There is no reason why the recent volatility in the stock exchange, the gold price, the value of the rand and the bond market should negatively affect South Africa, said President Thabo Mbeki. Since early May, the rand has lost 8% or 9% of its value and the JSE has lost a similar amount, he said in his weekly newsletter on the African National Congress website.
The Pretoria High Court on Friday turned down an application by 15 refugees to set aside a refusal by the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority not to register them as security guards. Their registration was earlier refused on the grounds that they were neither South African citizens nor permanent residents.
Police on Friday confirmed a probe into a theft from a police safe in Benoni but would not say whether this involved the theft of heist money from the Johannesburg International airport robbery in March. Superintendent Eugene Opperman said a burglary took place on Wednesday at the serious and violent-crimes unit.
South Africa’s rugby bosses on Friday formally adopted a transformation charter designed to significantly increase the number of black people involved in the sport. South African Rugby Union (Saru) president Oregan Hoskins told a media briefing in Cape Town that Saru’s president’s council had given its blessing to the ”scientifically based” seven page document.
Peter van Heerden’s wild performances that include branding lend new meaning to the term historical angst. Alex Sudheim attends his current retrospective.
Colin Bower takes a broad swipe at Christianity in his new book, writes Drew Forrest.
The Northern Cape provincial minister for finance and economic affairs, Pakes Dikgetsi, appeared in court on Friday on domestic violence-related charges, police confirmed. Spokesperson Superintendent Mashay Gamieldien confirmed his arrest, also on Friday, and court appearance in Kimberley.
Six months after suspending aid to Ethiopia on democracy concerns, two of the impoverished nation’s top donors agreed on Friday to put much of that money to education and health projects. The World Bank and Britain said they had redirected a total of more than -million from suspended support to programmes to help the poorest in Ethiopia over the next two years.
Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon on Friday questioned the wisdom of Lulu Xingwana’s appointment as Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister. ”As Deputy Minister of Minerals and Energy, Xingwana achieved little aside from her racist and xenophobic diatribes in Parliament, which were viewed with alarm by both local and foreign investors,” Leon said in his weekly newsletter.
Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai called on the United Nations on Friday to intervene in his homeland’s political and economic crises. The Zimbabwean government has rejected UN involvement, saying Secretary General Kofi Annan need not make a long-planned visit.