A former top South African defence official resigned after suspecting corruption over an arms deal involving BAE Systems, Thales and others, a report said on Thursday. Pierre Steyn said he left office in 1998 because he was not content proper safeguards were in place which would allow him to prevent or expose corruption in the bidding process.
South Africa’s producer price inflation (PPI) accelerated to 11,1% year-on-year in April after a 10,3% increase in March, far above forecasts, official data showed on Thursday. On a monthly basis, PPI increased by 1,7% after a 1,2% increase in March. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast that annual PPI would come in at 10,4%.
Britain’s newest visitor attraction, a theme park dedicated to novelist Charles Dickens, offers a taste of the grim world of Victorian London stalked by characters like Oliver Twist, Ebenezer Scrooge and David Copperfield. In the naval dockyard town of Chatham in south-east England’s Kent, where Dickens lived and worked, Dickens World opened its doors over the weekend.
The All Blacks put their World Cup credentials on the line against a below-par French rugby side in Auckland on Saturday when the controversial reconditioning theory faces its first Test. Anything but an emphatic All Blacks victory is certain to provoke a highly vocal backlash in a country frustrated at not having won the World Cup for 20 years.
Members of the Group of Eight (G8) leading industrial nations will announce plans to increase the money they spend combating HIV/Aids at an upcoming summit, the German government said on Wednesday. Germany, which currently chairs the G8, hosts a summit of G8 leaders in the Baltic resort of Heiligendamm on June 6 to 8.
The Department of Transport’s application to stop Beeld newspaper from running a report on the eNaTIS transport information system will be heard in the Pretoria High Court on Thursday. Editor Peet Kruger called on Transport Minister Jeff Radebe to spend his time rectifying problems presented by eNaTIS rather than trying to silence his newspaper.
On Wednesday, the third of 12 days of public hearings by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa into the granting of new satellite pay-TV licences to broadcasters, it became obvious that the application of the fifth applicant — the Ndabenhle Group — will most likely be dead in the water.
Tropical Storm Barbara, the first Pacific cyclone to form close to the coast this year, swirled erratically off Mexico on Wednesday and may reach hurricane strength within four days. Mexico’s Civil Protection Agency said Barbara was veering slightly southwards about 305km south of the port of Puerto Angel in the state of Oaxaca.
A man died and 11 others were seriously injured in an explosion at a scrapyard in the Bon Accord area of Pretoria on Wednesday, the Tshwane metro said. ”Preliminary indications show that there were explosives in the metals with which the men were working at the time of the explosion,” spokesperson William Baloyi said.
Western Cape police are still searching for the gang which gunned strip-club owner Yuri Ulianitski and his young daughter in Milnerton on Tuesday night. Ulianitski’s wife Irina survived the attack and is in a stable condition in the Milnerton Medi-Clinic.