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.
Cape Town’s Ella Joyce Buckley has turned South African folk music on its head with her debut album, writes Lloyd Gedye.
Anti-immigrant violence has spread to Cape Town, where mobs attacked Somalis and Zimbabweans and looted their homes and shops, police said on Friday. Hundreds of African migrants were evacuated overnight from a squatter camp near Cape Town, the hub of South Africa’s prized tourism industry.
Cape Town police and refugee organisations are on full alert after two Somalis were robbed and shot dead in Durbanville last weekend. As reports of these killings trickled in from across the Cape peninsula, the top three Western Cape policemen ordered every station commander in the city to an emergency meeting on Tuesday.
A whiff of panic surrounds South Africa’s tourism industry after deadly xenophobic attacks that have prompted travel warnings from Western nations and led some Africans to cancel visits. Tourism is a cornerstone of the economy, contributing 8% of annual GDP and employing about one million people.
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel has accused Helen Zille, the leader of the Democratic Alliance and mayor of Cape Town, of fanning the flame of xenophobia by saying that attacks on foreigners were in part due to the fact that foreigners were selling the drug tik to South African children.
Peter de Villiers said on Wednesday that South African rugby players who ply their trade abroad must be made to realise that it remains a privilege to play for the Springboks. The Springbok coach was airing his views on the controversial issue of calling up overseas-based players for Springbok duty.
Movements in the rand currency are more likely to be linked to volatility of the United States dollar than other factors, such as recent attacks on migrant workers, South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Wednesday. ”I think that we’re living through a period now where there is a lot of volatility in exchange rate markets everywhere,” he said.
Murder accused Najwa Petersen, now on her fourth advocate, will have to conduct her own defence if she changes her lawyer again, a Cape High Court judge warned on Wednesday. Judge Siraj Desai delivered the warning as he postponed the trial to July 28 to enable her latest advocate, Johann Engelbrecht, to get up to speed.
South Africa’s manufacturing sector remains ”resilient” amid global pressures, but the price of carbon steel is holding back the country’s industrial drive, a senior government official said on Tuesday. The Cabinet approved a multi-pronged industrial action plan last year to help drive Africa’s strongest economy in its quest to achieve a 6% growth rate by 2010.
<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=zuma_report"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/243078/zuma.jpg" align=left border=0></a>Addressing an audience in London on Wednesday, Tony Leon — the former leader of the Democratic Alliance — expressed fears that under Jacob Zuma as president, South Africa could revert to a stereotype of "Big Man", African-style kleptocracy replete with redistributive and populist economics with lashings of demagoguery.
A radically transformed revenue-collection system was envisaged by commissioner of the South African Revenue Service (Sars) Pravin Gordhan on Wednesday. Explaining the changes that Sars is implementing this year, Gordhan told Parliament’s finance committee that this year employers would be able to use Sars’s own payroll software.
Parliament would undermine its own integrity if it failed to pursue the MPs who owed money in the Travelgate saga, the Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM) said on Tuesday. PSAM was reacting to an announcement that creditors of one of the travel agencies linked were to be asked to stop all civil action.
A judge has issued a stern warning to murder accused Najwa Petersen after learning on Tuesday she had dismissed her advocate just as she was supposed to start presenting her case for a not-guilty ruling. ”We can’t be held to ransom by the whims of one accused,” Cape High Court judge Siraj Desai said.
Fidentia’s J Arthur Brown was currently receiving antiretroviral (ARV) treatment in a private clinic after allegedly being sexually assaulted by prisoners in a prison vehicle, the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court heard on Monday. Brown was arrested recently on charges of theft, fraud and money laundering.
South Africa’s Parliament approved a new internet gambling law to regulate an industry plagued by crime and vulnerable to money laundering, parliamentary papers showed on Monday. A memorandum attached to the National Gambling Amendment Bill said the interactive gambling industry was currently unregulated and ”generally plagued” by crime.
Private security companies should be given more powers so that they could contribute meaningfully to the fight against crime, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Monday. DA spokesperson on safety and security Dianne Kohler Barnard said private security companies should be granted the same powers as the police when carrying out arrests and seizures.
Opposition parties on Monday lambasted the government for its handling of xenophobic violence in parts of the country, and even called for the army to be deployed. Mobs roaming through poor townships around Johannesburg have killed and beaten up immigrants over the past week, with Zimbabweans and others reporting purges by armed locals.
The death of two Comrades Marathon runners last year could be a message from God that he was displeased with running the race on a Sunday, a Christian runner has suggested. Hansie Louw said in a statement at the weekend that he was asking all Christians to withdraw from the race.