The floor-crossing window, which opens next month, could diminish further the strength of most opposition parties. For the first time this year the floor-crossing window for national and provincial MPs will coincide with that for municipal councillors. The 11 opposition parties are expected to lose more members to the ruling African National Congress.
Despite turmoil in international markets, the Reserve Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) raised interest rates another 50 basis points on Thursday, bringing the repo rate to 10% and the prime rate to 13,5%. ”The MPC noted that recent financial market developments in some of the developed economies have had spillover effects on emerging markets including South Africa,” it said in a statement.
Peruvians pulled hundreds of dead from the rubble of homes and churches on Thursday, piling some of them on street corners after a huge earthquake ravaged the country’s central coast. At least 437 people were killed in the 8,0-magnitude quake on Wednesday night, Peru’s civil defence agency said.
The Sunday Times had not filed anything by Thursday evening in reply to court papers seeking the return of Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s medical records. On Thursday afternoon, the health minister and the Medi-Clinic company filed a notice of motion for an urgent application in the Johannesburg High Court.
Civil society groups from opposite sides of the political fence are to highlight their views on the Vlok trial at the Pretoria High Court on Friday. The Khulumani Support Group will be outside the court as part of its proceedings to hand over a charter of redress.
President Thabo Mbeki has unleashed a storm of controversy with his sacking of deputy minister of health Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge.
As if it weren’t bad enough that fans of the South African version of Survivor already had to give up one evening a week for their reality fix, they now have even more to look forward to on the web. Exclusive ”webisodes” created for the internet are being produced for the second season of Survivor.
An Independent Democrats (ID) councillor in the City of Cape Town has sworn loyalty to the party after an anonymously sent fax suggested she was planning to defect in the coming floor-crossing window. ID caucus leader Simon Grindrod released copies of the fax at a media briefing on Thursday, saying he believed it was a tactic to influence other councillors.
Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula has provided Parliament with inaccurate crime statistics when replying to questions, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Thursday. The DA’s Dianne Kohler-Barnard said Nqakula gave two contradicting answers to the same question.
Jacques Kallis suffered his second disappointment in less than a week on Thursday when he was left out of South Africa’s squad to tour Zimbabwe. All-rounder Kallis was on Saturday omitted from the squad for the Twenty20 World Championship, which will be staged in South Africa in September.