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/ 2 November 2007
Former anti-apartheid activist Helen Suzman has not been given the recognition she deserves in the new South Africa, Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi said on Friday. In a tribute to Suzman ahead of her 90th birthday next week, he said she had tirelessly used her position as MP during the Sixties and Seventies to break the apartheid mould.
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/ 1 November 2007
President Thabo Mbeki has ignored all written parliamentary questions addressed to him by the official opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Thursday. DA parliamentary leader Sandra Botha said Mbeki had not responded to all nine questions that the party had addressed to him this year.
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/ 1 November 2007
The release on bail of Najwa Petersen, accused of the murder of her entertainer husband, Taliep, was essential to save her young daughter from long-term emotional damage, Cape Town psychologist Rosa Bredenkamp told the Wynberg Regional Court on Thursday. Petersen has launched a second bail application after her first was rejected.
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/ 1 November 2007
Hammer murder accused Fred van der Vyver has lost a quarter of his weight since his girlfriend Inge Lotz was killed, the Cape High Court heard on Thursday. The revelation was made by the senior advocate in his defence team, Henri Viljoen, in closing argument. Van der Vyver is charged with killing Lotz in her Stellenbosch flat in March 2005.
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/ 1 November 2007
The government is to invest R100-million next year in six marine fish-farming projects, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk announced on Thursday. ”There are huge opportunities in marine aquaculture, which will not only reduce the pressure on wild stocks, but provide new economic opportunities,” he said.
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/ 1 November 2007
Félicien Kabuga has a reward of several million dollars on his head, and tops the list of fugitives of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). Yet, he’s managed to escape justice for years. The ICTR was set up in northern Tanzania by the United Nations in 1995 to bring high-level perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide to justice.
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/ 31 October 2007
Murder accused Fred van der Vyver’s alibi had been proved beyond reasonable doubt and he should be found not guilty, his advocate told the Cape High Court on Wednesday. Van der Vyver (25) is accused of killing his student girlfriend Inge Lotz with a hammer at her Stellenbosch flat on the afternoon of March 16 2005.
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/ 31 October 2007
Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk still faces a court challenge from the abalone industry even though he backed down on Wednesday from a harvesting ban. The ban, prompted by rapidly declining stocks, was to have come into effect on Thursday. It would have halted all commercial harvesting of the threatened shellfish from the wild.
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/ 31 October 2007
The government’s key Working for Water programme, aimed at eradicating invasive alien plants that cause billions of rands’ damage to the economy each year, appears set to fall further and further behind in its efforts to contain the problem. Alien plants have so far invaded about 8% of the country.
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/ 31 October 2007
The European Union is threatening to ban the import of South African animal products because the government has failed to meet certain requirements agreed on five years ago, the Democratic Alliance said on Wednesday. The ban would cover South African beef, mutton, pork, chicken, ostrich and game products, among others.
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/ 31 October 2007
According to research, 70% of young children who have a parent in jail develop emotional problems, the Wynberg Regional Court heard from a psychiatrist on Wednesday. Rosa Bredenkamp was testifying before Western Cape Regional Court president Robert Henney in support of Najwa Petersen’s second bail application.
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/ 31 October 2007
Publication of the fact that a person is a client of a specific bank does not infringe privacy rights, according to Cape Deputy Judge President Jeanette Traverso. She made the finding in a written judgement, handed down this week, on a bid by FirstRand to prevent magazine noseweek publishing the names of clients involved in an allegedly dodgy tax scheme.
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/ 31 October 2007
A bitter Jake White announced on Wednesday that he is to quit as coach of South Africa’s World Cup-winning rugby team, accusing Springbok bosses of bouncing him out of the job. White, who has been linked to coaching positions with rival national sides, said he would take the team to Britain next month for matches against Wales the Barbarians.
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/ 31 October 2007
Departure and arrival halls at Lanseria Airport outside Johannesburg are being upgraded to cater for increased passenger volumes and security requirements for scheduled operations as the airport expands to help relieve the pressure at OR Tambo International Airport.
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/ 31 October 2007
The suspension of abalone fishing has been postponed to February 1 next year, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk said on Wednesday. Instead of the ban coming into effect on Thursday, as originally planned, a substantially reduced total allowable catch of 75 tons would now be permitted during the interim.
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/ 31 October 2007
The Congress of South African Trade Unions said on Tuesday it would approach the Cape High Court on Wednesday for an interdict to stop the government from implementing an abalone fishing ban that would impact on poor fishing communities.
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/ 30 October 2007
A senior Cape Town advocate, Geoff Budlender, is to head the inquiry into the City of Cape Town’s ”spy” affair. The appointment was announced on Tuesday afternoon by mayor Helen Zille, who said she was taking out full-page advertisements in three local newspapers to explain her position on the matter.
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/ 30 October 2007
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel’s 2007 Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement has received a cautious thumbs-up from some opposition parties. Tabling the budget in the National Assembly on Tuesday, he announced that almost R81,5-billion was to be added to the government’s projected spending over the next three years, bringing spending growth to 6,4% a year in real terms.
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/ 30 October 2007
South Africa will spend an estimated R81,4-billion over the next three years to ease poverty and unemployment and deliver improved services, said the Treasury on Tuesday. The Treasury said in its Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement that education and health programmes will be a priority.
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/ 30 October 2007
South Africa will record a budget surplus for the next three years due to higher-than-expected tax revenues and would invest more to boost infrastructure, the National Treasury said on Tuesday. In its Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement, the Treasury said robust economic growth over the past five years had provided for a more expansionary fiscal stance.
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/ 29 October 2007
Cape Town mayor Helen Zille has asked the police to let her listen to tapes related to the city’s ”spy” affair. Her request, in a letter to provincial Commissioner Mzwandile Petros on Monday, comes after police played some of the tapes to journalists. She said in a statement that Petros had also ”presented” the tapes to Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool.
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/ 29 October 2007
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Capetonians turned out in their tens of thousands on Monday to salute the victorious Springboks on the final leg of their national victory tour. There were scenes of near-hysteria as the Boks made their way through the city centre in an open-top bus. Businesses shut down, and young and old lined the streets, crammed on to balconies.
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/ 29 October 2007
Aviation is the key to boosting growth in South Africa’s tourism industry, says the Minister of Tourism and Environmental Affairs, Marthinus van Schalkwyk. A total of 27,6% of all tourists arrived in the country by air, he said in a speech prepared for delivery at his department’s sixth annual tourism conference.
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/ 28 October 2007
As South Africa’s economic growth slows and inflation heats up, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel will present a medium-term budget on Tuesday with decidedly less to smile about than six months ago. While analysts expect Manuel to be more cautious in his revenue predictions, they believe past prudence has left him with enough room for manoeuvre.
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/ 26 October 2007
Cape Town mayor Helen Zille on Friday released the terms of reference of an investigation into claims that the city footed a Democratic Alliance bill for a probe into controversial councillor Badhi Chaaban. The inquiry is to be headed by a retired judge or senior advocate, who has yet to be named.
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/ 26 October 2007
Traditional fishermen and coastal communities are confused and bewildered by the perlemoen ban, the Masifundise Development Trust said on Friday. It was reacting to the Cabinet announcement on Thursday that all wild perlemoen harvesting will be suspended indefinitely from the end of this month.
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/ 26 October 2007
The sitting of the KwaZulu-Natal (KZ) government in Vryheid earlier this week, which was aimed at ”taking parliament to the people”, was a scandal, said Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi on Friday. ”It is scandalous for parliamentarians to hold a glitzy imbizo [meeting] to tell the electorate what a fabulous job they are doing,” he said.
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/ 26 October 2007
President Thabo Mbeki on Friday said the African National Congress (ANC) government was making steady progress in meeting the basic needs of poor people, despite attempts to discredit it by the ”left alternative”. Writing in the ANC’s weekly newsletter, he said the Community Survey 2007 showed there had been an improvement in meeting basic needs since 2001.
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/ 26 October 2007
Simply enforcing financial operating disciplines will go a long way towards reducing the high number of qualified audit reports received last year by government departments, said Auditor General (AG) Terence Nombembe on Friday. He highlighted measures adopted by other countries that were successfully applying accrual accounting.
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/ 26 October 2007
With Limpopo still to be accounted for, Eastern Cape provincial government departments are leading the field when it comes to poor accounting, according to figures released by the Auditor General on Friday. Eleven of the province’s 12 departments received qualified audit reports for the 2006/7 financial year, and three of the 11 got an ”adverse” rating.
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/ 26 October 2007
The African National Congress (ANC) called on Thursday for the head of opposition leader Helen Zille over claims that taxpayers were made to foot the bill for an investigation into a political opponent. In its latest attempt to unseat Zille as Cape Town mayor, the ANC tabled a statement in Parliament urging her to resign.
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/ 25 October 2007
Entertainer Taliep Petersen and his wife, Najwa, were involved in dodgy diamond and currency deals, the Wynberg Magistrate’s Court heard on Thursday. One of these deals was in progress on the night he died, according to an affidavit handed in as evidence in Najwa’s second bail application.