South Africa’s most prolific mass murderer takes another sip of coffee, eases back in his chair and pauses when asked if it is true he shot more than 100 black people. ”I can’t argue with that,” says Louis van Schoor. ”I never kept count.” Seated at a restaurant terrace in East London, a seaside town in the Eastern Cape, the former security guard is a picture of relaxed confidence, soaking up sunshine while reminiscing about his days as an apartheid folk hero.
Fraud and theft made up the bulk of financial misconduct cases reported in the 2004/2005 financial year, the Public Service Commission said on Thursday. The highest number of cases were reported by national departments, which had 39% of the 513 cases of financial misconduct. The Free State and Eastern Cape reported 10% each.
Rescuers trying to save a woman who got stuck in a tree after her house was flooded were hampered by snakes making for their jet ski, the National Sea Rescue Institute said on Thursday. ”There were lots of snakes in the flood waters. They were using the rescue gear and the jetski for floatation,” spokesperson Craig Lambinon said.
A joint South African-Lesotho police operation resulted in 264 people being arrested, Free State police said on Wednesday. ”The aim of the bilateral operation was to combat the flow of illicit firearms, ammunition, drugs and vehicles between the borders,” Superintendent Sam Sesing said.
Fourteen people were rescued from a truck in a flooded river in Plettenberg Bay using a front-end loader, the National Sea Rescue Institute said on Wednesday. A massive cold front has brought freezing conditions and flooding to the country. Four bodies were recovered after a car was washed away in floods in George.
Light snow fell over Sandton, north of Johannesburg, on Wednesday as a cold front gripped the country. Snowflakes were also falling in Rosebank, Bryanston, Soweto and Hyde Park. ”Snow over Gauteng seems to occur once every eight to 10 years,” said weather forecaster Kevin Rae.
A massive cold front sweeping across South Africa has brought freezing conditions to much of the country, with snow reported as far north as Bloemfontein in the Free State and parts of Gauteng, as well as reports of serious flooding in the southern Cape and a tornado in Dullstroom in Mpumalanga.
South Africa’s population was estimated at approximately 47,4-million at mid-year 2006, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said on Tuesday. In addition, Stats SA said the estimated overall HIV-prevalence rate is approximately 11%, from less than 9% in 2001, with the HIV-positive population estimated at approximately 5,2-million.
Whip out your winter woollies, put on thick socks and boots and stock up on firewood — it is going to be cold and wet in the entire country this week. The South African Weather Service said on Tuesday a strong cold front was moving in over the interior with snow already being reported in the Western Cape.
Business is helping tackle crime, with several initiatives by Business Against Crime bearing fruit. Vehicle theft and hijackings are down about 16% over the past five years from about 115 000 in 2001 to 96 000 last year. Even more impressive is the 30% reduction in Gauteng hijackings last year.
The Public Protector has nearly finished his investigation into complaints over the incorporation of Matatiele into the Eastern Cape, his office said on Wednesday. The Public Protector, advocate Lawrence Mushwana, met on Wednesday with the Matatiele-Maluti Mass Action Organising Committee to discuss its complaint.
South African Ben Sassman admits his bid to help a lonely friend living with HIV/Aids started out as a ”feel-good project for myself” but is now an online dating service reaching people around the globe. The Positive Connection, in its third year, can even claim success in the matchmaking game, having brought together a few solid partnerships.
Heritage month — which is September — will see the holding of hearings into the causes of deaths at initiation schools. The Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural and Linguistic Communities said on Tuesday that this was decided as a matter of urgency at a meeting held to discuss the recent spate of deaths at initiation schools.
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The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) in the Eastern Cape may strike if there are repeated delays in former deputy president Jacob Zuma’s fraud and corruption trial, Cosatu’s provincial secretary said on Monday. ”If there are perpetual postponements in the case, then we will have no option [other] than to take a stance,” said Xola Pakati.
Avian influenza detected in poultry north-west of Mossel Bay is under control, the Department of Land Affairs and Agriculture said on Tuesday. ”The virus has been classified as type H5N2 which is not known to infect humans, unlike the H5N1 virus that has caused disease in humans in Asia, Europe and North Africa”, said spokesperson Nare Mabuela.
Factional politics in the Eastern Cape appear to have scuppered a multimillion-rand ecotourism project on the Wild Coast, and in the process chased a leading private tourism company out of South Africa. After years of haggling with politicians and bureaucrats, Wilderness Safaris says it has had enough.
A Limpopo chief, Fhulumani Kutama, was elected unopposed on Thursday as chairperson of the National House of Traditional Leaders. He replaces Mpiyezintombi Mzimela, who left the post after the dissolution of the house of traditional leaders in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal.
The circumcision death toll in the Eastern Cape has reached 19 with news on Thursday of the death of another would-be initiate, the provincial health department said. An official said the 18-year-old youth died after being circumcised at an illegal initiation school in the Libode area of Transkei.
Transformation in rugby is no longer a moral issue; it is a strategic necessity if the sport is to survive in South Africa. That is the view of Dr Willie Basson, author of the transformation charter that the South African Rugby Union (Saru) adopted at its latest president’s council meeting. Presenting the charter to the media on Tuesday, Basson said rugby’s traditional resource pool is dwindling.
Action is needed to stop deaths in initiation schools from ruining the custom, the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities said on Monday. ”We cannot go on like this. One death is [a] loss too many for cultural communities …,” commission chairperson Mongezi Guma said.
The Mthatha General hospital, which serves 2,5-million people in the eastern region of the Eastern Cape, has a 32% vacancy rate among doctors and a 39% vacancy rate among pharmacists, according to figures released by Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang on Monday.
The National House of Traditional Leaders is to appoint a four-member task team to get ”first-hand information” on ongoing problems with traditional circumcision ceremonies. The resolution follows the deaths of 16 youths and the hospitalising of dozens more in the Eastern Cape over the past few weeks.
A European Union ban on ostrich imports and meat from two Western Cape districts will not be devastating, the South African Ostrich Business Chamber (SAOBC) said on Thursday. ”It is the low season for ostrich consumption in Europe so most of the abattoirs are closed …, so the effect will not be [as] big as it was in 2004,” said Anton Kruger, chief executive of the SAOBC.
An Eastern Cape initiate was to appear in the Port Elizabeth Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday after allegedly killing a traditional surgeon with a spade. Spokesperson Captain Ernest Sigobe said the 22-year-old initiate was apparently unhappy with the way in which he had been circumcised.
A ”frightening” number of police officers have died in Gauteng so far this year, with almost as many slain in the first six months of 2006 as in the whole of last year, said the office of National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi. The deaths of four police officers in a bloody siege in Jeppestown last Sunday brought the tally to 19 since the start of the year.
Some HIV/Aids and tuberculosis (TB) patients in the Eastern Cape are refusing treatment because they fear losing their disability grants, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in the province said on Thursday. TAC coordinator Philip Mokoena said the number of people refusing treatment is growing.
A would-be initiate has died of malnutrition after he and twenty-one other boys were found hidden in the Ntabankulu mountains in the Eastern Cape, the province’s health department said on Thursday. Spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said the boys had been kept in the mountains for more than three weeks and were denied food. They were all taken to hospital suffering from malnutrition.
One of the parents whose baby died recently during a power failure at an East London hospital plans to sue the government, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported on Tuesday. Another parent was seeking legal advice. Parents of the dead babies were outraged at comments by Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang in Parliament that they would not receive compensation.
Health care in the Eastern Cape faces a collapse in surgical services if a shortage of general surgeons continues, Dispatch Online reported on Tuesday. It quoted Association of Surgeons in South Africa chairperson Dr Sats Pillay as saying: ”I have nobody to train as surgeons.”
Another circumcision initiate has died in the town of Port Shepstone, bringing death toll to seven in two weeks since the start of the mid-year initiation season, the Eastern Cape health department said on Tuesday. Another boy, from Ngqeleni near Mthatha, faces possible amputation.
Nearly five-million people in South Africa are totally illiterate, Minister of Education Naledi Pandor said on Monday. Another 4,9-million South Africans were functionally literate — people who dropped out of school before grade seven. Pandor said the figures were compiled by a ministerial committee she appointed to help find the best way to tackle illiteracy.
<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=soccer_world_cup_2006"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/272488/icon_focuson_wc3.gif" align=left border=0></a>The official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) says it is to submit questions to all national departments of government in South Africa about which politicians and officials have gone to Germany during the World Cup at taxpayers’ expense. This follows a report that the KwaZulu-Natal transport department was sending a delegation to look at the German transport system.