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/ 16 November 2006
The government is considering applications for the pardoning over 1Â 000 prisoners who claim their crimes were politically motivated, Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Brigitte Mabandla said on Thursday. Briefing the media at Parliament, she referred to repeated appeals by the Inkatha Freedom Party and Pan Africanist Congress for the release of what they called ”political prisoners”.
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/ 16 November 2006
Two opposition parties have urged police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi to quit after the arrest for murder of his associate Glenn Agliotti. The Freedom Front Plus and the Democratic Alliance said on Thursday that Selebi’s links with the man arrested in connection with the killing of Brett Kebble should be investigated.
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/ 16 November 2006
Gold theft from mines was estimated at R2-billion rand annually, the Chamber of Mines said on Thursday. Chamber of Mines deputy legal adviser Anton van Achterbergh said that a report, compiled by the Institute of Security Studies, ”confirmed … that about R1,8-billion- to R2-billion-worth of gold is stolen every year”.
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/ 16 November 2006
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan opened high-level talks in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Thursday with senior African Union officials to seek solutions to the crisis in Sudan’s troubled western Darfur region. But prospects for the meeting reaching consensus on a way forward remained unclear.
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/ 16 November 2006
The All Blacks are braced for a backlash from France in Paris on Saturday after the 47-3 pasting the tourists handed the home side in the first autumn Test match last week. Assistant coach Wayne Smith said France boss Bernard Laporte had been right to ring the changes after his side suffered their largest home defeat in Lyon, which saw the French players roundly booed and whistled off the pitch.
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/ 16 November 2006
Members of the Tshwane metropolitan police will not take leave in order to tackle crime effectively during the festive season. This was announced by advocate Kamela Kekana at the launch of the festive-season operation plan for the Tshwane metro police in Pretoria on Thursday.
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/ 16 November 2006
Former African National Congress chief whip Tony Yengeni has had his prison privileges curbed pending an investigation into allegations he breached his weekend parole conditions this past weekend. Yengeni is alleged to have consumed alcohol and returned late from his parole to Malmesbury Prison.
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/ 16 November 2006
African National Congress (ANC) chief whip Mbulelo Goniwe has been placed on an extended ”leave of absence” pending a party disciplinary inquiry into allegations of sexual harassment made against him. ”There is strong prima facie evidence that warrants a disciplinary hearing,” the chair of the ANC’s national disciplinary committee, Kader Asmal, said on Thursday.
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/ 16 November 2006
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba on Thursday rejected presidential election results that saw him defeated by Joseph Kabila and said he would "use all legal channels" to contest them. "I cannot accept these results, which are far from reflecting the truth of the ballot box," Bemba said in a statement.
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/ 16 November 2006
The new lost-cost airline Mango on Thursday denied claims by competitor kulula.com that it was using taxpayers’ money from South African Airways (SAA), the airline’s spokesperson said. ”The beginning and the end of the relationship between SAA and Mango was the R100-million loan,” said Hein Kaiser.