Fifty-four percent of South African drivers claim to have been on the receiving end of aggressive or threatening driving behaviour in the past 12 months, a recent study has found. A total number 1 986 respondents from Gauteng, Durban and Cape Town were asked about various acts of road rage experienced, ranging from persistent honking of horns to actual physical violence.
Sixty-three percent of child deaths in South African hospitals could be avoided, the South African Human Rights Commission heard on Thursday. ”Thirty-one percent of those children died during their first 24 hours in hospital,” Dr Mphele Mulaudzi told a commission hearing in Johannesburg.
The Education Department must do something about school security, a school principal pleaded on Thursday after the ”horrific” stabbing of one of his pupils with a pair of scissors. Another three school pupils have died in violence throughout the country this week, including an eight-year-old hacked to death by two classmates.
Former president Nelson Mandela has told outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair he looks forward to welcoming ”a young man like you” to the club of retired presidents when Blair leaves office on June 27. However, Mandela warned Blair that some of its members — himself chief among them — ”only became active after stepping down from public office”.
The Labour Court in Cape Town on Thursday granted an order interdicting unions from calling on immigration officers to join Friday’s national strike. Judge Deon Nel also ruled that the statutory essential-services committee should hold a hearing not later than June 15 to decide whether the officers are essential-services workers.
The media on Thursday scored a major victory following a ruling by the portfolio committee on home affairs exempting print and broadcast media from provisions of the controversial Film and Publications Bill. The Bill is aimed primarily at cracking down on child pornography.
The kidnapping, rape and murder of six-year-old Michaela Garoenisha Ganchi was not a serious enough case for a life sentence to apply, the Johannesburg High Court heard on Thursday. Ronald Ambrose Jones (27) was found guilty of kidnapping, two counts of indecent assault, rape and murder for the 2005 killing.
The government has made no decision to reduce the number of provinces or to ”rationalise” them, President Thabo Mbeki told Parliament on Thursday. Replying to questions in the National Assembly, Mbeki said Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi is to give more details of a provincial- and local-government system review next week.
A 33-year-old nurse charged with murdering her husband was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment by the Rustenburg High Court on Thursday. Judge Ronnie Hendricks found Kealeboga Shuping guilty of murder and arson. Her husband, Ernest Shuping, died in hospital of burns inflicted at their home in Geelhout Park, Rustenburg, in May 2004.
Several hundred Somali soldiers briefly seized the southern port of Kismayu in a protest over unpaid salaries in the latest sign of the turmoil plaguing the Horn of Africa nation, residents said on Thursday. Business was brought to a standstill as about 800 troops took up positions across Somalia’s third city on Tuesday, they said.