One of the two units at the Koeberg nuclear power station near Cape Town was unexpectedly shut down on Thursday morning because of a technical problem, Eskom said. Eskom chief executive Jacob Maroga said there was no need for concern, as Eskom had enough reserve capacity to supply the Western Cape.
The Cabinet has dismissed suggestions the government is insensitive to the plight of its employees and called for ”responsible leadership” during protest actions. ”We reject any insinuation that government is insensitive to the plight of its employees,” government communications head Themba Maseko said.
The Cape Town Regional Court on Wednesday granted a fashion photographer leave to appeal his conviction and four-year jail sentence for sexual offences against a five-year-old girl. Neil Herman (48) appeared before Judge Wilma van der Merwe, who extended his R1 000 bail pending the outcome of the appeal.
South African lawmakers have given their thumbs up to a proposed law banning parents or guardians from spanking their charges. The law is an attempt to widen a ban on corporal punishment in schools, which was passed several years ago, to the home.
A working document tabled at the Public Service Coordinating Bargaining Council on Wednesday offers progress in public-service pay talks, Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi said. ”This is a major breakthrough,” she told the National Assembly on Wednesday afternoon.
The Department of Minerals and Energy is working on regulations to govern "the norms and standards" of energy appliances so as to reduce the use of energy, Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica said on Wednesday. Speaking ahead of her budget vote, the minister acknowledged that people would be obligated "to be energy efficient".
South African Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa says he expects to make an announcement on the National Lottery on Thursday. At a media briefing at Parliament on Wednesday, he said he was awaiting a report from the National Lotteries Board on the matter.
The Zimbabwe opposition Movement for Democratic Change’s economics spokesperson, Eddie Cross, says that judging from his own bakery business, the country’s inflation rate now exceeds 10 000%. He said on Wednesday that he was told by a supplier that flour for his bakery would now cost Z 000 for a 50kg bag, which cost Z 000 just recently.
South Africa again rejected calls for tough action against Zimbabwe on Tuesday ahead of a visit by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is expected to press the issue. Britain and other Western powers have accused Mugabe of widespread human rights abuses and mismanaging the economy.
High Court papers have been served on President Thabo Mbeki and Justice Minister Brigitte Mabandla calling on them to respond in the matter of considering applications for a presidential pardon for 384 prisoners, Inkatha Freedom Party chief whip Koos van der Merwe told MPs on Tuesday.
More than half of the one million cases that made it last year on to the rolls of South Africa’s lower courts were withdrawn or struck off, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Tuesday during debate on the Justice and Constitutional Development Department budget vote in the National Assembly.
Many so-called political prisoners held in South African jails committed their offences after 1994, Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Brigitte Mabandla said on Tuesday. Briefing the media in Cape Town, she said it would be incorrect to regard any inmate as a political prisoner.
The Cape High Court on Tuesday denied four men convicted in the Fancy Boys gangster case leave to appeal. Three Fancy Boys gang members, with sentences ranging from 10 to 20 years’ imprisonment, and a non-gangster who received stolen property from them had applied for leave to appeal.
The National Treasury has gazetted the details of municipalities whose 2006/07 municipal infrastructure grant allocations have been stopped — because of non-compliance with the 2006 Division of Revenue Act. It amounts to R503-million. The main reason for the funds being stopped is "significant under-expenditure".
Opposition parties on Tuesday castigated the government for not doing more to uphold human rights around the world, particularly in Burma and Zimbabwe. ”How sad that within 13 years South Africa has lost its image as the champion of human rights in the world,” Freedom Front Plus leader Pieter Mulder said.
A lack of capacity to spend their allocations from the integrated housing and human-settlement development grant has resulted in the Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga being stripped of R145-million by the national Housing Department, the Cape Town-based South African Local Government Research Centre has reported.
President Thabo Mbeki’s facilitation of political dialogue in Zimbabwe will succeed only if its people show they are serious about finding solutions to that country’s crisis, Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said on Tuesday in her budget-vote debate in the National Assembly.
Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown and financial director Graham Maddock appeared briefly in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday to hear their case postponed to August 31. The two men face fraud and theft charges involving just more than R200-million, with other charges to follow.
The multiparty committee that will decide whether Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool misled the legislature plans to hold open hearings ”as soon as possible”, its chairperson said on Monday. Provincial deputy speaker Yousuf Gabru, who is chairing the six-person committee, said the committee sees its work as ”quite important”.
A Cape Town city councillor on Monday denied that he was offering bribes to fellow councillors to join a new political party later this year. Badih Chaaban, a proportionally elected councillor for the African Muslim Party, was responding to a statement issued by the Independent Democrats on the weekend.
Marketing company Glomail has declined to say whether it intends to readvertise fraud convict Kevin Trudeau’s Mega Memory System after being ruled out of line by the Advertising Standards Authority. The supposed memory-training programme has already run foul of United States regulators.
President Thabo Mbeki on Friday rejected an allegation made last week by Congress of South African Trade Unions general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi that government propaganda is like that used by Adolf Hitler’s regime in Nazi Germany. ”The charge that our government … is behaving in a manner akin to the Nazis is very serious in the extreme,” he said.
The United States-led ”war on terror” has opened a Pandora’s box of unintended consequences and is veering dangerously close to Islamophobia, South Africa’s intelligence minister said on Thursday. Ronnie Kasrils said South Africa believed that the ”terrorist” label should not be indiscriminately or incorrectly applied.
A ”standstill” can be expected in South Africa if the government does not act on public-service workers’ demands, Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) president Willie Madisha told thousands of marchers in Cape Town. Speaking outside Parliament, Madisha called on the government to ”negotiate seriously and properly”.
News that three highly qualified medical doctors nominated for posts in two under-staffed public hospitals have been rejected by the Western Cape provincial health department — because they are white — has been slammed by Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Helen Zille.
Peace will not prevail in the Middle East unless Israel stops its aggression against Palestinian people, Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils said on Friday. Speaking during the Intelligence Department’s budget-vote debate in the National Assembly, Kasrils said Israel must start making positive moves.
Failed land-reform projects threaten food security in South Africa, warns a study by the FW de Klerk Foundation, launched in Cape Town on Thursday. The document — titled Land Reform: A Contextual Analysis — says the country’s food security is already under pressure.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) expects about 20Â 000 public servants to take part in Friday’s march through central Cape Town, the first called by the federation in the city since last year’s security sector protest. That event was marred by looting, violence and damage to public and private property before it was broken up by police.
South Africa’s central bank was closely watching whether another round of oil and food price increases widens inflation, and it would take action if this occured, Governor Tito Mboweni said on Wednesday. ”If we see second-round effects coming through it is prudent for the central bank to tighten monetary policy,” Mboweni said in a speech in Cape Town.
Sandra Botha has beaten her rival, former National Party minister Tertius Delport, for the post of leader of the opposition in the National Assembly. Finance spokesperson Ian Davidson was elected unopposed for chief whip after KwaZulu-Natal leader Mike Ellis withdrew from the contest.
The African National Congress (ANC) has retained a key seat in a municipal by-election in the Theewaterskloof municipal area while it lost a seat to an independent in the Western Cape’s Saldanha Bay. The independent candidate was backed by the Independent Democrats and Democratic Alliance.
The City of Cape Town on Wednesday unveiled a two-year plan to provide essential services to all 222 informal settlements within its boundary. The plan, which would see every household given access to water, sanitation and area lighting, would cost R63,4-million, Mayor Helen Zille told a media briefing.