Suspended Inkatha Freedom Party chairperson Doctor Ziba Jiyane resigned from the party on Thursday. On Friday, his personal assistant, Phumlani Khuzwayo, said Jiyane will make an announcement on his political future in Durban on Saturday. ”Reports that Jiyane is going to start a new political party are all false,” said Khuzwayo.
The African National Congress in KwaZulu-Natal said it will investigate who incited crowd members to shout pro-Jacob Zuma slogans while Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka tried to address them on Women’s Day. Mlambo-Ngcuka was booed as she tried to deliver her speech at Utrecht.
A meeting between striking municipal workers’ unions and the South African Local Government Association continued on Monday afternoon with no new developments, a union spokesperson said. In KwaZulu-Natal, police arrested 43 striking municipal employees on Monday, as striking Samwu members took to the streets.
Intensive security measures were in place in KwaDukuza on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast on Monday after taxis were forced to stop all operations at midnight on Sunday. This comes after a tribunal was set up to look into the violence between rival taxi associations in which 14 people have died in the past two months.
KwaZulu-Natal health minister Peggy Nkonyeni on Thursday denied media reports that the department’s head, Professor Ronald Green-Thompson, had been fired. Her statement came after provincial newspapers and the South African Broadcasting Corporation quoted Green-Thompson as saying that he had been sacked.
The Inkatha Freedom Party’s support base is ”eroding” in urban areas but still strong in rural KwaZulu-Natal where people believe it represents the interests of the Zulu people, according to a political analyst. ”There are two factions … one loyal to the leadership of Mangosuthu Buthelezi and another pressing for democratisation,” he said.
The police are searching for a man who was seen with a little girl shortly before she was strangled in Sundimbili in northern KwaZulu-Natal on Tuesday. Police spokesperson Captain Jay Naicker said according to reports the girl was last seen with a man who was visiting his family in the area.
A Durban North couple alleged to have conned investors out of R20-million to R25-million were arrested by the commercial crime unit on Tuesday afternoon. The unit’s Captain Dean Misra said the investigation began a year-and-a-half ago when the Financial Services Board lodged a complaint against the couple.
The All Blacks imposed a rigid blackout of their morning training session on the third day of their stay in Durban in preparation for the upcoming Tri-Nations rugby Test against the Springboks in Cape Town on Saturday. At the end of the session, the media were granted interviews with lock James Ryan and fullback Leon McDonald.
The Inkatha Freedom Party on Sunday suspended its national chairperson, Ziba Jiyane, at a national council meeting at Umhlanga Rocks, Durban. The IFP said Jiyane last week brought its name into disrepute by saying that the party was operating as ”an internal dictatorship”.
Two gifted first-half tries — both the result of errors that arose from apparent touch-rugby tactics — gave the trampled Eastern Province Mighty Elephants 10 points they badly needed to give them a sense of respectability in their Absa Currie Cup rugby encounter against a rampant Sharks side on Friday night.
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Durban businessman Schabir Shaik was given leave on Friday to go to the Supreme Court of Appeal against one of two corruption convictions and one of fraud. Durban High Court Judge Hillary Squires granted Shaik leave to challenge his convictions on the two charges on limited grounds.
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Durban businessman Schabir Shaik will know on Friday whether he will be granted an opportunity to appeal against his fraud and corruption conviction and 15-year jail sentence. High Court judge Hilary Squires is to hand down judgement at 10am following Shaik’s application for leave to appeal against his convictions, all of which involved financial dealings with former deputy president Jacob Zuma.
Friendship and camaraderie, not self-interest, were behind payments by Durban businessman Schabir Shaik to former deputy president Jacob Zuma, the Durban High Court heard on Tuesday. Shaik is asking the court for leave to appeal against his conviction on two counts of corruption and one of fraud.
A suspected cannibal who allegedly murdered his niece and then roasted and ate her right thigh is expected to appear in the Harding Magistrate’s Court in southern KwaZulu-Natal on Tuesday. Police spokesperson Superintendent Zandra Hechter said the man was arrested on Sunday after he allegedly killed his sister’s three-year-old daughter and attempted to kill her other children.
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Durban businessman Schabir Shaik returns to the city’s high court on Tuesday for his application for leave to appeal against his conviction and 15-year jail sentence for fraud and corruption. Last week, Shaik’s attorney Reeves Parsee said argument ”could take 10 minutes or two days”.
It was sweet and emphatic revenge for Orlando Pirates as they beat Kaizer Chiefs 2-1 in the Vodacom Challenge Final at Absa Stadium on Sunday and dominated the team who had edged in front of them at the last hurdle in last season’s Premier League title race.
At least 3Â 900 state officials in KwaZulu-Natal face arrest for social grant fraud, the Scorpions said on Friday. Spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi said the arrests will be conducted over various phases. People expected to be apprehended include nurses, teachers, police officers and clerks.
A KwaZulu-Natal man committed suicide inside his home on Friday as police waited for him to open the door to arrest him for allegedly attempting to kill his wife. According to police spokesperson Captain Tienkie van Vuuren, Lucky Mthethwa (50) was wanted for the attempted murder of his wife.
Warders at Westville prison in Durban have until Thursday evening to respond to questions by the Department of Correctional Services following the escape of four armed prisoners last Saturday. The prisoners made a run for it when warders unlocked their cell to give them food on Saturday morning.
Anti-Aids drugs will be more accessible to prisoners in KwaZulu-Natal after threats of a hunger strike and a letter of demand was sent to prison authorities earlier this week. Currently, if doctors recommend that inmates be given anti-retrovirals (ARVs), they are transported to one of the sites where ARVs are administered.
An investigation into the deaths of 22 babies from klebsiella bacteria at Durban’s Mahatma Gandhi hospital was ”another cover-up”, an organisation representing the parents said on Wednesday. ”How can the killers investigate the deaths of babies they have killed?” asked Alvin Brijlal, spokesperson for the non-profit organisation Voice.
The Durban health department intends taking Engen to court after sulphur dioxide emissions at its Durban oil refinery were found to be ”excessive”. ”We’ve served the necessary notices, we are moving ahead with the legal processes,” said the deputy head of the department, Selva Mudaly.
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Durban businessman Schabir Shaik’s application for leave to appeal against his fraud and corruption conviction and 15-year jail sentence will be argued in the city’s High Court next Tuesday. ”It could take 10 minutes or two days,” Shaik’s attorney, Reeves Parsee, said on Monday.
About 40 babies died at the Mahatma Gandhi Hospital in Durban during two months in 2003 of ”various neonatal ICU infections,” the director of the non-profit organisation Voice said on Thursday. ”A report on the deaths of the 40 babies in 2003 was given to me by a high ranking official of the health department in KZN yesterday [Wednesday].
South Africa’s application to have the world heritage status of Sterkfontein’s fossil hominid sites extended to include the Taung Skull fossil site in North West province and the Mokopane Valley in Limpopo province was accepted on Friday. The Department of Arts and Culture said the Taung Skull site exhibited the same characteristics as hominid sites such as Sterkfontein, Swartkrans and Kromdraai.
KwaZulu-Natal’s libraries will feel the effects of a R90-million budget cut in the 2005/06 financial year, but officials in the province’s department of arts, culture and tourism say they are seeking ways to minimise the impact. Department head Bonga Ntanzi said the reprioritisation should at most slow down library purchases.
It is tempting to call it a no-brainer: the idea that attempts to prevent transmission of HIV from mothers to children should be matched by initiatives to keep these mothers alive after they give birth. For all this, efforts in South Africa to prioritise the health of HIV-positive mothers have fallen short over past years.
The Durban bus driver accused of killing a toddler during a road-rage shooting incident at the weekend is due to appear in court on Wednesday. Three-year-old Luyanda Khanyile was shot in the back during an argument between the driver of the Mynah bus and her father, Cedric Khanyile.
A taxi driver from the Dolphin Coast Taxi Association was shot dead at Shakaskraal on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast, South African Broadcasting Corporation news said on Monday. Meanwhile, police are mediating between two rival taxi associations at Umhlali near Stanger.
Public servants should be open and honest and not engage in corruption and ”wheeler-dealing”, Anglican Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane said on Sunday. ”Tangible hope comes when elected representatives — at national, provincial and local level — and the officials who support them, are there as public servants, not to play with power and pursue self-enrichment,” he said.
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Former deputy president Jacob Zuma hoped for a speedy trial in which he was allowed to properly present his case in court, he said on Wednesday. ”The day the state has decided to prosecute me in a proper forum has finally arrived,” Zuma said. The case has been postponed until October.