Heavily armed gangs raided three cash vans in and around Johannesburg on Thursday, taking undisclosed amounts of money. The first gang struck at the Midas store in Luipardsvlei, Krugersdorp, at 9.30am. The three men had apparently been waiting inside the store when two unsuspecting guards went in with cash containers, spokesperson Captain Sphiwe Ndlovu said.
It was only a matter of time following the recent round of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe before the world’s foreign ministers started harrumphing.
Leaders and MPs of five opposition parties in Lesotho’s 120-member Parliament started an indefinite sit-in at the Parliament buildings on Thursday. They have called on their supporters and the Basotho nation at large to stay away from work from Monday next week.
South Africa needs to step up its development of people working in the field of nuclear energy and technology, Minister of Science and Technology Mosibudi Mangena said on Thursday at the opening of the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy conference at Gallagher Estate in Midrand, Gauteng.
The African National Congress (ANC) parliamentary caucus has rejected the portfolio committee on correctional services’ call for a fresh investigation into Annanias Mathe’s escape from C-Max high-security prison, saying it has confidence in the agencies that probed the prisoner’s escape.
A defiant Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe told critics of his government to ”go hang” themselves on Thursday in his first response to the arrest and assault of opposition chief Morgan Tsvangirai. After talks with Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, the veteran leader accused Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change of instigating violence.
The state has taken possession of the Pniel estate near Barkly West in the Northern Cape, the first piece of land to be fully expropriated in terms of the government’s restoration programme. ”Land claims commissioner Tovey Gwanja visited the farm personally on Thursday to symbolically receive the key,” Eddie Nkomazana of the land claims office in Bloemfontein said on Thursday.
Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown says he has already been convicted in a trial by media. He made the statement in an affidavit handed in at his bail hearing in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Thursday. ”I have been held out to be the villain in the tale, and have already been convicted by it [the media],” he said.
Police were asked to have another look at the charge of reckless driving against Ekurhuleni metro police chief Robert McBride, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said. On Thursday, Beeld reported that the NPA had asked police to clear up a few points.
Central bank chief Gideon Gono has compared Zimbabwe’s 1 730% inflation rate to the Aids pandemic and warned it cannot be tackled by the government alone, state media reported on Thursday. ”Inflation has ceased to be just the number one enemy. It is now actually the economic HIV of this country,” Gono said in remarks carried by the Herald newspaper.