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/ 11 December 2007
The assertion by the Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs that all is well at the Land Bank and there has been significant progress in the past three months ”does not fly”, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Tuesday. It is common knowledge that ”the situation at the Land Bank has been all but rosy,” DA spokesperson Kraai van Niekerk said.
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/ 11 December 2007
The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) says it is quite unacceptable that Eskom does not give adequate warning to the public about its load shedding. "It is a crying shame that Eskom can paralyse the economic powerhouse of Africa — Gauteng province — every time it needs to do maintenance to power-generating equipment," the DA said on Tuesday.
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/ 10 December 2007
Archbishop Desmond Tutu accused the United States and Britain on Monday of pursuing policies like those of South Africa’s apartheid-era government by detaining terrorism suspects without trial. He said the detention of suspected al-Qaeda members at the US naval base in Guantánamo Bay was a ”huge blot on a democracy”.
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/ 10 December 2007
The Wynberg Regional Court in Cape Town on Monday recommended that Najwa Petersen, accused of the murder of her famous husband Taliep, be moved from the Breederivier Prison at Worcester to one nearer her home. The court dismissed her second application on the grounds that she had misled the court in the first application.
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/ 10 December 2007
An elderly British tourist found dead after a fire on Table Mountain could have died of a heart attack, the doctor who did the post-mortem examination conceded on Monday at the trial of British national Anthony Cooper, who is alleged to have started the fire in January last year by tossing a burning cigarette butt on to dry grass.
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/ 10 December 2007
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, together with former president of Ireland Mary Robinson and Graça Machel, wife of former South African president Nelson Mandela, on Monday launched a human rights campaign marking the 60th year since the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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/ 10 December 2007
The prospect of African National Congress deputy president Jacob Zuma becoming president is profoundly concerning, Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Helen Zille said on Monday at a press conference at Parliament to release the DA’s annual ”report card” on the performance of Cabinet ministers.
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/ 9 December 2007
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As the African National Congress prepares for its elective conference in Polokwane on December 16, satirists have not run short of gags designed to cut the party’s members down to size. ”The satirist in South Africa today has become probably more of a psychiatrist than an entertainer,” says comedian Pieter-Dirk Uys.
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/ 7 December 2007
Former Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown and financial director Graham Maddock used R5,5-million in Infinity loyalty-programme funds to pay salaries and other expenses in other Fidentia companies, according to prosecutors. The two men appeared briefly in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Friday.
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/ 7 December 2007
Disrespect for the African National Congress’s (ANC) values by its members could destroy the party, President Thabo Mbeki warned on Friday. This would reverse all the gains made since the advent of democracy in 1994, he said in his weekly online newsletter, ANC Today.
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/ 7 December 2007
The Cape Town Labour Court has ordered that whistle-blowing prison doctor Paul Theron get his job in Pollsmoor back. He was suspended after telling the Inspecting Judge of Prisons and a parliamentary committee about what he said was an acute healthcare crisis at Pollsmoor, including chronic understaffing and lack of disease control.
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/ 7 December 2007
Parliament’s transport portfolio committee has tabled a scathing report on the country’s transport preparedness to host the 2010 Soccer World Cup. The report, circulated in Parliament on Friday, says that at present there is only one senior official, a chief director, who is working full time on 2010 in the Department of Transport.
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/ 7 December 2007
Police are investigating charges of corruption and obstruction of justice against a senior Cape Town policeman involved in Tony Yengeni’s alleged drunk-driving saga. Provincial police spokesperson Novel Potelwa said that Goodwood station commissioner, Senior Superintendent Siphiwe Hewana, had also been suspended without pay, and faced an internal disciplinary hearing.
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/ 6 December 2007
Government ministers have changed their minds about referring the forensic report on the affairs of the Land Bank to the police. According to Cabinet spokesperson Themba Maseko, they did so after hearing that a number of board members and senior executives of the bank had challenged statements in the report.
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/ 6 December 2007
Opposition parties have lamented the increases in crime detailed in the latest statistics for April to September, which were released on Thursday. It was deplorable and made a mockery of Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula’s assurances that the crime rate was under control, Democratic Alliance spokesperson Diane Kohler-Barnard said.
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/ 6 December 2007
The Wynberg Regional Court in Cape Town is to deliver judgement on Monday in the second bail application launched by Najwa Petersen, who goes on trial in the Cape High Court next year for the alleged murder of her famous husband, Taliep. Her senior counsel on Thursday urged the court to ”be bold and release her on bail.
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/ 6 December 2007
South Africa will not include maize in the initial stages of the country’s biofuels policy in order to keep a lid on high food prices, the Department of Minerals and Energy said on Thursday. The decision followed the South African Cabinet’s approval of a long-awaited biofuels plan, which officials hope will revive the ailing agriculture industry.
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/ 6 December 2007
An overstretched judiciary is hampering attempts to prosecute those responsible for mining accidents, South Africa’s minerals and energy minister said on Thursday. Mining companies in South Africa, the world’s top source of platinum and gold, are under pressure to improve safety at mines, where about 200 workers have been killed this year.
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/ 6 December 2007
The Cabinet has approved an electricity master plan for the country to plug a gap that has led to criticism of the failure to plan energy needs over the long term. Elaborating on the plan at a media briefing on Thursday, Minister of Minerals and Energy Buyelwa Sonjica said that the plan "is a high-level plan, and not necessarily a pronouncement of new policy".
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/ 6 December 2007
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President Thabo Mbeki said on Wednesday he hoped the African National Congress (ANC) would discuss floor-crossing at its national conference in Polokwane this month. Speaking in a South African Broadcasting Corporation radio interview, he said the ANC had been opposed to floor-crossing when the issue was first raised by opposition parties.
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/ 5 December 2007
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The outcome of the African National Congress’s (ANC) leadership contest is up to its membership and the contest should not be seen in a negative light, President Thabo Mbeki said on Wednesday. The people nominated were ”not nominated because they are enemies”, and should not treat one another as such.
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/ 5 December 2007
The Erasmus Commission of Inquiry probing Cape Town’s ”spy saga” is calling for public submissions on the matter. The commission, headed by Judge Nathan Erasmus, has already started studying all available documentation relating to the issue, commission secretary Zithulele Twala said on Wednesday.
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/ 5 December 2007
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According to the Democratic Alliance (DA), the broadcast by President Thabo Mbeki on 15 South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) radio stations on Wednesday evening confirms for South African listeners at large the conviction that the public broadcaster is a party organ.
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/ 5 December 2007
Political interference, red tape and legislation are among the factors slowing the City of Cape Town’s housing projects, mayor Helen Zille said on Wednesday. Delivery of housing opportunities had been delayed and several causes of this identified, she told the last full council meeting of the year. A shortage of project managers in the housing department was a major factor.
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/ 5 December 2007
The Department of Home Affairs said on Wednesday that it had not abolished border passes for Zimbabweans, as was reported in a number of newspapers. "There is no such thing as a border pass," said a statement from the department.
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/ 4 December 2007
Former South African opener Gary Kirsten signed a two-year contract to coach India on Tuesday. ”It will be a great honour to coach the game’s most passionately supported team, and I can’t wait to take on what I know will be one of the biggest challenges of my ongoing career in cricket,” Kirsten said from Cape Town.
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/ 4 December 2007
A senior Cape Town police officer may face disciplinary charges after making conflicting statements on the time of the recent arrest of former African National Congress chief whip Tony Yengeni for drunken driving. The step follows reports that police may have bungled the arrest by delaying taking a blood-alcohol sample.
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/ 4 December 2007
In a further effort to protect South Africa’s fast-diminishing perlemoen stocks, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk has imposed a ban on scuba diving and snorkelling in certain areas along the Cape coast. The envisaged prohibition, subject to a process of public comment, will take effect from February 1 next year.
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/ 4 December 2007
The joint estate of former Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown and his wife, Susan, was on Tuesday placed under provisional sequestration by the Cape High Court. This followed an application by the curators of the Fidentia group of companies, who claimed that the Browns owed Fidentia just over R24-million.
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/ 4 December 2007
A civil society organisation says it is to launch Equality Court proceedings on behalf of an Eastern Cape youth said to have been forcibly circumcised. It claims the youth was subjected to traditional circumcision in March this year after he had himself circumcised at East London’s Frere Hospital three months earlier.
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/ 4 December 2007
The predominantly Afrikaner settlement of Orania in the Northern Cape has been granted a community broadcast licence by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa). The licence is valid from December 1 this year to November 30 2011, after which the community can apply for an extension.
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/ 4 December 2007
A leading South African heart surgeon pleaded on Monday, the 40th anniversary of the world’s first heart transplant, for more government support for medical research. Professor Johan Brink was speaking at the opening of a refurbished transplant museum at the hospital.