South African swimming team captain Gerhard Zandberg was on top of the world after taking the 50m freestyle honours in the fastest time swam by a South African this year, at the International Swim Meeting in Tokyo, Japan, on Friday. Port Elizabeth’s Shaun Harris won the 50m freestyle B final in 22,87 seconds.
The National Treasury has agreed to make a R1,5-billion loan guarantee and a cash injection of R700-million for the Land Bank to make the state agricultural financier more effective, an official said on Friday. The National Treasury has been working on the turnaround strategy of the Land Bank.
A Finnish court ruled against a 15-year-old student in a libel case on Friday after he posted a clip of his teacher on YouTube, ordering the youth to pay €800 (about R7 900) in damages and a €90 (R890) fine. The student had filmed his teacher singing at a school party last May.
At least six people died and thousands of hectares of forest were consumed in fires racing through Greece’s southerly Peloponnese peninsula on Friday, officials said. Four people were found dead near a hotel north of the town of Areopolis, about 300km south of Athens, and two firefighters also died, the fire brigade and police said.
Gauteng education minister Angie Motshekga said on Friday she had no knowledge of any investigation of her by the Auditor General. She was reacting to reports that she was being investigated by the Auditor General for possible tender irregularities. ”I do not know of any investigation by the AG against me,” she said.
The Scorpions are investigating the Durban University of Technology, but the National Prosecuting Authority on Friday would not release any details about the investigation. Professor Jonathan Jansen, administrator of the troubled institution, first mentioned the Scorpions investigation last November.
The national office of the South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) on Friday rejected a request by the organisation’s Gauteng branch to investigate Sunday Times editor Mondli Makhanya. It said the call came from a group that exists parallel to the official provincial Sanco structure in Gauteng
Writing in his weekly newsletter, President Thabo Mbeki has accused Business Day newspaper of publishing a ”wholly fabricated story” alleging Southern African Development Community leaders were divided over Zimbabwe, and describing a discussion at last week’s SADC summit ”that never took place”.
Two bogus police officers arrested on Friday have been linked to a gang that follows travellers home from OR Tambo International Airport and robs them, police said. Captain Jethro Mtshali said crime-prevention officers on patrol in Kempton Park arrested two men aged 19 and 21 at about 2am, near Kemstar Mall.
Crime fiction is given short shrift by the literati. Yet the genre sharply examines societies in transition and pressing human issues. Darryl Accone investigates.