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/ 20 November 2007
South Africa urged rich countries on Tuesday to provide the hardware required for the deployment of a hybrid United Nations-Africa peacekeeping force in the strife-torn Darfur region of western Sudan. The Darfur conflict between rebels and a pro-government militia has claimed an estimated 200 000 lives in the past four years.
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/ 20 November 2007
Ben Mafani never met Piet Koornhof, who died this week at the age of 82. But he hopes to come face to face with Koornhof in the life hereafter, because he has a question for the apartheid-era Cabinet minister. Mafani wants to know why he, his family, and thousands of other people were forcibly removed from ”white” South Africa three decades ago.
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/ 19 November 2007
European Union agriculture experts have recommended a ban on South African ostrich meat, but the Department of Agriculture says it has no official knowledge of this threat to the R1,2-billion export industry. ”As I speak now, I don’t have any official correspondence [from the EU],” the department’s chief communications director said on Monday.
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/ 19 November 2007
Siyabonga Nqakula, the son of Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula, will testify that he fell asleep at the wheel before a head-on collision, a Cape Town magistrate heard on Monday. Nqakula (27), of Johannesburg, has pleaded not guilty to charges of drunken and reckless driving.
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/ 19 November 2007
South Africa’s former first lady, Graca Machel, on Monday joined President Thabo Mbeki in refuting claims that more South Africans are now poorer than they were in 1996. Machel said that while there was room for improvement, the African National Congress-led government had done exceptionally well in the fight against poverty.
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/ 19 November 2007
Councillors other than Badih Chaaban may also have been under illegal surveillance in Cape Town’s spy scandal and police have ”a lot of information and detail” to back this up, Independent Democrats deputy leader Simon Grindrod was quoted as saying on Monday.
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/ 17 November 2007
Africa requires massive investment in its failing energy sector to boost economic growth and meet its goal of halving poverty, a United States-Africa business summit heard on Friday. Emerging economies required a 16% increase in energy to drive every 10% of gross domestic product (GDP) growth, said Andrew Fawthrop, Chevron energy company’s Nigerian vice-president.
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/ 16 November 2007
Finance ministers and central bank governors from the world’s largest economies gather in Kleinmond in the southern Cape this weekend for a meeting of the Group of 20 countries. The event is described by Finance Minister Trevor Manuel as probably the most significant gathering of economic policymakers seen to date in South Africa.
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/ 16 November 2007
Writing in his weekly newsletter on the African National Congress website, President Thabo Mbeki on Friday railed against the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) for making ”the startling claim” that more South Africans are now poorer than they were in 1996. The SAIRR, in turn, defended itself in a statement released later in the day.
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/ 16 November 2007
Former Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns (South African Science and Art Academy) chairperson and honorary member Professor Elize Botha died on November 15 at the age of 76, the academy announced. Botha also served as chancellor of the University of Stellenbosch since 1998.
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/ 16 November 2007
The increase in the number of cases where the Eastern Cape provincial government is contesting the right of poor citizens to access social grants suggests that the majority party is at war with the poor, Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille said on Friday, writing in her weekly newsletter.
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/ 16 November 2007
Thousands of farmworkers will hold marches in various rural towns across the country on Saturday, the Food and Allied Workers’ Union said on Friday. The marches are in protest against poor working and living conditions, concerns for workers’ safety, and the negative effects of the huge hike in food prices, the union said.
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/ 15 November 2007
The City of Cape Town says it has asked for a top-level meeting with Eskom over power cuts and their threat to new investments. The request comes in the wake of an announcement by the utility that South Africa faces another five to seven years of electricity failures. Load shedding was to continue around the country on Thursday evening, Eskom said.
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/ 15 November 2007
A new process of presidential pardons for people who have committed alleged political offences appears in the offing, it emerged on Thursday. President Thabo Mbeki has asked Parliament’s presiding officers to convene a joint sitting of the two Houses next Wednesday for him to make an announcement in this regard.
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/ 15 November 2007
An official inquiry has concluded that Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool misled his legislature, a source in the legislature said on Thursday. The multiparty inquiry was set up to investigate contradictory statements last year on spending on security upgrades to the home of community safety minister Leonard Ramatlakane.
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/ 15 November 2007
The Nazier Kapdi drug case in the Wynberg Regional Court in Cape Town deteriorated into acrimonious exchanges on Thursday, with a defence lawyer saying the trial was ”disgustingly unfair”. The chaos erupted over a technicality involving documents that prosecutor Greg Wolmarans should have handed to the defence team.
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/ 15 November 2007
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has urged the public to hold government to account by participating in the party’s process of evaluating Cabinet ministers. Briefing the media during the launch of the party’s Cabinet report card website, DA parliamentary leader Sandra Botha said the process accorded the public a rare opportunity to rate government ministers.
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/ 15 November 2007
Piet Koornhof, who died in a Stellenbosch frail care centre on Monday at the age of 82, following a stroke, was a man of contradictions. Seen as a ”verligte” in successive apartheid-era Cabinets, the posts he accepted carried responsibility for some of apartheid’s most bizarre and inhumane policies.
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/ 14 November 2007
Deputy Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba has undertaken to repay his department R1 020 on Thursday for flowers he sent to his wife. When the issue arose and was brought to his attention in the middle of this year, he had immediately stated his intention to pay back the money, he said on Wednesday.
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/ 14 November 2007
The death toll from Tuesday’s accident involving a truck crammed with farmworkers has risen to eight. The news came as the Western Cape government vowed to crack down on the way farmworkers are transported. The accident happened in the Boland, when the truck, reportedly carrying about 70 farmworkers, overturned.
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/ 14 November 2007
South Africans can soon expect a vast improvement in the time it takes to obtain identity documents, passports and a range of other services, Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula announced on Wednesday. Also, a loophole allowing illegals to acquire South African documents and grants fraudulently will be closed.
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/ 14 November 2007
Lock Victor Matfield has withdrawn from South Africa’s squad for the one-off Test with Wales on November 24, becoming the 12th member of the World Cup-winning squad to miss the tour. The South African Rugby Union (Saru) announced he had been released due to personal commitments.
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/ 14 November 2007
The Governor of the Reserve Bank, Tito Mboweni, gave a very strong signal that another interest hike is on the way when he told members of Parliament that in his opinion, rates should go up. The bank staff’s forecast for inflation in the coming months shows inflation increasing above the 6% target for part of 2008.
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/ 14 November 2007
Slain musician Taliep Petersen described his marriage to Najwa as a ”nightmare” the Wynberg Regional Court in Cape Town heard on Tuesday. Taliep’s sister Tagmieda Johnson took the stand after the lunch break, at Najwa’s second bail application before Western Cape Regional Court president Robert Henney.
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/ 13 November 2007
Investigating officer Captain Joash Dryden on Tuesday warned the Wynberg Regional Court that Najwa Petersen, accused of the murder of her husband Taliep, ”will be gone if she is released on bail”. Petersen’s senior counsel Herbert Raubenheimer, wanted Dryden to concede that Petersen had an ”arguable case”.
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/ 12 November 2007
The Western Cape government is winning the war against drugs, Premier Ebrahim Rasool said on Monday. ”Considering that this financial year is only halfway through, police have already arrested 374 high flyers … confiscated 37Â 558 grams of mandrax, 6Â 499 grams of methamphetamine [tik] and 4Â 447 grams of heroin,” he said.
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/ 12 November 2007
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA) is considering legal steps over proposed norms and standards for managing the elephant population being formulated by the Environmental Affairs and Tourism Department. The NSPCA on Monday aborted a meeting to discuss captive elephants.
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/ 12 November 2007
The government has failed to take necessary steps to ensure learners are protected against the escalating violence in schools, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Monday. DA spokesperson on safety and security Dianne Kohler-Barnard said violence in South African schools has reached unacceptable levels that require immediate intervention.
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/ 12 November 2007
A vacant plot in Cape Town’s Clifton area has been sold for R11,25-million — believed to be the highest price per square metre paid to date for undeveloped property in South Africa. The record price achieved for the stand followed the sale earlier in the year by Lew Geffen Sotheby’s of a Clifton apartment for R34-million.
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/ 10 November 2007
Lives are being lost in many countries through lack of cooperation between tuberculosis (TB) and HIV/Aids health programmes, a senior United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/Aids official said in Cape Town on Friday. Dr Alasdair Reid was speaking at a media briefing held alongside a major conference on lung health in the city.
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/ 9 November 2007
A home owner who disposed of household goods worth R99 000 belonging to his former tenant, without the tenant’s permission, was on Friday sentenced to two years’ house arrest. Vaughan Fred Alberts (45), was also fined R1 800 or four months’ jail on a charge of malicious damage.
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/ 9 November 2007
A United States trade embargo against Cuba is discouraging South African companies from doing business in that country, delegates attending the South Africa-Cuba joint bilateral commission heard on Friday. Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said trade between the two countries is almost non-existent.