A Cape Town magistrate on Thursday authorised a warrant of arrest for Pan Africanist Congress leader Motsoko Pheko. The move followed a request by Bernhard Kurz, the attorney acting for the liquidators of Star Travel, one of the companies involved in the parliamentary travelgate saga.
Opposition parties have strongly rejected the idea of a South African loan to Zimbabwe without any conditions attached. The Democratic Alliance said the conditions attached to the loan had to be debated in Parliament as a matter of urgency.
The Department of Water Affairs and Forestry and the Namibian government are studying the possibility of building a dam on the lower Orange River. Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry Buyelwa Sonjica said that the proposed dam would ensure a stable supply of water to the Northern Cape in the future.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo on Thursday urged divided African leaders to forge a consensus on United Nations reform to keep the continent from losing out if the UN Security Council is expanded. The African Union opened a one-day summit aimed at overcoming rifts on how many seats should be added to the council, among other issues.
Convicted killer Donovan Moodley will remain behind bars until he is 65, the Johannesburg High Court ruled on Thursday. Judge Joop Labuschagne sentenced the 25-year-old to life imprisonment for the murder of university student Leigh Matthews.
African leaders have condemned the coup in the West African state of Mauritania, saying the days of authoritarianism and military rule must end across the continent. A military junta toppled Mauritania’s autocratic president while he was abroad, replacing him with the longtime chief of this oil-rich desert nation’s police force.
The JSE Securities Exchange (JSE) entered new territory for the 20th day in the past month on Thursday, led by gold-miner Gold Fields, which reported strong results before the opening. London-listed diversified resources group Anglo American led the downside after its interims disappointed the market.
South African mining giant Anglo American posted on Thursday record earnings for the first half of the year, driven by strong coal and base metals prices. Headline earnings, the group’s favoured measure of calculating net profit, rocketed by 42,9% to ,784-billion compared with the same period a year earlier.
Wage talks between the SA Revenue Service (Sars) and the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union deadlocked on Wednesday. Sars spokesperson Tasneem Carrim said the two parties held a formal dispute meeting between Sars management, the union and an independent third party.
The Online Publishers’ Association has lashed out at Telkom for holding the country to ransom over a decision made by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) this week that the operator may not charge added monthly fees to ADSL subscribers.