United States warships will soon leave waters near Burma after the ruling military junta refused permission for the delivery of aid supplies, a top US commander said on Wednesday.
President Robert Mugabe will boycott a weekend Southern African summit on the Zimbabwe crisis, state radio said on Friday as the opposition called for a general strike to press for the release of election results. Mugabe signalled a further clampdown in the country with a ban on all political rallies.
Murdered theatre personality Taliep Petersen considered divorcing his wife, Najwa, but was worried about what people would think of him, his younger brother, Igsaan, told the Cape High Court on Friday. Igsaan was the third witness in the trial of Najwa and three alleged hit men, who have pleaded not guilty to Taliep’s execution-style shooting.
West Coast aquaculture farm products were never at risk from possible shellfish poisoning, the Environmental Affairs and Tourism Department said on Friday. ”The aquaculture industry is monitored separately through a Molluscan Shellfish Monitoring and Control Programme,” it said.
A bake sale where cake prices were determined by a person’s race was broken up by the University of Pretoria’s campus security on Friday. The Freedom Front Plus student organisation, VF+TAS, said it held the sale to illustrate the unfairness of affirmative action. The organisation asked white, Indian and coloured students to pay significantly more for cake than black students.
Private health facilities should be more accessible to the general public, Health Department Director General Thami Mseleku said on Friday. Speaking at a primary healthcare conference in Boksburg, he suggested a system that provides for the government to refund private hospitals and clinics for treating patients without medical funds.
The Congress of South Africa Trade Unions (Cosatu) will stage the first of a series of protests against rising food prices in a march through Polokwane in Limpopo on Sunday, spokesperson Patrick Craven said on Friday. Besides drawing attention to rising food prices, the protesters will also complain about the electricity crisis.
The use of the word ”boesman” (bushman) by newspaper Die Burger is not derogatory hate speech, the Equality Court ruled in Cape Town on Friday. Kobus Faasen, an academic who says he is a descendant of the Khoisan people, had claimed the newspaper’s use of the word in several articles was ”contaminated with racism”.
Jeremy Kuper speaks to Simphiwe Dana, who performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London recently, and brought down the house.
Teenage paceman Ishant Sharma and off-spinner Harbhajan Singh shared six wickets as India restricted South Africa to 265 in the third and final Test in Kanpur on Friday. South Africa were comfortably placed at 152-1 before losing their way on a spin-friendly pitch. Skipper Graeme Smith (69) and Hashim Amla (51) led the way with solid half-centuries.