Cape Town

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has moved a motion in the Cape Town city council asking for the informal settlement in District Six to be moved as soon as possible. ”The conflict over the accommodation of squatters in District Six must be squarely blamed on the ANC’s failure to deliver on the empty land restitution promises it made for the area at the time of the last local government elections,” DA MP James Masango said on Tuesday.

Keep politics and politicians out of the civil service and corruption will stop, says United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa. ”The corruption in local government is there because councillors are emulating their leaders at national level,” he said in a statement on Tuesday.

A Pretoria High Court judge has at the last minute withdrawn his bid for a seat on the Constitutional Court, saying he thinks a woman should rather get the job. However, Judge Essop Patel’s decision also follows a series of letters to the Judicial Services Commission from an unsuccessful litigant who claims Patel is unfit for the job.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma will host Northern Ireland’s Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams for discussions in Pretoria on Tuesday, her department said on Monday. Sinn Fein is the political wing of the Irish Republican Army. Adams will pay a special visit to South Africa from Tuesday to Friday.

Beleaguered Cape Judge President John Hlophe was on Sunday given an opportunity to put his side of the racism row to his peers in the judiciary. And though he left the meeting of the country’s heads of courts immediately afterwards, thumping the door shut behind him, Chief Justice Pius Langa denied that he had stormed out.

Four new marine protected areas (MPAs) are to be proclaimed along the Cape coastline, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk announced on Friday. The new areas will bring South Africa’s total number of MPAs to 27, covering almost one-fifth of its coastal waters up to one nautical mile off-shore.

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress exists to serve the people of South Africa, and to serve the people today means that it must concentrate on achieving a higher economic growth path and the eradication of poverty, says President Thabo Mbeki.

The Cape Bar Council has referred to Chief Justice Pius Langa allegations of racism against the Judge President of the Cape Division John Hlophe. ”If these allegations are indeed true, they are most disturbing,” said advocate Ashton Schippers, chairperson of the Cape Bar Council.

The Parliamentary Press Gallery Association (PGA) has demanded the urgent reinstatement of its telephone services and a further meeting with Parliament’s institutional support divisional manager. On Monday, the PGA held a special meeting to discuss the proposed relocation of offices for parliamentary-based journalists.

The African National Congress has reaffirmed its support for its embattled deputy president, Jacob Zuma, and has called on its members and structures to back him too. Zuma is expected to make his second appearance in the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday on two charges of corruption.

President Thabo Mbeki on Friday accused the countries of the North of having the wherewithal, but lacking sufficient will to help end poverty in Africa. He said recent events in the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla on the Moroccan coast have brought into sharp international focus the fact that Spain is facing a new invasion from the South.