Sapa Author

Tributes and messages of condolence streamed in on Wednesday afternoon after former KwaZulu-Natal social welfare minister Prince Gideon Zulu (72) died on Tuesday evening following a long illness. United Democratic Movement president Bantu Holomisa hailed Zulu as a ''fierce warrior ... who showed humility and warmth''.

Tributes and messages of condolence streamed in on Wednesday afternoon after former KwaZulu-Natal social welfare minister Prince Gideon Zulu (72) died on Tuesday evening following a long illness. United Democratic Movement president Bantu Holomisa hailed Zulu as a ''fierce warrior ... who showed humility and warmth''.

Proudly South African (PSA) -- the campaign established in 2001 to encourage consumers to buy local products -- is undergoing a renaissance under new CEO Manana Moroka, the organisation said on Tuesday. The <i>Mail & Guardian</i> reported earlier this month that PSA was floundering.

The African National Congress said on Monday that its deputy president, Jacob Zuma, would be resuming his duties ''without delay'' after he stepped down from active duty while his rape trial was under way. Zuma was acquitted of rape in the Johannesburg High Court on May 8.

A boy accused of killing the cousin of United States R&B singer Ashanti Douglas in a car accident last month was granted bail at the Randburg Magistrate's Court, a court official said on Thursday. The 17-year-old minor was remanded into the care of his parents as part of the conditions of bail on Wednesday.

Former deputy president Jacob Zuma was found not guilty in the Johannesburg High Court on Monday of raping a 31-year-old HIV-positive woman at his Johannesburg home in November last year. Judge Willem van der Merwe found that Zuma and his accuser had consensual sex in Zuma's main bedroom.

Minister of Public Works Stella Sigcau has died at Durban's St Augustine hospital, ministerial spokesperson Lucky Mochalibane said on Monday. He said Sigcau (69), who was appointed minister of public enterprises in the first post-apartheid government in 1994, died of a recurring heart problem on Sunday.

A sidewalk observer who rescued a baby dramatically in Johannesburg's CBD on Wednesday deserves every bit of praise and an award, Democratic Alliance inner-city councillor Ann Barnes said on Thursday. The passer-by caught the baby after it was thrust from the fifth floor of a burning block of flats.

Tsunami warnings for New Zealand, Fiji and the rest of the Pacific have been cancelled following a massive 8,0 quake in Tonga, United States tsunami monitors said on Wednesday. There were few early reports of injury or damage in Tonga, although a hotel guest hurt his leg when he jumped from a third-floor window.

A huge earthquake with a magnitude of 8,0 on the Richter scale hit Pacific islands in the Tonga region early on Thursday, the United States Geological Survey reported. US authorities issued a tsunami warning for New Zealand and Fiji, officials said, and a tsunami watch for the rest of the Pacific.

The Department of Health has rejected a demand for the inclusion of the Aids Law Project in South Africa's delegation to next month's special United Nations session on HIV/Aids. The demand was made by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) as a precondition for its acceptance of its own inclusion on the list.

Parliament has rebuffed suggestions that National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete's R471 900 trip to attend the inauguration of Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in Monrovia in January was a ''joyride across Africa''. The Mail & Guardian reported on the expensive trip on Friday.