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/ 19 December 2005
North Rand police on Sunday arrested a 35-year-old man believed to be a hijacking and robbery kingpin, at his hideout in Tembisa. Spokesperson Superintendent Eugene Opperman said the man was wanted in connection with 14 cases of armed robbery in Gauteng.
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/ 18 December 2005
Dean Elgar of Free State was unfortunate to just miss a well-deserved century by one run when he scored 99 against Border at Fort Hare University, Alice, on Saturday on the second day of the Coca-Cola Khaya Majola Cricket Week. Elgar made his runs off 154 balls with eight fours and Free State totalled 192-6 in their 50 overs.
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/ 15 December 2005
A South African Lotto winner has until noon on Sunday to claim a prize of R10 066 972, else the ticket will expire. Uthingo spokesperson Shenanda Janse van Rensburg said the Quickpick ticket was bought in Gauteng for the draw that took place on Saturday December 18 last year.
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/ 15 December 2005
Gauteng police put a halt to a meeting on Thursday at Khutsong Stadium by residents protesting their municipality’s incorporation into the North West from Gauteng. Although the situation in Khutsong remained calm on Thursday, police maintained a strong presence in the area.
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/ 15 December 2005
Word from Cape Town that Parliament had rubber-stamped a Bill that put an end to cross-border municipalities triggered violent protests in Khutsong on Wednesday. By evening, a police officer had been badly burnt during a petrol-bomb attack and five houses had been torched.
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/ 14 December 2005
Two houses were set on fire on Wednesday during protests in Khutsong outside Carletonville as thousands of residents protested the proposed incorporation of Merafong municipality into North West from Gauteng. They took to the streets in a mobilisation march after a clash with the police.
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/ 14 December 2005
The National Council of Provinces gave the final green light to controversial legislation doing away with cross-boundary municipalities on Wednesday. The changes have sparked vehement protests, particularly in Khutsong — a part of Merafong municipality — where residents have been staging violent protests.
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/ 14 December 2005
Minister of Minerals and Energy Lindiwe Hendricks is due to make an announcement on Wednesday following a meeting with the petroleum industry over fuel shortages. Addressing the National Assembly earlier on Tuesday, Hendricks said: ”Everybody knows the industry is to blame in this case.”
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/ 14 December 2005
A night vigil led by the South African Communist Party in Khutsong, outside Carletonville, went ahead on Tuesday night, despite police declaring it illegal. The government decides on Wednesday whether the municipality, currently in Gauteng, will be incorporated into North West province.
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/ 13 December 2005
The National Assembly on Tuesday approved legislation giving effect to the Constitution’s Twelfth Amendment that abolishes cross-boundary municipalities. This affects 17 municipalities, including the contentious ones of Merafong (Gauteng to North West) and Matatiele (KwaZulu-Natal to Eastern Cape).
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/ 13 December 2005
A call for members of the public not to panic over fuel shortages was made by Minister of Minerals and Energy Lindiwe Hendricks in the National Assembly on Tuesday morning. In Gauteng, the problem has been exacerbated by panic buying among motorists who do not even need to fill up with fuel, she said.
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/ 13 December 2005
Parliament will have an attentive audience on Wednesday when residents of Merafong municipality gather to hear the result of their demand to remain part of Gauteng province. On Monday, a protest march ended in the handing over of a memorandum calling for the proposal that Merafong be incorporated into North West to be withdrawn.
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/ 12 December 2005
As motorists struggled to find petrol on Monday, the government denied any fuel shortages inland. The situation inland constituted ”an inconvenience rather than a crisis”, and motorists should not wait for their tanks to empty before filling up, Minerals and Energy Minister Lindiwe Hendricks told reporters in Pretoria.
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/ 12 December 2005
Residents of Khutsong on the West Rand of Gauteng will hold a protest and stayaway on Monday against a decision to incorporate the community into the North West province. The community believes it will receive better services from the wealthier Gauteng province. The government has denied this.
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/ 12 December 2005
The decision by the Cabinet to go ahead with the R20-billion Gautrain project will be a decision that in all likelihood it will live to regret, the Democratic Alliance spokesperson on transport, Stuart Farrow, said on Sunday. The parliamentary portfolio committee on transport’s concerns seem to have been ignored, he said.
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/ 8 December 2005
Six motor manufacturers and importers are to pay over R31-million in administrative penalties for anti-competitive practices, the Competition Commission said on Wednesday. The six companies are General Motors, Nissan, Volkswagen and its Gauteng dealers, Subaru dealers, Citroeuml;n and DaimlerChrysler.
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/ 6 December 2005
Media organisations have condemned police for barring journalists from entering the courtroom where former deputy president Jacob Zuma was charged with rape. Their actions were absurd and smacked of collusion to shield Zuma from further public embarrassment, said the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI).
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/ 6 December 2005
The government’s "Reds" revolution to fundamentally alter electricity distribution is being changed again. Instead of six regional electricity distributors (Reds), there will now be seven, as the government admitted recently that there were "weaknesses" in its initial blueprint.
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/ 30 November 2005
The Arthur Ashe Tennis Centre in Soweto, which has fallen into disrepair since its construction 30 years ago, is getting a multimillion-rand facelift that will provide a major boost for the development of the game. On Wednesday, it was announced that R4,5-million has been raised to fund the project that will restore the centre to its former glory.
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/ 30 November 2005
South African athletes won four gold medals on the second day of the 2005 Pacific School Games in Melbourne, Australia, on Tuesday. Jan (JP) Hoffman, world youth shot-put champion and one of the top athletes at the meeting, won the discus for boys in the 17-to-19 category with a good distance of 48,43m.
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/ 29 November 2005
A Swiss ”sex tourist” who was caught a month ago allegedly sodomising a South African boy has cut a deal with the state to pay a fine, The Star newspaper reported on Tuesday. Child-rights organisations have reacted with outrage at what they described as slap on wrist for Peter Zimmerman.
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/ 28 November 2005
”I am tiring of technocratic talk. Joel Netshitenzhe’s most recent statement, that the government would not change its mind on the provinces it has assigned to cross-border municipalities because to give in to peoples’s demands would be a ‘perverse incentive’, is really so much hogwash,” writes Rapule Tabane.
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/ 27 November 2005
Three security guards were injured in a shoot-out when two vehicles failed to push an armoured car off a road about 20km from Pilanesberg during an attempted cash-in-transit heist on Saturday morning, North West police said. Armed robbers also rammed into an armoured vehicle at Akasia, near Pretoria, on Saturday morning.
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/ 26 November 2005
The government will only consider bringing in the defence force to tackle cash-in-transit gunmen and mall robbers if the situation is ”out of control”, the Department of Safety and Security said on Friday. ”If things turn out of control, I am sure the necessary steps can and will be considered,” a departmental spokesperson said.
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/ 25 November 2005
Residents of Merafong who want their municipality to remain a part of Gauteng shouted down speakers who wanted incorporation into the North West province at a public hearing in Carletonville on Friday, convened to hear views on a demarcation crisis in the area.
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/ 25 November 2005
Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka on Friday lit a flame at the Katlehong Stadium to launch a campaign of 16 days of activism against the abuse of women and children. ”This is the flame of no violence … that must burn throughout the year in our hearts and in our lives,” Mlambo-Ngcuka said.
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/ 25 November 2005
Lob from cuckoo land And now we have a lob from the far right of fundamentalist cuckoo land — Philip Cole (Letters, October 6) telling us that if Fred marries Steve today then tomorrow Fred may marry Molly the Cow. And God knows if this sort of thing carries on, we could have Fred marrying […]
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/ 25 November 2005
Kirby’s nuclear ignorance Robert Kirby writes complete nonsense (”Alex in wonderland”, August 25) when he says Russia’s Chernobyl nuclear power station ”went out of control because of what Nersa [the National Electricity Regulator] recently diagnosed at Koeberg”. The primary reason for the accident at Chernobyl was a crazy reactor design that would never be allowed […]
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/ 25 November 2005
PLAN bodies dishonoured The discovery of the bodies of PLAN fighters buried in a mass grave near the former South African Defence Force (SADF) base at Eenhana in Namibia gives me the opportunity to write about my own experience while serving on the Namibian/Angolan border. I was unwillingly conscripted into the SADF for two years […]
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/ 25 November 2005
Glaring holes in judgement There are glaring gaps in the ruling of the learned judge in the Jacob Zuma rape case: Malume is a brother to one’s sister. The relationship between malume and umshana (niece/nephew) is closer than fatherly — it is maternalistic. In Zulu culture, adults parent every child in the community. And someone […]
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/ 25 November 2005
Motsepe can buy success I found Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya’s article (”Motsepe is bad for soccer”, October 13) damaging and ignorant. Before Patrice Motsepe entered the game, South Africa’s professional players were earning as little as R2 000. Today the standard of local football has improved and players are earning better salaries. Yes, Motsepe has changed coaches […]
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/ 25 November 2005
Brazen US hypocrisy Saddam Hussein’s trial and execution were a brazen display of United States hypocrisy. The trial was procedurally flawed, and excerpts from the proceedings were censored. The prosecution did not establish direct responsibility for the crimes he was accused of. The chief judge was removed mid-trial because the US-backed Iraqi government accused him […]