There is no campaign to drive foreigners out of Alexandra, said African National Congress provincial chairperson Paul Mashatile on Wednesday outside the home of a victim of this week’s alleged xenophobic attacks in the Johannesburg township that have claimed three lives. Winnie Madikizela-Mandela also visited the township on Wednesday.
Areas in and around the Kempton Park CBD will be without power until Sunday, the Ekurhuleni municipality said on Thursday, following a fire at a substation in Spartan on Monday. The crisis has left one resident dead and residential and business areas without electricity. Meanwhile, South Africans will be free of scheduled power cuts next week, Eskom said on Thursday.
The Education Department is considering reopening teacher training colleges, says Education Minister Naledi Pandor. In a written reply to a question in Parliament by Desiree van der Walt of the Democratic Alliance, Pandor said the department is investigating options for expanding the provision of teacher education.
Legal counsel for Ekurhuleni metro police chief Robert McBride on Monday asked the Pretoria Regional Court to compel the state to hand over all documents containing statements made against him. This included a statement not related to the drunken-driving case before the court.
The Pretoria Regional Court on Monday turned down an application by Ekurhuleni metro police chief Robert McBride’s legal team for the state to hand over all documents, even those not relating to his drunken-driving charge. Advocate Guido Penzhorn argued that not having the documents affected McBride’s right to adequately prepare a defence.
The case against Ekurhuleni metro police chief Robert McBride, relating to drunken-driving charges, started briefly in the Pretoria Regional Court on Monday before being stood down again. State prosecutors told magistrate Peet Johnson that they were ready to proceed but that McBride’s defence team wanted to bring an application.
A Metrorail passenger train derailed early on Saturday morning at Durban’s Merebank railway station, injuring 135 people — 21 of them seriously. The Umlazi-bound train derailed at 6.30am. While none of the carriages overturned, a steel support of the overhead electric power cables buckled on to the second of the train’s six coaches.
President Robert Mugabe and his chief rival will attend an emergency summit of Southern African leaders to present their conflicting views of the crisis paralysing the country in the wake of hotly contested elections, spokespersons for the men said on Thursday. The opposition has said it will not take part in an election run-off.
South African Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni has raised the repo rate, at which the South African Reserve Bank lends money to banks, by 50 basis points to 11,5% following a two-day meeting of the bank’s monetary policy committee. The prime overdraft rate therefore increases to 15%.
A Zimbabwean court on Monday released a United States journalist and a British national on bail after charging them with reporting on the March 29 elections without accreditation, their lawyer said. "They have both been released on Z$300-million bail," lawyer Harrison Nkomo told journalists outside the court.