While most electricity users are being urged to switch off to save energy, Cape Town authorities are keeping street lights switched on day and night in large areas of the city. According to city public lighting manager Charles Kadalie, this is being done in a bid to combat the widespread plundering of copper.
Some MPs protested on Wednesday at the Bill to regulate internet gambling. The National Gambling Amendment Bill was introduced to the trade and industry portfolio committee by Fungai Sibanda, the acting director general of the Department of Trade and Industry.
Thomas Siebert shifts uncomfortably on the wooden court bench and flinches occasionally at the testimony of the man who sodomised and then strangled his six-year-old son to death 18 months ago. He tries to avoid staring at the 48-year-old killer, Theunis Olivier, instead peering around the courtroom and making occasional notes.
The National Lottery, stopped at the end of March, appears set to start up again within the next fortnight. Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa will announce the name of the preferred bidder to run the operation in Pretoria within days, his spokesperson, Vukani Mde, told the South African Press Association on Tuesday.
Hammer-murder accused Fred van der Vyver could have been tipped over the edge by a quarrel with his girlfriend, a Cape High Court judge said on Tuesday. Judge Deon van Zyl made the remark in a ruling rejecting Van der Vyver’s application for discharge at the end of the state’s case.
Legislation paving the way for regulating interactive gambling, such as on the internet, has been tabled in the National Assembly. According to a memorandum attached to the draft National Gambling Amendment Bill, the interactive gaming industry in South Africa is unregulated.
Convicted child killer Theunis Olivier is a serial liar who deserves no mercy, the father of murdered six-year-old Steven Siebert said on Tuesday. Briefing the media at the Cape High Court, Thomas Siebert said Olivier had told a lot of lies regarding the events leading to Steven’s death.
Convicted child killer Theunis Olivier should spend the rest of his life in jail, the Cape High Court heard on Monday. Testifying in court, Eileen Siebert, mother of murdered six-year old boy Steven Siebert said Olivier deserved to die in prison. ”Steven posed no threat to him [Olivier], and yet he choose to kill him for his own pleasure,” she said.
The body of an American tourist who died on a solo rock-climbing excursion on Table Mountain was found on Monday afternoon, rescuers said. David Andretta (31) had planned to scale the mountain on Sunday while his wife took a walking route up Plattekloof Gorge, spokesperson for Wilderness Search and Rescue Anwaaz Bent said.
The suspended chief executive of the Transport Education Training Authority, Piet Bothma, has become the third person to be arrested in connection with the Fidentia affair. He appeared briefly in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Monday where he was released on R200 000 bail. Bothma has been charged with fraud, theft and with corruption.
Child murderer Theunis Olivier had threatened to throw Steven Siebert into the sea if he resisted being sodomised, the Cape High Court heard on Monday. Giving evidence in mitigation of his sentence, Olivier said he told the six-year old to cooperate or face death. ”I told him that I was going to throw him into the sea if he protested,” he said.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has accused South African Rugby Union deputy president Mike Stofile of placing the interests of South African rugby secondary to ”pleasing his African National Congress bosses”. ”New calls for increased racial quotas are once again tainting the Springbok squad,” DA spokesperson Donald Lee said on Monday.
Western Province ended a four-match losing streak in the Absa Currie Cup rugby competition by running out comfortable 47-18 winners in their match against the Valke at Newlands on Saturday. Province started off brightly and were up 17-0 after just 12 minutes, but their performance petered out and they carried only a 20-10 lead into halftime.
There have been ”significant breakthroughs” in several police investigations into organised crime, the Safety and Security Ministry said on Friday. The latest was the arrest of 13 members of a gang suspected of carrying out a spate of cash-in-transit heists in the Eastern Cape, it said in a statement following Thursday’s meeting of the Anti-Crime Leadership Forum.
The tens of thousands of Zimbabwean refugees streaming south are a threat to South Africa’s stability, says Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi. Their numbers had increased from 4Â 000 a month in 2004 to 20Â 000 a month, he said in his weekly newsletter on Friday.
President Thabo Mbeki should be commended for promoting the appointment of women to senior posts in his government, Democratic Alliance (DA) parliamentary leader Sandra Botha said on Friday. ”As we look forward to celebrating Women’s Day next Thursday, it is heartening to track the progress we have made in advancing gender rights in the last few years,” she said.
South African central bank chief Tito Mboweni warned on Friday inflationary pressures were ”more worrying”, hinting interest rates may have to rise again in Africa’s biggest economy. The Reserve Bank governor told Parliament’s finance committee that rates were the only way to rein in inflation.
The once secret organisation that led South Africa’s white Afrikaner minority out of the political and economic doldrums into decades of oppressive rule is battling to find a niche for itself. Following its pursuit of exclusive white interests, the Afrikanerbond is finding it hard to justify its past or find a foothold in the present.
There is little that is new in government’s newly released industrial policy framework, says the Democratic Alliance (DA). ”The policy is low on measurable outcomes, and nowhere speaks to the important Millennium Development Goals of halving unemployment by 2014,” DA trade and industry spokesperson Pierre Rabie said in a statement on Friday.
Medical experts who declared child murderer Theunis Olivier fit to stand trial should reappear in court to answer allegations that they did not follow proper procedures, the Cape High Court ruled on Thursday. ”Serious allegations have been made against these professional people and they should be given an opportunity to answer,” the judge said.
The African National Congress’s (ANC) version of affirmative action was based on ”racial categorising”, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said in Parliament on Thursday. DA safety and security spokesperson Dianne Kohler-Barnard criticised the ruling party’s ”refusal to define how exactly it would determine someone’s race”.
Reckoning with former leaders who were involved in apartheid crimes should be dealt with politically and not by the National Prosecuting Authority, former transport minister Mac Maharaj said on Wednesday. Speaking at a Cape Town Press Club luncheon, he said such matters could not be ”shunted off to a bureaucracy to handle”.
Child murderer Theunis Olivier attempted suicide at the age of five following repeated sexual abuse suffered as a child growing up in Harare, Zimbabwe, the Cape High Court heard on Wednesday. Giving evidence in mitigation of his sentence, Olivier said he was sexually abused by his alcoholic father and others until he decided to commit suicide.
Failure to ”saturate” a patient, causing another to suffer ”importance” by not referring him to a urologist, and a fractured ”fumer” are among the reasons given by Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang for public hospitals being sued for more than R26-million last year.
Afrikanerbond chairperson Pierre Theron has appealed to prominent black businessmen to start an upliftment fund for black South Africans, similar to that launched in the 1930s to benefit poverty-stricken Afrikaners. He said on Tuesday the fund launched by the Afrikanerbond’s predecessor, the Afrikaner Broederbond, raised R30-million over only six years.
The Health Department is preparing to introduce dual therapy to improve prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. The National Strategic Plan for HIV and Aids and Sexually Transmitted Infections allows for introducing dual therapy for reducing mother-to-child transmission, the department said in a statement on Tuesday.
Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula appears to be ”deliberately misinterpreting” legislation in order to avoid the government’s legal obligation to set up camps for refugees from Zimbabwe, the Democratic Alliance said on Tuesday. The minister had recently rejected a DA suggestion that refugee camps be put up.
Theunis Olivier was on Tuesday found guilty by the Cape High Court for the murder of six-year-old Steven Siebert. Passing judgement, Judge Essa Moosa said the testimony given by the accused, the psychiatrist’s evaluation report as well as the statement submitted by the accused were enough to convict Olivier on all the charges.
The trial of the four travel agents still standing in the parliamentary travel-voucher fraud case will only start next year, it emerged on Tuesday. The four, Soraya Beukes, Mpho Lebelo, Graham Geduldt and Estelle Aggujaro, made a brief appearance in the Cape High Court for yet another postponement.
Theunis Olivier was of a sober and sane mind when he sodomised and later strangled six-year-old Steven Siebert in Plettenberg Bay, the Cape High Court heard on Monday. In his statement submitted to the court, Olivier said he was normal when he committed the crime.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) on Monday dismissed a special task team’s report on conditions at East London’s Frere Hospital as a ”whitewash”. ”There are several problems with the methodology of the task team that make the conclusions entirely superficial and very difficult to take seriously,” DA spokesperson Mike Waters said in a statement.
The South African government has tabled six new pieces of legislation to greet MPs as they return from their month-long winter break to start the new term on Tuesday. The Bills, with one exception, are all amendment Bills tidying up earlier legislation or making arrangements to deal with problems that have arisen since the original laws were passed.