Want to know when you can play the Lotto again? Don’t ask Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa — apparently you are not allowed to. A senior government communications official on Wednesday told reporters they could not ask any questions about the suspended National Lottery when Mpahlwa appeared at a briefing.
Piracy and lack of airtime for his records on radio and television are some of the reasons the ‘people’s poet’, Mzwakhe Mbuli, has decided to stop recording in South Africa. On Wednesday he announced his ”retirement” from the local industry, saying he was forced to look for other avenues for his talent.
Mankind is to blame for climate change but governments still have time to slow accelerating damage at moderate cost if they act quickly, a draft United Nations report shows. Underlining the need for speed, it says a European Union goal of holding temperature rises to a maximum two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times is almost out of reach.
President Robert Mugabe, accusing the West of trying to push Zimbabwe into collapse, declared it would survive thanks to its people’s resilience and support from Africa, state radio reported on Wednesday. Mugabe said Britain, the former colonial ruler, and his opponents sought his ouster.
Controversial Cape Town councillor Badih Chaaban offered the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) Western Cape leader Theuns Botha R200 000 in cash and a woman in a floor-crossing bribe, Botha said on Wednesday. However, Chaaban has denied the claim, saying it was in fact Botha who proposed the payment.
Some of Johannesburg’s metro police ”don’t know how to do the job properly” and need the training they are getting from United States experts, says the city’s police chief. Some officers in the Johannesburg Metro Police Department were lazy and corrupt, Chief Superintendent Chris Ngcobo said on Wednesday.
Iraq’s radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Wednesday ordered his Mehdi Army militia to suspend its activities for six months in a bid to reorganise the militant group. ”I direct the Mehdi Army to suspend all its activities for six months until it is restructured in a way that helps honour the principles for which it is formed,” Sadr said in a statement.
South Africa star striker Benni McCarthy will end a 19-month international exile when he plays against Zambia in Cape Town next weekend. The Blackburn Rovers striker, second highest English Premiership scorer last year, was included on Wednesday in a 22-man squad for an African Nations Cup Group 11 qualifier on September 9 at Newlands Stadium.
Keeping the environment clean and green is everyone’s responsibility, but for the residents of Alexandra extension 7, north of Johannesburg, it comes with a reward: a government initiative is not only bringing trees and flowers to the dusty streets, but also offering monthly prizes for residents who try out their gardening skills.
A director of French arms company Thint always cooperated with investigators probing alleged corruption and fraud in South Africa’s multibillion-rand arms deal, the Supreme Court of Appeal heard on Wednesday. ”Mr [Pierre] Moynot has at all times offered the investigating team his kind and affable cooperation,” said Thint lawyer Peter Hodes.