Wales coach Warren Gatland said that the physical conditioning of South African players could give the world champion Springboks an edge in the first Test in Bloemfontein on Saturday. ”That’s one of the biggest fears we’ve got — how physical and fit these South African players are from the Super 14,” said Gatland.
The General Council of the Bar, representing most of the country’s advocates, on Tuesday added its voice to calls for Cape Judge President John Hlophe to step down. Chairperson Jannie Eksteen said if Hlophe did not voluntarily go on leave, the minister of justice or the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) ”must see how that can be facilitated as a matter of urgency”.
The procedures of appointing the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) board are to be reviewed, Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri said on Tuesday. Speaking in the National Assembly she said there had been a national debate about the SABC as a result of views that emerged out of the assembly’s communications committee hearings.
Cape Judge President John Hlophe should step down from his post until the latest complaint against him has been resolved, according to the Cape Bar Council. ”It would be untenable for Judge Hlophe to continue in office pending the determination of the complaint by the Judicial Services Commission,” the council said on Tuesday.
Former Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown was still too ill to appear in court, his attorney told a Cape Town magistrate on Tuesday. The magistrate, Justhree Steyn, was expected to hear a bail application by Brown, recently re-arrested on fresh fraud and theft charges.
Immigrant leaders in South Africa said on Monday that thousands of refugees frustrated at miserable living conditions were on the point of retaliating against a wave of xenophobic attacks. Tens of thousands of immigrants have been forced to take refuge at temporary shelters around the country after mobs began attacking foreigners.
A Cape High Court judge on Monday dismissed an application to force Finance Minister Trevor Manuel to hand over arms-deal documents, activist Terry Crawford-Browne said. He said Judge Daniel Dlodlo ruled in essence ”that I had waited too long in asserting my rights to discovery of the documents”.
The Cape High Court on Monday declared valid a warrant for the re-arrest of Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown on alleged embezzlement charges involving the Antheru Trust. It dismissed with costs Brown’s urgent application for his immediate release from custody. Brown was recently arrested after his wife, Susan, secretly left the country for Australia.
The Democratic Alliance’s Tony Leon on Monday accused President Thabo Mbeki, African National Congress president Jacob Zuma and Cape Judge President John Hlophe of ”constitutional vandalism”. Addressing the Mizrachi Organisation in Cape Town, the former DA leader called for a government inclusive of ”all talent” available.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has not given up on the parliamentary process dealing with the Expropriation Bill, party leader Helen Zille said on Monday. She said the fact that DA MP Sydney Opperman last week staged a walkout during public hearings on the measure does not mean that the party will no longer participate in further parliamentary processes.
There were a few tense moments on Monday when a crowd of several hundred refugees marched to Parliament to air their grievances over the recent xenophobic violence. After being addressed by, among others, Zackie Achmat of the Treatment Action Campaign, sections of the crowd surged towards a small line of police officers outside the main gates of Parliament.
Six Nations champions Wales will be looking to match everything the Springboks throw at them in the next fortnight when the teams meet in a two-Test series. But coach Warren Gatland said he was expecting no miracles from his injury-depleted squad that arrived in South Africa on Friday morning.
"I don’t have a big problem with kwerekweres. I broke [into] their homes and stole their stuff because they have so much more than me. But they’re okay, some of them are friendly. They can come back — we wouldn’t do it again and the police took back the fridge and TV I took".
A planned lodge development at the settlement of Molapo in Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve has become a source of controversy. Tourists who frequent the 40-room lodge’s luxury accommodation will enjoy the sights of the Kalahari. The outlook for indigenous Bushmen from the reserve is less positive, however.
The South African Communist Party (SACP) has on several occasions taken large donations in cash in order to foil its creditors, according to former Congress of South African Trade Unions president Willie Madisha. He made the claim in an article in the Cape Times on Friday, in which he sought to ”set the record straight” on events surrounding his axing.
South African society has yet to rid itself of the anguish, pain and degradation of the past, Arts and Culture Minister Pallo Jordan said on Friday. Speaking at the launch of a ”social cohesion” campaign, Jordan said the recent xenophobia attacks should not be downplayed.
A South African-designed, battery-operated passenger car is to be unveiled early next year, Deputy Science and Technology Minister Derek Hanekom announced on Friday. The development of the vehicle could not have come at a better time, he told MPs during debate in Parliament on the science and technology budget vote.
Drought in the central Karoo has reached critical proportions, Agri Wes-Cape said on Thursday. ”Large numbers of game and livestock are dying each day from the drought, and lambs perish at birth because the ewes simply do not produce milk,” the farmers’ organisation said in a statement.
The recent xenophobic violence cannot be attributed to a single factor and is not necessarily the work of a so-called ”third force”, government spokesperson Themba Maseko said on Thursday. ”In some cases, there is some evidence of copy-cat activities in which criminals took advantage of the news story to conduct criminal acts,” he said.
Percy Montgomery on Wednesday signed a one-year contract with Western Province. Montgomery, who was the leading points scorer at last year’s Rugby World Cup in France, is hardly likely to play for the Province Currie Cup side due the heavy Springbok schedule over the next four months.
JP Pietersen’s lack of form in the Super 14 season has cost him a place in the Springbok squad that was named in Somerset West on Wednesday. The Sharks’ World Cup-winning wing failed to score a try in the 2008 series after he finished the 2007 Super 14 season as the leading try scorer.
The Scorpions had spoken to the attorney acting for former Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown about a plea agreement, it emerged in the Cape High Court on Wednesday. The revelation came in an application by Brown and his wife, Susan, to have warrants for their arrest obtained by the Scorpions on April 3 declared invalid.
Sports and Recreation Minister Makhenkesi Stofile on Tuesday voiced his concern over the slow pace of transformation in South African rugby. Stofile said appeals to officials to use the recent success of the Springboks in France as a catalyst for transformation had fallen on deaf ears.
Former Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown is suffering from acute stress and deep depression, according to his psychiatrist. This emerged on Tuesday when Brown appeared in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court in a bid to secure bail after his latest arrest. The application was postponed to Thursday.
Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota on Tuesday rejected claims that the South African Navy only had enough qualified crew to operate one of its new state-of-the-art submarines. ”I don’t know what the source of the information is that we can only operate one submarine … that is absolutely fallacious,” he told a media briefing at Parliament.
An agency that sold tickets for a Celine Dion concert in March and a cancelled Josh Grobin concert in April was on Tuesday placed under final liquidation. An application for the liquidation of Ticket Connection was brought before Judge P Burton-Fourie by the agency itself, which said it was unable to pay debts.
Springbok captain John Smit joined the Springbok training session in Stellenbosch on Monday morning just hours after stepping off the plane from France, where he had been playing for Top 14 club Clermont. The arrival of Smit was greeted with great relief by Springbok coach Peter de Villiers. ”We could not do our planning fully without him,” De Villiers explained.
Having indicated in previous answers to parliamentary questions that the Department of Minerals and Energy was considering the possible impact of introducing daylight-savings time, Minister of Minerals and Energy Buyelwa Sonjica has now said that it is not on the agenda.
A tearful victim of the Fidentia collapse on Monday pleaded with a Cape High Court judge for assistance for her crippled son — and received some, thanks to a generous lawyer. The emotional outburst came during what was expected to be a routine postponement of the bid for final sequestration of former Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown.
The Democratic Alliance on Sunday accused Parliament’s questions office of ”obstructing” the party’s parliamentary questions probing corruption. The questions office had disqualified two written questions on the grounds that they were too vague in terms of the National Assembly’s guide to procedure.
If this is the autumn of Trevor Manuel’s political career, he has a strange way of showing it. This week he laid another plank in what is taking shape as a platform for economic reform to boost growth, increase employment levels — and perhaps forestall the kind of violence that has racked Gauteng townships this week.
South Africa’s security chief on Friday accused rightwingers linked to the former apartheid government of fanning xenophobic violence that has spread to Cape Town, the second largest city and tourist centre. At least 42 people have been killed and thousands driven from their homes in 12 days of attacks.