Two missing Mthatha boys were found sodomised and murdered at a disused bus depot on Friday, Eastern Cape police said. The boys — aged six and 12 — disappeared late on Thursday afternoon. ”I have just come from the scene. It is terrible, terrible,” said police spokesperson Superintendent Nondumiso Jafta
Lawyers for six suspended United Democratic Movement (UDM) politicians will argue their case in the Cape High Court on August 29 — only three days before the opening of the September floor-crossing window. The six were suspended on August 5, apparently after rumours that they intended to defect to another party.
Ten protesters were injured, two seriously, in Germiston and over 40 arrested in Pinetown in clashes between police and protesting municipal workers on Monday. Ekhurhuleni metro police spokesperson Vusi Mabanga said that protesters marching in central Germiston started breaking traffic lights and littering.
Businessman and ANC funder Sandi Majali on Saturday lost a desperate bid to stop the Sunday Times from publishing an article about his background, the newspaper said. Majali, CEO of Imvume Management, the company at the centre of the Oilgate debacle, tried to interdict the paper from publishing details of his youth and photographs of his family home in the Eastern Cape.
United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa has suspended eight of his top elected officials with immediate effect following fears that they were intending to cross the floor next month. Holomisa would not supply details, claiming it is an internal matter, but denied they were asked to leave, as was previously stated.
Executives from Rover motor company were promised rugby Test tickets in exchange for a luxury car for rugby boss Brian van Rooyen, the Daily Dispatch website reported on Tuesday. This was done despite an earlier sponsorship by Ford to supply Van Rooyen and Saru with vehicles.
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.
The owner of an animal ranch near Addo in the Eastern Cape has died after being mauled by a lion, his family said on Thursday. Lourens van Straaten, owner of the Addo Croc Ranch, was attacked while repairing an electrical fence in the lion enclosure last Friday.
The remaining two crew members on board the yacht Mystic Lady were brought safely to Port St Francis in the Eastern Cape on Tuesday night, the National Sea Rescue Institute said. The two were stranded off the coast near Port Elizabeth on Tuesday morning after a third crew member fell overboard.
South Africa’s municipal debt jumped about R4-billion from R31,8-billion in 2002 to R35,9-billion in 2003, while figures for 2004 are not yet available, said Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi. The figures show that Durban/eThekwini — once a shining light of budgetary prudence — has grown its debt from R2,8-billion to R3,2-billion.
The current strike is costing South African Airways (SAA) R25-million a day, an economist said on Tuesday. T-Sec chief economist Mike Schussler said that is not the total cost of the strike — which is lower — as there are mitigating factors. Schussler also said the Pick ‘n Pay strike is very different.
More than two dozen ecumenical bodies across the world on Tuesday called for an investigation into the shooting by police of Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) protesters, the same day the organisation marched in Queenstown to hand over a memorandum deploring alleged police brutality.
The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) on Monday said in a statement that it has offered to intervene in the Pick ‘n Pay strike under Section 150 of the Labour Relations Act. The strike will continue until a settlement has been reached, the South African Catering, Commercial and Allied Workers’ Union said on Monday.
Trading at Pick ‘n Pay’s stores across the country was normal on Monday and the strike action was ”far more orderly”, the retail chain company said in a statement. The group, however, still appealed to the South African Commercial Catering and Allied Workers’ Union to ensure that its members obey the law.
The South African government needs to take a ”tough love” approach to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s outrageous and unprecedented appeal for a R6,5-billion loan, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said on Thursday.
The deputy president of the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) has apologised after raising his views on who should lead the ANC in 2007. Reuben Mohlaloga apologised for raising his views outside the working structures of the ANCYL, league president Fikile Mbalula told reporters in Johannesburg on Wednesday.
”iNantsoke [there you are],” exclaimed Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg on Wednesday as he cut his huge white birthday cake at the children’s party.
”When President Robert Mugabe ploughs up neighbourhoods that coincidentally voted against him, he should be criticised,” former United States president Bill Clinton told guests at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg on Monday.
The Industrial Development Corporation can reflect on its results in one of two ways. It can bask in the glory of a robust nine-month period, as it did recently. The other view is to say that the stock market boom has given it considerable but artificial strength. The funder unveiled its results for the nine months to March as it prepares to move up a gear in its big project investments.
Tributes poured in for South Africa’s former president Nelson Mandela who turned 87 on Monday.
The African National Congress on Sunday extended its ”warmest wishes and congratulations” to former president Nelson Mandela on his 87th birthday.
South Africa’s first black president, Nelson Mandela, is to become a comic-strip hero in a new project aimed at encouraging young people to read.
One person was killed and 61 people were injured when a bus overturned on the Mabopane highway on Friday morning, Tshwane metro police reported. Meanwhile, a passenger was killed and two people seriously injured in an accident involving four trucks on the R72 near Port Alfred on Friday morning.
Former president Nelson Mandela will not have a high-profile birthday — on July 18 — this year, the Nelson Mandela Foundation said on Thursday.
A 20-year-old rape suspect committed suicide by cutting his throat with an electric grinder at the Tsolo police station in the Eastern Cape, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported on Wednesday. A police official said the rape suspect grabbed the grinder, an exhibit in another case, from the charge office and connected it to a power point.
Although the business confidence index of the South African Chamber of Business increased in June to its highest level so far this year, there are economic developments that could adversely affect future confidence, the chamber said. The index increased to 128,2 in June this year from 127 in May.
Three more boys have died as a result of botched circumcisions in the Eastern Cape, bringing the death toll over the past few weeks to 12. Last week, the National House of Traditional Leaders called on the government to establish a special task force to deal with deaths in traditional initiation schools.
There was much ululating as President Thabo Mbeki and former deputy president Jacob Zuma entered this week’s gathering of the African National Congress’s policy conference. One was the overall leader of the country as well as the party while the other had fallen from political grace after being ”released” as the country’s deputy president by Mbeki before a joint sitting of Parliament.
The names of the three people killed when a parcel exploded outside a house in Grahamstown this week were released on Wednesday. The victims were Justin Martin (52), Johannes Kortrooi (58) and five-year-old Leonardo Lottering, who died in hospital on Tuesday.
The South African textile industry says cheap imports from China are threatening to wipe out the local industry, where 75 000 jobs have been lost since 2002. "We’re a very distressed industry at the moment. We’re actually on our knees … we’ve been devastated," said the managing director of Gregory Knitting Mills, Selwyn Gershman.
Thousands of workers protested against unemployment and poverty around South Africa on Monday in a nationwide strike that business says was poorly attended and unnecessary. The SA Chamber of Business said that only 10% of workers took part in the strike, which cost the economy an estimated R500-million.
A traditional circumcision surgeon was arrested and 28 young boys rescued from his house in Libode in the Eastern Cape on Sunday, a spokesperson for the provincial health department said. ”The suspect allegedly used one unsterilised knife to circumcise all the boys,” Sizwe Khuphelo said.