A number of Gauteng schools are breaking the law by continuing to charge fees, despite legislation declaring them “no-fee” institutions. And the province’s education department has admitted it has no monitoring mechanisms to ensure schools apply the law. The alarm was raised by the Learner Representative Forum of the Vaal Triangle, formed in 2003.
Minister of Intelligence Ronnie Kasrils is the latest high-profile politician to be subpoenaed by former National Intelligence Agency boss Billy Masetlha. Masetlha’s lawyers have instructed Kasrils to hand over a report called Presidential Special Investigation as evidence to be used in his fraud trial in July.
Police investigators say that the claim of an assassination plot against Jacob Zuma is a hoax — and are considering prosecuting senior members of Zuma’s inner circle in connection with it. Senior members of the South African Police Services crime intelligence unit told the Mail & Guardian they believe the plot claim may have been engineered to enhance Zuma’s public profile
The unfolding story of Pakistani national Saud Memon, who was released from more than four years of detention, two of which he spent in Guantanamo shortly before his death this month, suggests that the South African government gave United States intelligence agencies carte blanche to pursue their “war on terror” on South African soil.
Vuka Tshabalala, the judge president of the KwaZulu-Natal high court received millions of rands worth of shares in the Batho Bonke consortium from businessperson and presidential hopeful Tokyo Sexwale. This is the most recent in a series of controversies surrounding the extent to which his decisions may have affected Jacob Zuma’s leadership prospects.
The brilliant American satirical magazine, The Onion, recently headlined a new development in education in the United States: “Evangelical scientists refute gravity with new ‘intelligent falling’ theory”. Its report continued: “Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held ‘theory of gravity’ is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling.
The National Prosecuting Authority has defended its decision to separate Schabir Shaik’s trial from that of his co-conspirators, the former deputy president Jacob Zuma and French arms company Thint, saying Zuma could have testified as a witness during Shaik’s trial.
The ANC succession battle being fought in the trenches of KwaZulu-Natal continues to reveal a party that is at odds with itself: where cadre recruitment at branch level is being used to add impetus to campaigns for the presidency and allegations are emerging that policy workshops are being sabotaged to push forward a pro-Jacob Zuma agenda.
Minister of Public Service and Administration Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi took a swipe at trade unions representing more than a million public servants, accusing them of bad faith bargaining and complaining that some union chiefs did not understand the government’s pay offer.
International aid group Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) says that a lack of healthcare staff is endangering the lives of millions of people living with HIV/Aids, for whom the drugs are available, but the doctors to prescribe them are not. In a report titled Help Wanted the NGO says that failure to allow nurses to administer antiretroviral (ARV) therapy combined with poor salaries.