The justice system is failing children because an important Bill that will protect the rights of children has virtually disappeared since 2003. This emerged on Wednesday at the Reducing Exploitative Child Labour in South Africa conference in Boksburg. ”The Child Justice Bill was the product of four years of work,” said Jacqui Gallinetti of the University of the Western Cape.
The Democratic Alliance is to invoke the Promotion of Access to Information Act in an attempt to force Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula to reveal how many police officers have been killed this year. Nqakula left for Burundi on Tuesday ”at a time when armed criminals are waging a war of their own against police … ”, DA spokesperson Roy Jankielsohn said.
![]()
The Friends of Jacob Zuma Trust is angered by what it calls sensationalising of the multimillion-rand defamation claims that the former deputy president is launching against several media groups, a statement said on Wednesday. ”We are tired of the blatant media bias against our friend, Jacob Zuma,” a statement read.
The recent spate of violent criminal attacks has raised South Africa’s security threat profile, the South African Chamber of Business (Sacob) said on Tuesday. ”They are concerns that pervade both business and public sentiment, and reflect the low level of public confidence in the criminal justice system,” Sacob said in a media statement.
Speaking during the July update on the government’s programme of action for 2006, the second report back since the State of the Nation address, Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin said in Pretoria on Tuesday that all of the programmes of the economic and investment cluster were "well on track".
The government is developing an ambitious plan for every household in the country to use gas for its cooking and heating needs. The plan, which includes regulating the price of gas, foresees the development of special import facilities at the country’s harbours to ship in vast quantities of liquid petroleum gas from gas-rich countries such as Algeria.
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.
Budget cuts on the upgrading and maintenance of railway signals is to blame for the train accident that claimed a life and left 42 people injured in Kempton Park on Friday night, the Democratic Alliance said. ”The government must take full responsibility for deaths and injuries,” DA transport spokesperson for Gauteng James Swart said on Saturday.
A 37-year-old police officer died after he and a colleague were wounded in a shooting with robbers in Soweto on Tuesday morning, police said. Inspector Leslie Mashaba (37) and Captain Simon Matladi (38) tried to arrest two armed robbers at a shack in Kliptown at 3am when the shooting began.
Petrol will go up by 25 cents a litre at midnight on Wednesday, the Department of Minerals and Energy announced on Friday. That means 95-octane unleaded petrol will now cost R6,73 a litre in Gauteng, 93-octane unleaded petrol and lead-replacement petrol will cost R6,61, and 91-octane unleaded petrol will cost R6,60.
The police ordered into the Jeppestown incident to face 20 armed murderers were used as cannon fodder, the official opposition Democratic Alliance said on Friday. This follows a South African Cabinet statement sending condolences to the families of police personnel killed at Jeppestown. Four members of the South African Police Service lost their lives.
The African Christian Democratic Party has called on Christians to boycott the Comrades Marathon after the announcement that the race is to be run on a Sunday. ”You undermine the importance of family and you undermine the sanctity of the Sunday as a special day to get in touch with the Lord of lords and the King of kings,” the party’s Western Cape leader Hansie Louw said on Friday.
The world-famous Comrades Marathon will no longer be run on Youth Day, Athletics South Africa (ASA) announced on Thursday. The race will be held on Sunday June 17 next year and on Sunday June 15 the following year. In 2009, it will be held on Sunday June 14, ASA president Leonard Chuene said.
The Little Falls Christian Centre, west of Johannesburg, was awash with tears at Thursday’s memorial for the four police officers killed in a shootout with alleged robbers in Jeppestown. Deputy Minister of Safety and Security Susan Shabangu broke down as she took the podium.
Most recent robberies in Gauteng were carried out by foreigners, South African police union president Mpho Kwinika said on Thursday. He was speaking at a memorial service for four slain police offices held at the Littlefalls Christian centre in Roodepoort. ”The first invasions in Gauteng took place in 2003 on a highway in Germiston. A gang of 14 men tried to rob a cash van … eight of them were foreigners.”
Police have clammed up about the Jeppestown attack in which 12 people — including four police officials — died on Sunday. No further details about the case will be communicated until further notice, said Gauteng police spokesperson Senior Superintendent Mary Martins-Engelbrecht.
Not all of the eight robbers shot dead with four policemen in a house in Jeppestown on Sunday have been identified yet, Gauteng police said on Wednesday. Police were also still considering whether to make their names public once their identities had been established, Senior-Superintendent Mary Martins-Engelbrecht said.
South African Airways (SAA) on Wednesday launched a project to fight baggage pilferage and theft at Johannesburg International airport. From July 1, all baggage on SAA flights will be wrapped in plastic by an automatic machine, SAA’s chief risk officer, Vishnu Naicker, said.
The court appearance of the 11 men arrested after a bloody shoot-out with police in Jeppestown on Sunday has been brought forward to Tuesday, Gauteng police said. The men were initially scheduled to appear in the Roodepoort Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday, but the date was changed around 9am on Tuesday, said police spokesperson Senior Superintendent Mary Martins-Engelbrecht.
South African media group Naspers on Tuesday reported a 63% increase in its core headline earnings per ordinary N share to 696 cents for the year ended March 2006 from 427 cents for the 12 months to March 2005. Naspers declared an annual dividend per N share of 120 cents, up 71% from 70 cents previously and 24 cents from 14 cents per unlisted A ordinary share.
Alexandra, Gauteng’s "township of rhythm", is ready to jump aboard the tourism train. Efforts are being made to lure visitors into the heart of a place that was once ruled by gangsters and considered strictly off-limits to anybody with a hint of common sense. But times have changed.
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress has extended its heartfelt condolences to the families, friends and colleagues of the four members of the South African Police Service who died in a confrontation with armed criminals in Jeppestown on Sunday.
The four police officers killed in Sunday’s bloody clash in Jeppestown in Johannesburg have been identified, while Gauteng’s provincial minister for community safety warned that criminals are mounting a guerrilla war. Captain Dennis Adriao said on Monday the police officers died when the West Rand flying squad and dog unit ”heroically” chased down the heavily armed fugitives.
A shootout in Jeppestown, Johannesburg, on Sunday ended in what was described as a bloodbath with four police officers and eight suspects killed. An emotional Gauteng provincial Commissioner Perumal Naidoo told reporters at the scene that ”four policemen had lost their lives in the line of duty”.
Heavy snowfalls are likely over the north-eastern parts of the Eastern Cape on Thursday, the South African Weather Service said. Forecaster Deon van der Mescht said very cold and wet conditions were expected in Aliwal North, Queenstown and Molteno. Snowfalls would then move to the Drakensberg.
A Gauteng man has spent more than R42 000 to propose to his ”angel” Anita in a full-page newspaper advert on Thursday. On bended knee in the Afrikaans daily Beeld, looking imploringly into the camera and clutching more than 25 red roses, the man asks: ”Anita, my angel, will you marry me?”
The justice system is seen as unfair to people laying a charge of rape, a survey has found. This perception was strongest in the coloured community, with black people the least critical, said Research Surveys, which conducted the study as part of ongoing research into social and political issues. It was also a belief held mainly by women, but not markedly so, the survey found.
East Rand police are closing in on a gang of 12 to 15 striking security guards believed to be responsible for the deaths of 25 of their non-striking colleagues in Gauteng since the end of March. Two of the alleged ringleaders have already been arrested, said Detective Inspector Gerry van der Merwe.
South Africa celebrated World Refugee Day on Tuesday by promising to fast-track its backlog of 100Â 000 asylum applications. The Department of Home Affairs launched four refugee-reception offices around the country to process the applications dating from 1994 to July last year.
Gas supply in the Gauteng area is expected to return to normal over the next few days after a series of mishaps that has throttled supply since the onset of an early winter in May. Afrox, the market leader in bottled gas, says it has supplied an additional 50 000 9kg bottles to alleviate the shortage.
The body of another murdered security guard was found hanging from a tree in Springs on Monday, Gauteng police said. ”He was found hanging from a tree, he had a wound possibly caused by a sharp object on his head and his legs had been tied up,” Superintendent Andy Pieke said.
Support for a third term for President Thabo Mbeki has not cost South African National Civics Organisation (Sanco) leader Mlungisi Hlongwane his job. National executive committee member Donovan Williams said a Business Day article reporting that Hlongwane and deputy general secretary Master Mahlobogoane had been suspended was wrong.