Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk has been challenged by the Democratic Alliance (DA) to do something concrete about climate change. ”As the lead minister on climate change, Van Schalkwyk spends a lot of time talking at international conferences on the need for ‘serious and immediate’ action. But he has yet to actually produce anything concrete,” the DA said on Wednesday.
Zimbabwe’s 27th anniversary of independence on Wednesday should be marked with a plan clearly setting out successive steps to restore democracy and good governance to that country, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said. ”The 27th anniversary of Zimbabwean independence … is the most dismal in that country’s history,” DA spokesperson Douglas Gibson said in a statement.
The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) has urged National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli to urgently investigate the unprecedented upsurge in public complaints about reckless behaviour by ministerial-vehicle convoys on the country’s roads. ”These complaints centre on the excessive speeds at which these convoys travel …,” the IFP said on Wednesday.
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Addressing the Cape Town Press Club on Tuesday, former deputy president Jacob Zuma pledged not to withdraw legal action he has instituted against members of the media. He also said he would accept nomination for a leadership position at the ANC’s national conference near the end of this year.
I can’t get no satisfaction, complained rock legend Mick Jagger back in the swinging Sixties. Maybe the pair should have moved to Africa. According to the Durex Global Sex Survey, South Africans and Nigerians are among the most satisfied people in the world when it comes to sex, or having the most orgasms.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has called for the resignation of World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz "not just because of his abuse of his office to promote, and give a huge pay rise to, his girlfriend, but because of his consistently anti-working class and anti-poor policies", it said on Tuesday.
The finances of the United Independent Front (UIF) came under scrutiny in an application heard in the Cape High Court on Monday. The application was brought by Neville Hendricks and Mzwandile Manjiya, who say they are the UIF’s deputy president and secretary general respectively.
The African National Congress Women’s League on Monday objected to court rulings evicting a family from ”ancestral land” in Limpopo and refusing permission for a matriarch to be buried there. The league has noted a ”deliberate attempt on the part of the landowners to frustrate the process”.
The person who stabbed baby Jordan-Leigh Norton in the neck had the direct intention of killing her, it was argued in the Cape High Court on Monday. Closing argument started before Judge Basher Waglay in the marathon trial of five suspects, including the alleged mastermind in the baby’s murder, Dina Rodrigues.
A flat tax in which the ratio of tax to taxable income is the same at all levels of income — and which replaces various tax bands that feature in a progressive tax regime with a single tax — would allow the South African government to gather more tax at lower rates, Free Market Foundation (FMF) economist Jasson Urbach has argued.
The elimination of the defending champions and a spirited performance against the odds were two of the features of a thrilling final weekend of league fixtures in the Vodacom Cup competition, which enters its quarterfinal stage this weekend. Holders the Valke went down 17-8 to the Blue Bulls last Friday.
It appears there has been ”substantial maladministration” in the finances of the troubled United Independent Front (UIF), the Cape High Court has been told. The deputy leader of the party makes the claim in an affidavit submitted as part of a bid to block party disciplinary proceedings against him and a fellow party official.
The Freedom Front+ has laid a formal complaint over the destruction of a Great Trek memorial at Standerton, party leader Dr Pieter Mulder said on Sunday. Mayor Queen Radebe-Khumalo ordered the destruction of the memorial, which was in front of the municipal offices, apparently with the approval of the Mpumalanga African National Congress.
Michael Jackson, former co-owner of the Cape Town branch of the Teazers nightclub, was sentenced on Friday to 15 years in jail for shooting dead a street child. Jackson (45) shot the child believing the boy had smashed the driver’s window of his luxury car.
A civic group on Friday failed to bring an immediate halt to the demolition of the old Green Point Stadium, alongside the site of Cape Town’s proposed 2010 Soccer World Cup stadium. The Cape Town Environmental Protection Association earlier in the day filed papers asking for an urgent court interdict against the demolition.
Cape Judge President John Hlophe is off the hook for now, after the Judicial Service Commission on Friday to postpone a decision about impeachment proceedings against him. The commission has decided that the matter can only be finalised after the conclusion of the Oasis Group’s court case against Judge Siraj Desai.
Human slavery in a new form has emerged internationally and is yet to be defeated, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday. Writing in his weekly newsletter on the African National Congress website, he said the international community is still challenged by ”slavery in new clothes”.
Mangosuthu Buthelezi has added a note of caution to the proposed name change of Durban highway in KwaZulu-Natal — currently named "Mangosuthu Highway" in his honour. eThekwini mayor Obed Mlaba has proposed that the highway be named, instead, after a late liberation-struggle hero.
The challenge facing the international community is that the contemporary global economy has given birth to various forms of economic activity affecting millions of people that is akin to the loss of personal freedom experienced by the classical slaves, South African President Thabo Mbeki argued on Friday.
South Africa needs to regain its moral compass to prevent its good standing in international affairs being undermined, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said in his weekly newsletter on Friday, pointing to South Africa’s record on Zimbabwe as a foreign-policy disaster.
More than seven million sharks and skates are killed every year as an unintended consequence of longline fishing off the west coasts of South Africa, Namibia and Angola, a report by environmental group WWF said on Thursday. The practice also claims about 34 000 seabirds and 4 200 sea turtles a year in the area.
Clarity on the cause of the latest spate of renal-failure cases in dogs is expected before the end of the week. In the meantime, Royal Canin has decided to suspend all sales of Vets Choice pet food with immediate effect, and Hill’s Pet Nutrition has released a warning to cat owners regarding some of its dry food.
Former president Nelson Mandela’s grandson Mandla has dedicated his graduation from Grahamstown’s Rhodes University to his grandfather and late father Makgatho Mandela, who died in 2005. The graduation ceremony comes only days before another historic moment in Mandla’s life.
Visible policing on South Africa’s roads will help reduce the high number of fatalities, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Thursday. ”A 7,4% increase in the number of road accidents during this year’s Easter week-end compared to a similar period in 2006 indicates the inability of law enforcement agencies to ensure compliance with traffic rules,” said DA spokesperson Stuart Farrow.
The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has officially withdrawn all radio advertisements of the Tshwane Metropolitan Council that refer to Tshwane as the capital city. The SABC’s policy manager, Fakir Hassin, undertook in writing to the Advertising Standards Authority to withdraw the advertisements with "immediate effect".
The BSc graduate accused of murdering his ex-lover, estate agent Andre Weitz, slashed his wrists and overdosed on pills before attacking Weitz with an axe, the Cape High Court heard on Wednesday. Michael van Zyl spoke so softly before Judge Daniel Dlodlo that the judge repeatedly demanded he speak louder or repeat himself.
Former LeisureNet joint chief executives Peter Gardener and Rod Mitchell have registered no objection to a Cape High Court order that a forfeiture inquiry be instituted in terms of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act, and that the inquiry take place in September. It relates to R6-million they each received in an underhanded gym deal.
Local government has ”an extremely limited role” in addressing key needs in Cape Town such as jobs, housing and security, mayor Helen Zille said on Wednesday at the launch of the city’s draft integrated development plan at the civic centre. She said the public needs to better understand the limits of local government’s mandate.
Damp ceilings, cracked walls, bad plumbing and shoddy bricklaying are among the structural defects plaguing the owners of about 2Â 500 low-cost houses across the Cape Peninsula. Poor workmanship has been blamed for the defects, the Local Government Research Centre reports, and it will cost about R35-million to repair the damage.
A candidate for a post on the bench of the Cape High Court faced tough questioning at the Judicial Service Commission on Tuesday over her claim that judicial appointments were often steeped in racial and gender prejudice. Advocate Nona Goso was also quizzed over incidents in which she appeared to have signed off review cases without reading them.
A suspect in the axe murder of estate agent Andre Weitz was found on the roof of the Valkenberg Psychiatric Hospital trying to escape, the Cape High Court heard on Tuesday. Professor Sean Kaliski, specialist of forensic psychiatric services in the Western Cape, testified at the trial of Michael Bernard van Zyl, who is charged with Weitz’s murder.
Action in the Vodacom Cup resumes this weekend after the Easter break with quarterfinal contenders looking to secure home-ground advantage for the knockout stages of the competition. This weekend sees the final round of league fixtures with four semifinal places still up for grabs.