South African and foreign intelligence agencies have been monitoring an alleged training camp linked to Muslim fundamentalists at Greenbushes, Port Elizabeth, the Herald Online reported. According to an intelligence source, the camp is no longer operational because of possible botched surveillance activities.
Most people believe that corruption occurs to speed up approvals to which people are legally entitled, a survey has found. The number of people who believe this roughly equals the number of people who think that corruption is a means to ill-gotten gains. Business Against Crime and the German Technical Cooperation Agency commissioned the survey as part of business’s contribution to the South African National Anti-Corruption Forum.
The Highveld Lions won the Standard Bank Pro20 competition in fine style on Friday night, beating the Cape Cobras by six wickets in the final at the Wanderers, thanks to a superb 73 by the Lions captain. Neil McKenzie won the toss and sent the visitors in to bat. The Cobras appeared to have lost some of their venom, and lost wickets at regular intervals.
New approaches and tools in dealing with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) must be sought, the South African branch of international medical humanitarian organisation Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) said on Friday. ”MDR and now [extensively-drug resistant] TB are the tip of an iceberg of failing strategies to control TB,” the organisation said.
R1-billion has been allocated this year to eradicate bucket toilets in established settlements by December, the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry said on Friday. ”All bucket systems that exist in formal establishments and townships will be completely removed by December 2007,” said a departmental spokesperson.
Senior members of the Italian Mafia have obtained an interest in Namibia’s nascent diamond-cutting industry, using front companies to buy an existing but unused diamond-cutting and polishing licence, an 18-month-long investigation has revealed. Company documents show that the Italian criminal syndicate appears to have been aided and abetted in obtaining their licences by Sam Nujoma’s youngest son.
About 250Â 000ha of bush have been razed by fires that have been burning in the Pilanesberg area of the North West for the past six days, Working on Fire (WOF) said on Thursday. More than 120 local farmers, farm workers and residents and eight fire engines from nearby towns were fighting the fire, said WOF’s Evelyn John Holtzhausen.
Community involvement is essential in the fight against crime, Britain’s metropolitan police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said on Thursday as he wound his way though the streets of Alexandra to assess the outcome of a partnership programme geared to promote community responsibility in the Johannesburg township.
A passenger on a Mango airline flight was arrested at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg on Thursday for allegedly telling a flight attendant he was in possession of an explosive device, the company said. The incident caused the flight to Durban to be delayed by 18 minutes on Thursday morning.
Two employees of the Gauteng health department have been dismissed for defrauding the department of more than R700Â 000, the department said on Wednesday. Spokesperson Vusi Sibiya said the dismissals followed disciplinary action taken as a result of a probe that was conducted by forensic auditors.
Thirteen infectious tuberculosis (TB) patients who forced their way out of Pretoria West Hospital, wanting to be treated as outpatients, have been ordered back to their beds. This follows an interim high court order as a result of the Gauteng health department having lodged an interdict against them.
The tax amnesty for businesses with a turnover of less than R10-million a year expires on May 31 this year, the South African Revenue Service (Sars) warned on Monday. To date, Sars has received close to 18 000 applications for amnesty, said spokesperson Adrian Lackay.
An eight-year-old boy who nearly drowned when his arm was stuck for more than two hours in an intake pipe in a public swimming pool in Pretoria has died, paramedics said on Monday. Halaletsang Nkome was swimming at the Danville municipal pool in Pretoria when his arm was sucked into the pipe on Sunday afternoon.
Sprinter Sherwin Vries pulled off an amazing sprint double at the South African Senior Track and Field Championships at King’s Park Athletics Stadium in Durban on Saturday, showing he is on track to go to the World Championships in Japan later this year. It was a fifth national title for Vries.
Bus drivers are set to go on strike following the collapse of a three-month-long negotiation process, the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union said on Friday. ”Labour demands an across-the-board increase of 13%, while bus owners are prepared to give a 5% increment,” read a statement.
A court challenge to the incorporation of the Merafong municipality into the North West will be welcomed by Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi. ”We generally know that the Khutsong community wants to approach the Constitutional Court — and the minister welcomes that,” a spokesperson said this week.
Disintegrating boxes of medical waste left out in the rain and rotting waste from abattoirs dumped in ditches in the veld were among the environmental hazards discovered by the ”Green Scorpions” during a nation-wide blitz this week. Inspectors from the environmental police force this week carried out a series of countrywide enforcement inspections.
Heavily armed gangs raided three cash vans in and around Johannesburg on Thursday, taking undisclosed amounts of money. The first gang struck at the Midas store in Luipardsvlei, Krugersdorp, at 9.30am. The three men had apparently been waiting inside the store when two unsuspecting guards went in with cash containers, spokesperson Captain Sphiwe Ndlovu said.
South Africa needs to step up its development of people working in the field of nuclear energy and technology, Minister of Science and Technology Mosibudi Mangena said on Thursday at the opening of the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy conference at Gallagher Estate in Midrand, Gauteng.
A test that could dramatically reduce the diagnosis time for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) will be evaluated during the next 12 months, the parties involved in the project said on Monday. The two tests will be evaluated on about 40Â 000 TB patients at increased risk of MDR-TB ahead of an anticipated roll-out.
The continuous decline in economic activity and jobs in the Sedibeng district municipality, which includes Vereeniging, is giving rise to poverty, Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa said on Monday. Shilowa was speaking at the opening ceremony of National Council of Provinces’ (NCOP) sitting at the Saul Tsotetsi Recreation and Sports Centre in Sebokeng.
South Africa’s Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) has scored a major breakthrough with the taxi business fraternity in what could culminate in the registration of more than 40Â 000 taxi operators in Gauteng alone, according to a release from the Labour Department on Monday.
The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) has elected its first black provincial leader in Gauteng. John Moodey was elected unopposed at the party’s provincial congress in Benoni on the weekend. ”My aim is for the party to remain relevant and to transform ourselves from an opposition party into a viable government-in-waiting,” he said.
Officially no one is a candidate and there is not even a campaign, but in reality the contest to become the next South African president is well under way ahead of a crucial vote in December. The African National Congress (ANC) meets at the end of year to choose the person expected to lead the party into the 2009 general elections.
South Africa still has a long way to go to throw off its ”ethnic blinkers”, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said, referring to his party’s leadership race. ”We are still held back by the prejudices and wrong-headed decisions of the past,” Leon told the party’s Gauteng congress at the Benoni High School on the East Rand.
Don’t think of becoming a soccer coach if you are looking for job security. The sacking on Friday of Wits University coach Boebie Solomons is confirmation enough, with former Bafana Bafana player and assistant coach Eric Tinkler hoisted into the hot seat for Sunday’s game against Moroka Swallows.
Five men who robbed a bank at the Atlasville shopping centre in Boksburg, Gauteng, on Tuesday afternoon were arrested within minutes, police said. Captain Jethro Mtshali said two men, armed with a 9mm pistol and an AK-47 rifle, went into the Standard Bank branch at about noon and assaulted some of the employees.
The body of a seven-year-old girl abducted from her Pretoria home last month was found on Monday with the help from a police investigator who broke the Leigh Matthews kidnap and murder case, said police. The body believed to be that of Sheldean Human was found in a small river in Pretoria West.
A new initiative to tackle crimes such as house robberies and hijackings was unveiled by police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi on Monday. He told an Interpol conference in Johannesburg the move included the deployment of hundreds more police officers in areas where these crimes were common.
The number of Gauteng schoolgirls who fell pregnant in 2006 was double that of the previous year, the Star newspaper reported on Monday. The newspaper said 2Â 336 schoolgirls were pregnant last year — up from 2004 when 1Â 373, and 2005 when 1Â 169 schoolgirls were reported pregnant.
The leadership of the African National Congress (ANC) in Khutsong denied claims on Friday by the Khutsong Anti-North West Forum that the party was divided about the incorporation of the town into the North West. ”As the ANC we are united in Merafong about the decision to support the government’s initiative,” said the party’s sub-regional secretary, Sanele Caiya.
South Africa’s retail petrol prices will rise by 24 cents a litre from March 7 after a spike in global fuel prices over the past month, the government said on Friday. The retail price of 95 unleaded petrol in Gauteng province, which includes the financial hub of Johannesburg, will increase to R5,99 a litre, the Department of Minerals and Energy said in a statement.