The United Democratic Movement has expelled six of its senior members, including deputy leader Malizole Diko, with immediate effect. On Tuesday, Cape High Court Judge Basheer Waglay reversed the suspensions of the six, saying the party had not followed its own constitution in suspending them.
The Independent Democrat’s Lennit Max won another round of his marathon legal battle with the party on Wednesday afternoon. However, the way is not yet clear for him to cross the floor to the Democratic Alliance at midnight. Earlier, he won a court order barring the ID from filling his seat in the Western Cape legislature.
The Democratic Alliance has threatened legal action if the uniform patient fees system is not urgently reviewed, because many patients cannot afford it. Unaffordable fees imposed on patients at state hospitals by the Department of Health are causing a horrifying decline in the number of patients able to obtain treatment, it said.
A bouncer charged in connection with the death of a man following a nightclub brawl was found not guilty in the Pretoria Regional Court on Wednesday. The trial, which started on Tuesday, ended in an acquittal for Bernard Potgieter shortly before the lunch break on Wednesday, said control prosecutor William Manzini.
Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour said on Wednesday that 90% of buildings in the worst-hit area of the Gulf Coast in his state are ”totally just gone” after Hurricane Katrina, as the mayor of New Orleans said it will be three to four months before residents can return to the city, which is nearly 80% submerged.
Conservationists say the dreaded Ebola virus, along with decades of hunting and logging, is putting some ape species on the brink of extinction in Central Africa. Most at risk are western lowland gorillas and the Central African chimpanzee, both of which inhabit the dense rainforests of Central Africa.
Parliament’s minerals and energy committee on Wednesday adopted the public protector’s report on the alleged irregular payment of R15-million by PetroSA to Imvume Management — the backbone of the so-called Oilgate scandal. This was despite objection from opposition parties.
South African financial institutions doing business with Nigeria run the risk of tarnishing their reputations, Parliament’s finance portfolio committee heard on Wednesday. The West African country was on the blacklist of the international Financial Action Task Force, the director of South Africa’s Financial intelligence Centre, Murray Michell, told members.
The first port of call for South Africa’s beleaguered employees is the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA). But where do those who work for the CCMA turn? The commission faces possible strike action following a deadlock in salary negotiations with its employees’ assocation.
More than 630 people died in a stampede on a bridge in Baghdad on Wednesday, following a mortar attack on a Shi’ite shrine in the Iraqi capital. The victims were reported to be Shi’ite pilgrims who had been making their way to the shrine to observe an annual religious ritual. ”I was trying to pick up the children but was swept off my feet,” said one pilgrim.