A NORTHERN Province retiree known as the “transport man” because he earned extra money by collecting goods in his bakkie took his last trip on Monday. Two youths beat and stabbed 62-year-old Mkhatshana Mongolo to death in front of his 11-year-old grandson after hiring him to collect cement. His grandson ran to a nearby village […]

SOUTH African dignitaries lit an Olympic-style torch in Pretoria on Tuesday to symbolise their opposition to racism, as thousands of Muslims took to the streets of Cape Town to protest what they said was Israel’s continuing oppression of Palestinians. The two events came 10 days ahead of a UN-sponsored global conference on racism which will […]

Johannesburg | Thursday THE South African rand hit record lows against two major currencies on Wednesday, dashing hopes that the government might announce an interest rate cut next month. The besieged currency was trading at 12,26 to the pound sterling and 7,77 to the euro early on Wednesday. Late Tuesday, the rand recorded its lowest […]

SOUTH African rescue workers were elated after they towed a stranded whale out to sea on Sunday, but on Tuesday it beached itself again and died so they blew it up. The nine-metre long humpback whale first stranded itself off the southeastern city of Port Elizabeth in one metre of water for about six hours. […]

SIZWE SAMAYENDE, Pretoria | Thursday SOUTH Africa’s security forces and justice system prioritise crimes against farmers but ignore those against farm labourers, Human Rights Watch reported on Wednesday. The international organisation investigated the country’s volatile farming community last year and released a scathing 230-page report on Wednesday entitled “Unequal Protection: The State Response to Violent […]

Johannesburg | Wednesday THE Department of Health is claiming that it has not yet received court papers from Aids lobby groups, demanding that anti-HIV drugs be provided to all mothers at risk of transmitting HIV to their unborn infants. But the Treatment Action Campaign says that in fact, the court papers were served on the […]

THE death of South Africa’s newspaper editor and anti-apartheid activist Donald Woods ”deprives the world of a great freedom fighter and humanist”, the UN’s top human rights official said on Tuesday. Mary Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said his death was felt ”even more acutely” because it happened on the eve […]

Kampala | Wednesday THE man dubbed South Africa’s cash heist mastermind, Collin Chauke, and a co-accused could go free on Thursday when judgment is given on a charge of robbery with aggravated circumstances in the Pretoria Regional Court. Chauke and Ellie Lucas Yende were acquitted in July on seven of eight charges against them for […]