Durban

A second person has been gored by a black rhino in the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve, KwaZulu-Natal nature conservation authorities said on Thursday.
Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife’s Jeff Gaisford said that in the latest incident Mandlenkosi Magubane (33), one of a group of contract workers clearing alien vegetation in the reserve on Monday, stumbled upon a black rhino which attacked him.

Three people were arrested in connection with child pornography in KwaZulu-Natal on Friday when provincial government offices and houses of suspected employees were raided, police said. Police spokesperson Superintendent Vishnu Naidoo confirmed that a man was arrested in Ladysmith on Friday afternoon while two other ”very senior” officials were arrested in Nqutu and Umdloti.

Five convicts who escaped from Westville prison on Monday and were recaptured on Wednesday will face new charges and be moved to a place ”with higher security”. KwaZulu-Natal safety and security minister Bheki Cele said: ”it would be amazing if there was no collaboration” with prison officials in the escape.

The African National Congress in KwaZulu-Natal on Monday said 27 new councillors had joined its ranks since the start of the floor-crossing period on September 1. Most of the councillors were from the New National Party, Democratic Alliance and Inkatha Freedom Party.

They originally came as indentured workers but almost 150 years later, South Africa’s million-plus people of Indian origin have carved out a special place in the country’s political and economic landscape. The community of about 1,2-million people is made up largely of descendants of labourers who worked in sugarcane plantations, most of whom were herded onto ships to South Africa by British colonial rulers.

Three people, including two children, burnt to death when their home was set alight by a mob in Esikhawini, north of Durban, over the weekend, KwaZulu-Natal police said. The mob poured petrol on two rondavels and a six-roomed house and set them on fire. The group then started shooting occupants of the houses through the windows.

The mother of former South African and now Australian rugby player Clyde Rathbone was recovering from injuries sustained during a burglary at her home on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast on Wednesday morning. This comes less than a week after a newspaper article quoted her son as saying that since he had moved to Australia, he had a ”total lack of stress” and never worried about the safety of his fiancée.

A second arms cache has been found in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature building at Ulundi, the province’s safety and liaison minister Bheki Cele said on Wednesday. An intensive search was under way at the legislature buildings on Wednesday morning, after police found a second arms cache there on Tuesday.

The Congress of SA Trade Unions said on Tuesday the discovery of bombs in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature in Ulundi last week justified its call for the arrest of Inkatha Freedom Party member Philip Powell. ”We have long been calling for explanation as to why Phillip Powell has been allowed to go overseas … [because] he had not disclosed … where other tons of arms and ammunition [were],” Cosatu regional secretary Zet Luzipo said in a statement.

Ten bombs were found in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature at Ulundi last week, the African National Congress in the province said on Monday. ANC spokesperson Mtholephi Mthimkhulu said the bombs were found hidden in one of the storerooms of the legislature on Thursday.