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/ 7 November 2003
De Beers has announced a R16,8-million investment in its "Big Hole project" at the Northern Cape mining city of Kimberley, the provincial capital, to develop the facilities on the perimeter of the famous diamond mine, which closed operations in 1914, and to boost the city’s future tourism potential.
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/ 6 November 2003
South Africa would not go down the same path as Zimbabwe where people had taken the law into their own hands, because people were frustrated with the pace of land reform, New National Party leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk said on Thursday.
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/ 4 November 2003
Political parties have strongly criticised the police for the arrest of Groblersdal Chief Magistrate Hendrik van der Walt last week, allegedly for defeating the ends of justice. Democratic Alliance Chief Whip Douglas Gibson said if Van der Walt was treated by police in the manner alleged, ”it is a chilling reminder of what happens to judges in Zimbabwe”.
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/ 31 October 2003
South Africa’s internationally acclaimed wine industry could undergo significant changes in the future. A two-day black economic empowerment conference, which began in Cape Town on Friday, is expected to thrash out a black economic empowerment (BEE) charter for the sector.
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/ 31 October 2003
If social transformation is to succeed in South Africa, it cannot allow itself to be a prisoner to ”neo-liberal market ideology”, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday. In his weekly newsletter, published on the African National Congress’ website, the president said calls within the country and on the continent to oppose this ideology were ”practical and rational”.
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/ 31 October 2003
South Africa’s ambassador to Indonesia, Norman Mashabane, found guilty last year at an internal disciplinary hearing on 21 cases of sexual harassment, is to be represented at his appeal hearing by his union. ”While we will be representing Mr Mashabane, it does not in any case mean we support sexual harassment by managers/political appointees,” it hastened to add.
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/ 30 October 2003
The former National Party government was a ”magnificent master or teacher” of the present African National Congress government regarding corruption, according to Federal Alliance leader, rugby supremo and businessman Louis Luyt. He has also voiced his support for the reintroduction of the death penalty.
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/ 30 October 2003
On the eve of his retirement, one of the country’s best known prosecutors has released a report calling for the scrapping of the lengthy recesses currently found in South Africa’s high courts.
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/ 30 October 2003
Inquiries from scientists at the Global Change Symposium in Kirstenbosch in Cape Town on Wednesday on the whereabouts of a report completed three years ago raised queries into whether the government has been suppressing potentially worrying information on the consequences of climate change in South Africa.
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/ 29 October 2003
In a candid account in his new book <i>Nothing But the Truth</i>, a leading member of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress, Professor Ben Turok, has provided a new account of the battle within the party to accept the current economic policy, called Growth, Employment and Redistribution (Gear).
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/ 29 October 2003
The Afrikaner-based Freedom Front Plus (FF+), which has three members of the South African National Assembly, has handed a memorandum to the office of President Thabo Mbeki protesting at plans to provide continue racial quotas for state learnership programmes that fall under the Department of Labour.
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/ 29 October 2003
Hundreds of human skeletons have been unearthed at a construction site at the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, in Cape Town — the site of BP’s new head office — the Cape Times reported on Wednesday. Construction in the area has been halted while archaeologists from the University of Cape Town excavate the human bones.
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/ 29 October 2003
The bulldozers were back in District Six on Tuesday but this time it was to build, not destroy, and this time Noor Ebrahim was happy to see them. Three decades ago they rolled into his neighbourhood to erase a multiracial community that was an affront to apartheid, levelling houses, shops and cinemas to make way for a whites-only enclave.
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/ 28 October 2003
South Africa’s conventional arms exports nearly doubled between 2000 and 2002, according to a government paper referred to the parliamentary defence portfolio committee and joint standing committee on defence. A notable change in the listing is that South Africa sold no arms to Zimbabwe in the past two years.
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/ 28 October 2003
Scientists from 16 countries will gather in Cape Town on Wednesday to discuss progress on the powerful Southern African Large Telescope (Salt), which is being built outside Sutherland in the Northern Cape.
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/ 28 October 2003
South Africa’s official opposition Democratic Alliance says it has taken a lot of time and effort for the CPIX to reach a figure of 5,4% notched up for September. A DA spokesperson said "it is the first time that the CPIX falls within the Reserve Bank’s inflation target band [of between 3% and 6%]".
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/ 28 October 2003
Government was spending billions on acquiring armaments for the defence force, but doing little to support and protect members of the South African Police Service, the United Democratic Movement said on Tuesday.
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/ 28 October 2003
Ever since we were asked to throw away our aerosol cans in the 1980s the public has been bombarded with ominous warnings about the consequences of human-induced climate change. ”At a global level we know that the world is warmer now than it has been for the past 1 000 years”, said Bob Scholes, chief research fellow at the CSIR.
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/ 27 October 2003
National Development Agency (NDA) CEO Delani Mthembu has been suspended from his position pending an investigation into allegations of mismanagement and corruption, Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya announced on Monday. The suspension followed a preliminary forensic audit of the NDA.
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/ 27 October 2003
The leaders of the Inkatha Freedom Party youth brigade have had themselves tested for HIV/Aids at the party’s headquarters in Durban. The group said it had taken "the bold step of having ourselves tested" in line with a resolution taken by the IFP youth brigade conference held in Ulundi at the end of August.
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/ 27 October 2003
The South African government’s silence on the persecution of the owners and staff of the Zimbabwean newspaper The Daily News by the authorities in that country, is scandalous, Democratic Alliance spokesperson Graham McIntosh said on Monday.
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/ 25 October 2003
Deputy President Jacob Zuma has taken a swipe at the National Prosecuting Authority, saying three years was a long time for it to fail to find any evidence of wrongdoing or corruption against him, referring to the probe into allegations he was involved in corruption related to South Africa’s multibillion-rand arms deal.
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/ 24 October 2003
Twenty-eight commuters and the driver were injured when a train overshot Platform 8 at Cape Town station on Friday. The accident happened when the sixth train carrying morning commuters from Wellington overshot the platform shortly after 8am.
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/ 24 October 2003
Opposition Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille says said on Friday Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang should be locked up as soon as possible.
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/ 23 October 2003
The Democratic Alliance will launch its national election registration campaign with a rally in Mitchells Plain, Cape Town, next Tuesday. Briefing the media at Parliament, DA communications director Nick Clelland-Stokes said the campaign was aimed at unregistered DA supporters, as well those people who were currently undecided about who they might vote for
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/ 23 October 2003
Democratic Alliance MP Vincent Gore confirmed on Thursday that he had sent a letter to President Thabo Mbeki requesting him not to sign the Postal Services Amendment Bill into law. The party — mirroring courier industry complaints — says that the Bill could affect the business of couriers in the under-1kg parcel and letter market.
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/ 22 October 2003
Child rights groups are increasingly alarmed at attempts by Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya to fast-track the Children’s Bill ahead of next year’s election. The director of Resources Aimed at the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, Carol Bower, said the minister seemed unaware that the Bill was nothing like the version prepared by the SA Law Reform Commission.
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/ 21 October 2003
The controversial Postal Services Amendment Bill has got the nod from the African National Congress-dominated public enterprises and labour select committee of South Africa’s National Council of Provinces — despite an eleventh-hour attempt to halt the legislation in its present form.
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/ 21 October 2003
The Commission on Restitution of Land Rights in the Western Cape is to compensate families and former tenants in Paarl on Saturday for tenancy rights lost in terms of the Group Areas Act of the apartheid era.
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/ 19 October 2003
The police have disputed the Guinness Book of Records and Interpol allegations that South Africa is the country with the highest rate of rapes, many of them against children. Assistant Commissioner Joseph Ngobane took issue with remarks made on Friday by Carol Bower of Resources Aimed at the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (Rapcan) who told a conference in Cape Town:
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/ 17 October 2003
Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana has cleared Deputy President Jacob Zuma of allegations he breached the executive ethics code by not properly declaring his interests and liabilities in the register of financial interests. However, Mushwana did not investigate Zuma’s relationship with his financial adviser, Durban businessman Schabir Shaik.
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/ 17 October 2003
The New Labour Party has expressed its satisfaction that its leader, Peter Marais, has not been implicated in any wrongdoing over the controversial Roodefontein golf estate development. On Thursday Italian multimillionaire Count Riccardo Agusta pleaded guilty to corruption charges involving politicians in the Western Cape government.