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/ 26 January 2008
South Africa beat West Indies by 86 runs in the second one-day international on Friday to take a 2-0 lead in the five-match series. The home side totalled 255 for nine before bowling out West Indies for 169 in 48.2 overs. Captain Graeme Smith smashed 11 fours in his 86 while JP Duminy hit 68.
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/ 25 January 2008
Eskom’s ”poor communication” during the current electricity crisis is of major concern to the tourism industry, the City of Cape Town said on Friday. Simon Grindrod, the city’s mayoral committee member for economic development and tourism, said the tourism industry found it difficult to cope with the power cuts because Eskom was not providing accurate information.
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/ 25 January 2008
If, back in the 1990s, the government had chosen to spend billions of rands on new power stations instead of armaments, South Africa would not now be facing an electricity crisis, Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille said on Friday. ”It chose to spend billions of rands on arms that we do not need,” she said.
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/ 25 January 2008
South Africa’s wealth gap is widening and the average black citizen still only earns an eighth of what his white counterpart does nearly 14 years after the end of apartheid. In its annual survey, the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, said inequality rose from 0,60 in 2006 to 0,62 last year on a zero to one scale.
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/ 24 January 2008
Thieving staff members caused losses worth R2,5-million in the Western Cape provincial administration in the last 12 months, the Bellville Specialised Commercial Crimes Court heard on Thursday. The deputy director in the administration’s Forensic Investigation Unit, Rajendra Naidoo, testified at the trial of a former staff member, Melanie Otto.
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/ 24 January 2008
Veteran bowler Shaun Pollock, who announced his retirement from international cricket earlier this month, will be playing his 300th one-day international (ODI) when he takes the field in the second MTN ODI against the West Indies at Newlands on Friday night.
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/ 24 January 2008
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has nudged the public protector, Lawrence Mushwana, in an attempt to get a response to their request that he reopen his investigation into the Oilgate scandal. DA spokesperson Motlatjo Thetjeng said it was now nine months since the DA first wrote to Mushwana about the matter.
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/ 23 January 2008
Activists and doctors on Wednesday accused the government of backsliding on promises to provide more effective treatment to prevent mothers passing on Aids to unborn children. The Treatment Action Campaign said that more than 60Â 000 babies are infected with HIV yearly in South Africa, most of them in the womb.
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/ 23 January 2008
Allegations of a ”serious rift” between Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Helen Zille and the party’s parliamentary leader, Sandra Botha, have been dismissed by the DA. ”As far as we are concerned, the story … has absolutely no facts or grounds,” DA national media officer Aimee Franklin said on Wednesday.
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/ 23 January 2008
The Department of Public Works has started on the business of revising the laws on expropriation, which became a matter of urgency following the African National Congress national conference last month. An announcement from the department on Wednesday said that it will start the ball rolling with a national workshop to be held in Gauteng next month.
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/ 23 January 2008
The Western Cape’s energy risk-management committee (ERMC) is to be reactivated to deal with the latest wave of Eskom power failures to hit the region, the provincial government announced on Wednesday. The ERMC was first set up two years ago to deal with power cuts in the province at that time.
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/ 23 January 2008
The City of Cape Town is making R30-million available to restart the development of the Dreamworld Film City project, which is still hoping to turn the eastern suburbs of Cape Town into a southern-hemisphere Hollywood. Film producer Anant Singh was chosen to build the country’s first major film studio in Cape Town four years ago.
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/ 23 January 2008
A truck drove into a stationary aircraft at Cape Town International Airport on Wednesday morning, minutes before the aircraft was due to take off. No one was injured in the incident, which happened at about 8.30am, airport media officer Deidre Hendricks said. ”There was an incident early this morning … It has had no impact on airport operations,” she said.
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/ 22 January 2008
Weddings in the dark, disgusted tourists and business owners leaving the country are some of the effects Eskom’s power failures are having, according to postings on a website dedicated to the problem. In the first 48 hours of operation, www.eskomstories.co.za has received about 2Â 000 letters.
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/ 22 January 2008
Scorpions investigator Ivor Powell was granted R1 000 bail in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday. His case was remanded to April 29 pending the outcome of his blood alcohol tests. He was arrested on Tuesday night, apparently in the company of alleged Americans gang boss Igshaan Davids.
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/ 22 January 2008
Strict action will be taken against those who ”manipulate” the price of bread, the government warned on Tuesday. It was gravely concerned about rising bread prices, which inevitably affected the poor, the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Affairs said in a statement.
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/ 22 January 2008
African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma will be spending the rest of this week at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. ”He has been invited there in his capacity as president of the ANC,” party spokesperson Tiyani Rikhotso said on Tuesday.
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/ 21 January 2008
Theft of artifacts and ”heritage objects” from museums, galleries and churches is on the rise, said Minister of Arts and Culture Pallo Jordan on Monday. ”Unfortunately, many of these items have not been recovered,” he said in response to questions in Parliament.
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/ 21 January 2008
An application in the Cape High Court on Monday, concerning sequestration proceedings involving Fidentia’s J Arthur Brown and his wife, Susan, was ”an abuse of the judicial system”, Cape High Court Judge Dennis Davis said. In December last year, Judge Davis ordered the provisional sequestration of Brown and his wife’s joint estate.
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/ 21 January 2008
Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown on Monday made his first appearance in the Cape Town Regional Court, where he is to go on trial on two charges of fraud, one of theft and one of contravening the Companies Act. Brown had previously made several appearances in the lower district court.
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/ 21 January 2008
The African National Congress (ANC) is getting rid of the Scorpions in order to protect ANC members from corruption charges, according to the leader of the Democratic Alliance, Helen Zille. Zille said on Monday that besides the seven convicted criminals on the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC), six NEC members are currently the subject of investigations.
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/ 21 January 2008
His chosen vocation ridiculed by peers and elders alike, South African teenager Andile Ndlovu remains unwavering in his ambition to become a world-class ballet dancer. One of a small pool of black, male practitioners of an art considered by many to be the domain of whites and the rich, Ndlovu is doing what he can to popularise ballet in his community.
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/ 19 January 2008
For the second successive match, striker Tarryn Bright spared South Africa’s blushes when she landed the winning goal in her side’s 1-0 win over Ireland on Friday in the third Test played at Stellenbosch in the Western Cape. Bright also scored the lone goal in South Africa’s close-shave 1-0 victory over the tourists on Tuesday.
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/ 18 January 2008
Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk has called on the United States to assume a ”fair share of responsibility” in reducing world greenhouse-gas emissions. He was delivering a speech in Cape Town at a climate-change round-table discussion.
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/ 18 January 2008
There is a ”rising tide” of corruption in the South African Police Service [SAPS], Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille alleged on Friday. ”Minister of Safety and Security [Charles Nqakula] and the leadership of the SAPS need to find the political will to acknowledge the grave threat that police corruption poses to our country,” she said in her weekly newsletter.
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/ 18 January 2008
Having taken it over last week from his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, newly elected leader of the African National Congress (ANC) Jacob Zuma is giving up his weekly pulpit in the ANC’s online newsletter, <i>ANC Today</i>. The weekly sermon was an opportunity, much prized by Mbeki, to deliver often literary admonishments to individuals or organisations.
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/ 17 January 2008
British national Anthony Cooper was on Thursday found not guilty of causing the fire on Table Mountain that allegedly caused the death of British tourist Janet Chesworth. Cooper appeared in the Cape Town Regional Court, charged with culpable homicide, as well as contravening the National Forestry Act.
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/ 16 January 2008
British national Anthony Cooper on Wednesday told the Cape Town Regional Court of his frantic efforts to put out a veld fire on the slopes of Table Mountain — caused by a cigarette he allegedly flicked from his fingers as he stood smoking near his car. Cooper has been charged with culpable homicide.
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/ 16 January 2008
Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille has requested an urgent meeting with President Thabo Mbeki to discuss what she calls ”the growing perception of a constitutional and moral crisis” in South Africa. ”The implication of the police national commissioner and the ruling party’s presidential candidate in corruption cases is but one reason for this perception.”
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/ 16 January 2008
The Finance Ministry has invited all South Africans to send tips on how the country’s finances should be run to the annual "Tips for Trevor" campaign. Finance Minister Trevor Manuel plainly takes some notice of what the public tells him since he often refers to these tips during his budget speech in Parliament.
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/ 16 January 2008
Suspended National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli has objected to government’s request for an extension to file its submissions to the Ginwala Commission of Inquiry. A copy of a letter, sent by Pikoli’s law firm Denys Reitz to inquiry head Frene Ginwala, was released to the media late on Tuesday. Earlier on Tuesday, Ginwala herself criticised government for its ”slow response” and failure to deliver its submission on time.
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/ 15 January 2008
The Ginwala Commission of Inquiry into suspended National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli has criticised the government for its ”slow response” and failure to deliver its submission on time. In a statement on Tuesday, inquiry head Frene Ginwala said she had ”reluctantly” granted the government a 10-day extension.