The state had proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Fred van der Vyver was guilty of the murder of his student girlfriend Inge Lotz, the Cape High Court heard on Monday. Prosecutor Christhenus van der Vijver was presenting closing argument in Van der Vyver’s trial.
Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said on Monday he would pull his country’s troops out of Darfur if it was determined that African peacekeepers who were killed at the weekend were not equipped to defend themselves. Twenty African Union soldiers were killed or injured and 40 missing after an assault on the Haskanita base in Darfur on Saturday night.
South African Police Service (SAPS) offices in Cullinan, near Pretoria, have been shut down after they were found to constitute a health threat, the Department of Labour said on Monday. Department spokesperson Zolisa Sigabi said the Crime Investigation Department building was shut down on Friday for contravening the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
Street posters promoting politician-turned-business-tycoon Tokyo Sexwale for president have appeared in Buffalo City (East London) in the Eastern Cape. The Dispatch Online reported on Monday that big colour posters reading ”Tokyo for president” were seen on poles in and around the city.
The army chiefs of Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) met on Monday for 48 hours of security talks behind closed doors. Monday’s talks in the city of Lubumbashi, in the south-east of the DRC, were also due to be attended by the United Nations mission in the DRC in an ”observer” role.
The Johannesburg metro police department has disputed a claim by the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) that metro police have joined striking council workers in the city in large numbers. Samwu had issued a statement earlier on Monday claiming 3Â 000 metro police officers had joined the strike.
Two dozen foreign embassies in Kenya on Monday called for ”zero tolerance” on campaign violence as elections loom in the East African nation where national votes seldom pass without bloodshed. With campaigns just beginning to roll ahead of an expected December presidential poll, one rally has already been ambushed by men armed with bows-and-arrows.
Racially based policies disempower the people they seek to promote, reveals a South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) report released on Monday. ”These policies reinforce the apartheid-style ideology that value is not associated with capability, but with the colour of one’s skin,” said SAIRR researcher Hannah Botsis.
Murder accused Fred van der Vyver acted extremely strangely after the death of his girlfriend, Inge Lotz, the Cape High Court heard on Monday. The submission came from prosecutor Carien Theunissen in closing argument in Van der Vyver’s trial. He is alleged to have bludgeoned her to death in her Stellenbosch flat on March 16 2005.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has laid a charge against South African Broadcasting Corporation board deputy chairperson Christine Qunta of contravening provisions of the Medicines and Related Substances Control Act. The charge was laid at Cape Town Central police station on Monday by DA spokesperson Mike Waters.