-Natal coastline on Monday — and worse may be in store for the battered region. In Durban, beachfront areas were pounded by massive surf in the early hours of Monday morning.
<i>Sunday Times</i> journalist and columnist David Bullard was shot and wounded when four men broke into his Johannesburg house, police said on Thursday. Captain Cheryl Engelbrecht said Bullard (55) had been shot once on Wednesday, with the bullet going through his arm and into his abdomen.
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.