Planning for Cape Town’s proposed Green Point stadium, earmarked as venue for a 2010 Soccer World Cup semifinal, appears to be back on track following a meeting between city mayor Helen Zille and Fifa local organising committee (LOC) members on Thursday. ”I think the mayor is comfortable right now that the city will not be bankrupt,” LOC chairperson Irvin Khoza said afterwards.
The South African government does not expect the recent power blackouts experienced in the Western Cape to either derail economic growth or impact adversely on investment in the country, according to President Thabo Mbeki. Mbeki said the power failures would not derail the gross domestic product growth target of an average of 6% between 2010 and 2014.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas arrived in Cape Town on Thursday for a three-day state visit that will include political and economic talks with President Thabo Mbeki and an address to the National Assembly. Mbeki will be briefed by Abbas on the situation and developments in the Middle East peace process.
Minister of Sport and Recreation Makhenkesi Stofile is keeping his distance from the controversy over the proposed Green Point soccer stadium, his spokesperson Bongi Sishi said on Thursday. He was speaking ahead of a meeting on Thursday afternoon between Cape Town mayor Helen Zille, Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool, and the Fifa local organising committee, which hopes to allay Zille’s concerns over the project.
President Thabo Mbeki has appointed Manala Manzini as director general of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) with immediate effect. The appointment is in accordance with the Constitution and the Intelligence Services Act, and for a three-year term, government communications head Joel Netshitenzhe said in a media statement.
Cape Town mayor Helen Zille is to meet Fifa’s local organising committee (LOC) and Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool on Thursday afternoon to discuss the financing of the proposed Green Point Stadium. The meeting, at a city hotel, would also be attended by members of her mayoral committee and Cabinet ministers, she said in a statement on Wednesday.
The Board of South African rugby has approved a Presidents’ Council recommendation to send a fact-finding mission to the Southern Spears franchise to ascertain their state of readiness for participation in the Vodacom Super 14 competition next year. Led by SA Rugby Union president Oregan Hoskins, the delegation will visit Port Elizabeth on Friday March 31.
There could be "inflationary consequences" for South Africa if economic growth was higher than the annual 4,5% rate shown by research to be the country’s potential output rate, according to South African Reserve Bank (SARB) governor Tito Mboweni.
Vitamin salesman Matthias Rath has dropped his defamation claims against the South African Press Association (Sapa) and other media organisations. However, he was still suing the Democratic Alliance, its leader Tony Leon, its health spokesperson Diane Kohler-Barnard, and African National Congress MP Kader Asmal, said his lawyer.
President Thabo Mbeki has warned against attempts to exploit Inspector General of Intelligence Zolile Ngcakani’s report on the hoax African National Congress e-mails. The Presidency had noted Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon’s public call for Mbeki to establish a judicial commission of enquiry ”to investigate the mandate and activities of the national intelligence structure”.
The Democratic Alliance has demanded the return of all information gathered by the National Intelligence Agency during illegal spying on its offices. DA intelligence spokesperson Paul Swart has written to Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils in this regard, party chief whip Douglas Gibson said on Monday.
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress will convene a special meeting of its national executive committee (NEC) solely to address the conclusions contained in the Inspector General (IG) of Intelligence’s report on the ongoing fraudulent e-mail scandal, according to ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama.
It was a case of so near yet so far as a gallant tail-end performance took the Cape Cobras to within 26 runs of victory against the Lions before being dismissed 20 minutes before lunch on the final day of the SuperSport Series cricket match at Newlands.
The people behind the hoax e-mails that sought to implicate influential figures in the African National Congress in a plot against Jacob Zuma would be charged ”very soon”, national police commissioner Jackie Selebi said on Saturday. Selebi’s statement comes after a decision by President Thabo Mbeki earlier this week, to fire the head of the National Intelligence Agency, Billy Masetlha.
A feasibility study is under way into a second nuclear power station to provide relief for the blackout-plagued Cape, the public enterprises ministry confirmed on Friday. Gaynor Kast, spokesperson for Minister of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin, was reacting to a report that Erwin had said the new plant would be sited at Koeberg, alongside the existing power station.
More than 100 people, most of them wearing the purple T-shirts of the One in Nine campaign, gathered outside the Cape High Court on Friday to protest against the treatment of rape victims. Organiser Johanna Kehler, of the Aids Legal Network, said similar protests were being held at high courts in other centres.
Jostling over governance in the Cape Town metro continued on Friday with no apparent solution imminent. The Democratic Alliance’s tenuous hold on power in the city is being threatened by the Independent Democrats’ determination to pursue its quest for changing the executive mayor system to an executive committee system.
African National Congress attempts to wrest power from a Democratic Alliance-led coalition in Cape Town bode ill for the country’s political future, DA leader Tony Leon said on Friday. ”The ANC’s behaviour raises serious and troubling questions about how that party will behave when its national majority cracks — as eventually it must,” he said in his weekly online letter.
The protracted Cape High Court trial-within-a-trial in the Baby Jordan murder case ended on Thursday, with Judge Basheer Wagley ruling that statements by three of the five accused are admissible. The hearing was launched by defence counsel Charles Simon.
Rheinhold Rau, a German-born taxidermist who regarded it as his moral duty to reverse the extinction of the quagga, a zebra-like animal, has died. He was 73. The South African Museum, where Rau worked for more than four decades and well into his retirement, confirmed his February 11 death but gave no cause.
Political parties vying for control of the Democratic Alliance-led city of Cape Town on Thursday continued the tit-for-tat exchanges that have characterised a bitter tripartite power struggle. The Independent Democrats on Thursday rubbished claims that ID leader Patricia de Lille had vetoed working with the DA-led coalition city government.
The Independent Democrats on Thursday rubbished claims from Cape Town mayor Helen Zille that ID leader Patricia de Lille had vetoed working with the DA-led coalition city government. ”The ID wishes to state that these are blatant lies,” said Simon Grindrod, leader of the ID in the council.
Announcing nine members of her executive mayoral committee on Thursday, the Democratic Alliance’s Helen Zille said the DA still had a vacancy for the Independent Democrats, which rejected a revised offer to join the multiparty government of the city of Cape Town.
Building costs as measured by the cost to the client (including building materials, labour, fuel and contractor profit-margin) have risen by about 85% in the past six years, driven by the rising momentum in activity in the building and construction industry over the period. This rise was far beyond the overall pace of inflation in the economy.
The Independent Democrats have rejected a final offer to become part of a multiparty government in the city of Cape Town, the Democratic Alliance said on Thursday. ”At the eleventh hour, the ID rejected this entirely reasonable offer,” said the DA’s Ryan Coetzee in a statement.
Plans to build a multibillion-rand South African offshore oil and gas equipment fabrication yard at Saldanha and a service and refurbishment hub at Cape Town harbour were announced on Wednesday by MAN Ferrostaal. The capital expenditure would provide for quayside refurbishment and the erection of specialist workshops, fabrication facilities and associated infrastructure.
The Independent Democrats has still not made a decision on the Democratic Alliance offer of a share in the government of the city of Cape Town, ID spokesperson Mervyn Cirota said on Tuesday night. He said ID and DA negotiators met on Monday, and on Tuesday reported back to their principals on ”issues”.
South Africa’s Constitution runs the risk of being downgraded to a mere Act of Parliament, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said on Tuesday. In his Human Rights Day message, Leon said the Constitution has been subjected to a slew of amendments that undermine its vitality and centrality.
As South Africans celebrate Human Rights Day on Tuesday, some organisations will use the occasion to raise awareness of issues that particularly concern them. Human Life International said on Monday that it would continue its efforts to lobby until the human rights of all born and unborn children were legally protected.
South Africa could greatly extend its territorial waters in an extraordinary marine-land distribution exercise under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos). ”It’s the biggest single distribution of territory ever … This magnitude of territory is usually only gained by nations through the process of war,” said Ian McLachlan.
The mystery of the watered pitch at Newlands continues, but former South African and Transvaal opening batsman Jimmy Cook said on Monday that it was the prerogative of the home side to prepare pitches that suited them. ”It’s not clear whether South Africa asked for the pitch to be watered, but apparently it looked very dry when they arrived in Cape Town,” he said.
Listed short-term insurer Santam has launched South Africa’s first affordable household insurance product aimed at the lower-income sector, the company announced on Monday. The new product, called Santam MultiHome, is initially being launched to homeowners in Soweto.