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/ 11 January 2008
The infrastructure of the Transkei is collapsing, United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa has told President Thabo Mbeki in an open letter. ”When Transkeians supported change … they had a legitimate expectation that misery will, for the first time, be a thing of the past,” he said in the letter.
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/ 10 January 2008
Three National Lottery winners in November and December have still not claimed their prizes, new operator Gidani said on Thursday. Since the return of the National Lottery in October last year, 15 millionaires have been made and a total of R222-million has been paid out to charity organisations.
A Port Elizabeth magistrate’s order that a woman with 203 previous convictions of fraud and one of theft be publicly shamed with a placard around her neck proclaiming her guilt and apologising to her victims has been set aside by the Grahamstown High Court as unconstitutional.
The number of fatalities on South African roads over the festive season decreased by 13,26%, Transport Minister Jeff Radebe said on Tuesday. He was releasing the Arrive Alive campaign’s figures for the holiday season from December 1 to January 6. The number of people killed on the roads had declined to 1Â 419.
A 29-year-old man was arrested after two Somalis were found burnt to death in their shop at Duncan Village in East London, Eastern Cape police said on Monday. Spokesperson Captain Stephen Marais said the deceased, Said Khalif (17) and Badal Shiek Mohamed (26), were confronted by four men who took money and household goods before killing them on Sunday.
A determined search by internet-coordinated volunteers on Saturday found the body of pilot Dirk Boosyen 11 days after he went missing in the Bavianskloof region of the Eastern Cape, police said on Sunday. ”They discovered the burnt-out wreck at about 6pm [on Saturday] in the Matjiesfontien farm in the Baviaanskloof area on the peaks of the mountain,” said Captain John Fobian.
The recent spate of light-aircraft accidents was largely a result of human error and negligence, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said on Friday. ”It’s not the machine that is a problem — it’s the human; the pilot, the maintenance engineer …” said the CAA’s executive manager of air-safety investigations, Gilbert Thwala.
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/ 31 December 2007
Rescue services were on Monday still searching for the missing Cessna 210 light aircraft, six days after it disappeared in the Baviaanskloof area of the Eastern Cape, authorities said. ”There is still no success but we are following up new leads and will continue searching again today [Monday],” said South African Search and Rescue Organisation head Charles Norval.
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/ 30 December 2007
An Eastern Cape woman who burnt her daughter with hot water after disappointing matric results has been arrested, Port Elizabeth police said on Sunday. Captain Verna Brink said the woman was in police custody and due to appear in the Gelvandale Magistrate’s Court on Monday.
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/ 30 December 2007
Eighty people were arrested for drunken driving and other criminal offences at a roadblock in East London, Eastern Cape police said on Sunday. Superintendent Mtati Tana said the arrests were made in a joint operation between police and traffic officers as part of the festive season crackdown on serious crimes and drunken driving.
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/ 28 December 2007
The disappointing South African matric pass rate came as no surprise, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Friday. MP George Boinamo said it was, however, disappointing that the pass rate had deteriorated. ”During the past year our country’s education system, and more importantly, its learners, faced many challenges.”
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/ 28 December 2007
Rescue services are still searching for the Cessna 210 light aircraft that went missing on Wednesday, said South African Search and Rescue Organisation head Charles Norval on Friday. ”We haven’t had success, but are still searching. The rescue team is following all the leads,” Norval said.
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/ 24 December 2007
A national plan is in place to give thousands of matriculants who are not expected to pass this year a second chance, a newspaper reported on Monday. ”Education departments confirmed on Sunday that the plan was being finalised at provincial level,” the report in Beeld said.
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/ 24 December 2007
Santa Claus will have to slide down slippery chimneys on Christmas Day as thunderstorms are expected in most parts of South Africa on Tuesday. Rain and thunderstorms across several parts of the country have been predicted by the South African Weather Service.
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/ 24 December 2007
Campaigners say they are eyeing legal action ”sooner rather than later” to block a bid to change Grahamstown’s name to iRhini. ”All such name changes have to be fully motivated and must reflect the views of the community,” one of the coordinators of the Keep Grahamstown Campaign said in a statement on Monday.
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/ 23 December 2007
Thabile* was 15 when she was forced to marry a man in his thirties in the Mgudlulweni village near Mount Frere in the Eastern Cape. Her parents agreed to "give" their daughter to him. She did not know about the marriage or consent to it. On her way to school one day, four men abducted her. "I was walking to school and they grabbed me. They took me to a man I did not know to be my husband," Thabile says.
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/ 22 December 2007
At least 10 people were killed and more than 20 injured in a collision when a bus ploughed into the trailer of a stationary truck near Estcourt in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands on Saturday morning, paramedics and the provincial road traffic inspectorate said. Of those injured, eight were in a critical condition.
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/ 21 December 2007
The transnational family, nourished by email, chatrooms, long-distance calls and SMSs has increasingly become a feature of migrant communities. In this virtual family the husband might be living and working in South Africa, his wife slaving away as a nurse in England and their children at school in Zimbabwe, their country of origin.
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/ 20 December 2007
South Africa’s second-largest housing market, the Western Cape, continued to have the lowest house price inflation in the country, fresh data showed on Thursday. Price inflation in the province dropped from 12% in July to 11% in August, the Lightstone residential property index showed.
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/ 19 December 2007
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An attempt to get the principle of gender parity elevated to the top structures of the ANC was trounced on Monday night, the Mail & Guardian has learned.
The policy, also known as the 50/50 principle, is a steep change in empowerment in the ANC and requires that every alternative position available for leadership be reserved for a female candidate.
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/ 19 December 2007
<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=ancconference_home"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/327874/livefrompolo.gif" align=left border=0></a>Did the ANC fatten up for the slaughter in Polokwane? An audit of membership statistics suggests the wholesale recruitment of new members to boost the girth of provincial delegations has played — and will play — a role in the outcomes at Limpopo.
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/ 18 December 2007
Eastern Cape authorities were still searching for 29 tuberculosis (TB) patients who escaped from the Jose Pearson Hospital in the Nelson Mandela municipality, after twenty returned on Tuesday. The patients escaped through holes they had cut through the hospital’s perimeter fences.
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/ 18 December 2007
More than 560 people have died on South African roads since the beginning of December, the Department of Transport said on Tuesday. At least 119 people were killed in accidents in Gauteng, 86 in KwaZulu-Natal, 58 in the Western Cape, 70 in the Eastern Cape, 52 in the Free State, 74 in Mpumalanga, 51 in Limpopo and seven in the Northern Cape.
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/ 18 December 2007
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A third day of cool, rainy weather in Polokwane did little to quench the fiery support for the front-runners in the ANC presidential race: Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. Voting for the party’s top six officials started later than the scheduled time of 6am on Tuesday morning due to computer-related delays.
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/ 18 December 2007
<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=ancconference_home"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/327874/livefrompolo.gif" align=left border=0></a>Membership of the African National Congress has grown to 620Â 000 members from 416Â 000 members in 2002. A national conference, the most powerful gathering of the party, is a perfect opportunity to assess who makes up the ANC. Who is the typical ANC member and what do they believe in?
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/ 18 December 2007
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Secretary-general of the ANC Kgalema Motlanthe spared no punches when he presented his organisational report to the national conference this week. Mandy Rossouw looks at which provinces came out tops and which need to take a long hard look at themselves.
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/ 18 December 2007
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President Thabo Mbeki’s team fought back after a first day of humiliation at the ANC’s 52nd national conference at Polokwane, holding an unprecedented rally at lunchtime. Jacob Zuma’s people responded with an even bigger rally. The Mbeki rally was part of a package of measures to turn back the voting gains of deputy president Jacob Zuma, who is set to take the top job.
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/ 18 December 2007
The idea of children crossing borders often conjures up images of paedophile rings, clandestine smuggling operations and helpless, vulnerable children, whisked away from their loved ones. Increasingly, however, foreign children living in South Africa are found to have left their homes willingly, in search of a better life here.
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/ 17 December 2007
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Heavy rain on Monday did nothing to dampen the spirits of supporters of the front-runners in the African National Congress leadership race as the second day of the ruling party’s 52nd national conference got under way.
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/ 17 December 2007
<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=ancconference_home"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/327874/livefrompolo.gif" align=left border=0></a>Thousands of delegates to the ANC’s 52nd national conference converged on Polokwane International Airport on Saturday to register in a cavernous hangar for the event. The regiÂstration hangar was a free-for-all for groups supporting either Thabo Mbeki or Jacob Zuma.
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/ 17 December 2007
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On Sunday a picture emerged of strong support for Jacob Zuma, overshowing the rest and spectacularly managing to humiliate national ANC chairperson Mosiuoa Lekota. As strong an indicator as it was, some delegates supporting President Thabo Mbeki insisted that an Mbeki win remained a possibility.
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/ 17 December 2007
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Delegates to the ANC’s national conference in Polokwane were on Sunday concerned about disruptions, but also hopeful that the party will emerge stronger and better. Motsotose Ndyalivani (49), a delegate from the Rogersfontein region of Grahamstown, said the conference was different from the six that he had attended in the past.