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/ 12 January 2005
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has defended new pub-licensing laws that will allow Britons to drink around the clock and insisted it will not lead to an explosion in booze-fuelled violence. Later this year, licensing laws that require most pubs in England and Wales to close at 11pm from Monday to Saturday and at 10.30pm on Sundays will be lifted.
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/ 12 January 2005
A man frustrated by his inability to have his daughter enrolled at Potchefstroom Girls’ High School took four staff members hostage on Wednesday, North West police said. The man, who had been turned away from the school last week because it was full, took four administrative personnel hostage just after 9am.
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/ 12 January 2005
South African rescue workers said on Wednesday they have never before witnessed such devastation as they saw while performing relief work in Indonesia. Six Global Relief workers arrived back in South Africa from Indonesia on Wednesday. The organisation’s chief executive, Murray Louw, said the devastation the December 26 tsunami had caused was overwhelming.
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/ 12 January 2005
Charges have been dropped against four journalists who reported that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe had commandeered one of the national airline’s aircraft to take him on holiday. On Monday, state prosecutors in the Harare magistrates court agreed to remove the four journalists from remand, said their lawyer, Linda Cook.
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/ 12 January 2005
The Northern Cape will immediately start applying its latest R26-million drought relief scheme, agriculture MEC Tina Joemat-Pettersson said on Wednesday. ”The funds would mainly be used for the purchasing of fodder, fodder transportation and drilling of boreholes to allow commercial and communal farmers to maintain their flock.”
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/ 12 January 2005
Zimbabwean police have reported yet another clash between rival groups within the country’s ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party (Zanu-PF). Police in the central district of Gokwe say two groups of angry supporters — each backing different contestants in primary elections — clashed at a small rural business centre ”damaging a lot of property”.
Mugabe’s party ‘will not impose candidates’
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/ 12 January 2005
South Africa’s opposition Democratic Alliance has called for Transnet CEO Maria Ramos to break her silence surrounding the sudden resignation of Spoornet CEO Dolly Mokgatle. Railway group Spoornet is a subsidiary of government-owned transport group Transnet.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Business&a=12&o=195046">Spoornet CEO quits</a>
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/ 12 January 2005
One of the reasons for an increase in the number of vehicles being hijacked in and around Cape Town is residents are buying more cars, and so the hijackers have more to choose from, according to Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula. Hijackers from Gauteng had also moved their activities south, and Capetonians were unaware of the strategies they used ”and easily fall prey”.
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/ 12 January 2005
A pair of burglars learned that crime does not pay when Mohammed, a New Zealand shopkeeper, smashed up their car as they raided his mini-supermarket in the middle of the night, a newspaper reported on Wednesday. He saw the pair stealing cigarettes, sunglasses and telephone cards on a monitor in his West Auckland flat.