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.
A Bellville medical doctor who refused to pay ”excessive” legal fees on Friday won the first round of his Cape High Court battle against his own lawyers. In court papers, Dr Ben Broens said he requested a detailed account after being billed R204 135 by his divorce lawyers, advocate Andre Ferreira and attorney Johannes Brink.
Eight community halls have been opened for people forced out of their homes by flood waters after a massive cold front brought heavy rain to Cape Town and surrounding areas on Thursday night. About 15 000 people have been displaced by heavy rains in the Cape peninsula, reports said on Saturday.
The death rate among newborn babies at East London’s main public hospital does not differ significantly from the national norm, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday. In his weekly newsletter, he said ”neonatal mortality at Frere Hospital is not significantly different from the national incidence of such mortality”.
Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi says there is not a ”shred of evidence” to support the contention he gave instructions to members of his party to commit ”murder and destruction” in KwaZulu-Natal during the late 1980s. Responding to a Sunday Times column, he said on Friday he could not ignore certain ”serious charges” made against him.
Baby-killer Dina Rodrigues and her four co-accused were on Friday granted permission to appeal against their sentences. Cape High Court Judge Basheer Waglay, however, rejected applications by Rodrigues and three of the men to appeal against their convictions.
Cape Town mayoral committee member Simon Grindrod plans to sue alleged ”sex blogger” Juan Uys, he said on Friday. Uys, arrested in Kroonstad last week, is to appear in the Cape Town magistrate’s court on Monday on a charge of theft dating back to 2004.
Plans to incorporate municipalities’ metro police units into the South African Police Service (SAPS) could not have come at a worse time, Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille said on Friday. Zille, who is also mayor of Cape Town, said she was informed by ministerial letter on June 25 of the planned ”integration of municipality police into the SAPS”.
Rescue services are using boats to evacuate residents of a flooded settlement near Philippi outside Cape Town in the wake of a massive cold front that has brought heavy rain to the Western Cape. ”Metro [rescue services] and the police are using rescue boats to evacuate people,” Disaster Risk Management Centre manager Walter Solomons said.
President Thabo Mbeki seized the occasion of his speech to the African region conference of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association on Friday to tick off a number of countries present who have not yet passed anti-terrorism laws. "All of us are obliged to take action to implement the provisions of the African Convention on Terrorism," said.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) will on Friday lay criminal charges against vitamin salesperson Matthias Rath, the party said on Thursday. Mike Waters, the DA health spokesperson, said Rath had contravened the law by masquerading as a medical doctor.
Former South African president FW de Klerk on Thursday denied that he had ever condoned apartheid-era murders or other gross violations of human rights. ”I have not only a clear conscience, I am not guilty of any crime whatsoever,” he said. He was responding to newspaper reports that former law and order minister Adriaan Vlok, who faces prosecution, intends to spill the beans on him.
The Health Department has rejected claims by the Democratic Alliance (DA) that it was not doing anything to stop the influx of unregulated alternative medicines into the country. Department spokesperson Sibani Mngadi on Thursday said a lot was being done to prevent the distribution of bogus medicines in the country.
Over half the dams owned and managed by the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry do not comply with modern safety standards, but are not necessarily unsafe, said Water Affairs and Forestry Minister Lindiwe Hendricks. ”At present, 160 of the 294 dams owned by my department do not comply with current-day dam safety standards,” she said on Thursday.
Rain driven by strong wind lashed the Cape Peninsula on Thursday, flooding more informal settlements on the Cape Flats. Cape Town disaster management spokesperson Johan Minnie said that on Thursday afternoon the city was providing shelter, food and blankets to about 1 200 people.
Several alternative medicines that have been banned in other countries have easily found their way into the South African market, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Thursday. Briefing the media in Cape Town, DA spokesperson on health Mike Waters said the South African government was doing nothing to stop these dangerous products from being sold to people.
Former national cricketer Garth le Roux and companies under his control never paid a cent of tax on property-sale commissions totalling just over R1,9-million, Cape Town’s Wynberg Regional Court heard on Wednesday. Le Roux and his accountant, Deon van Heerden, have pleaded not guilty to 48 counts of income-tax and VAT fraud.
A plan to reduce the effects of commercial fishing fleets within Southern Africa’s so-called Benguela-current large marine ecosystem was released in Cape Town on Wednesday. Experts have hailed it as a clear and practical way of implementing an ”ecosystem approach to fisheries” policy in the region.