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/ 6 November 2006
Ant Stott and Sven Bruss walked away with the spoils at the end of a thrilling five-boat charge for the line in the Vaal Challenge canoe marathon that ended on Sunday. At the end of 75km and two days of breakneck racing, the title was decided in the technical channels on the Vaal River just above the finish.
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/ 6 November 2006
Theft and the illegal sale of military equipment are rife at Five SA Infantry battalion in Ladysmith in KwaZulu-Natal, Beeld reported on Monday. It said bullet-proof jackets from a military supply store have been sold for R500 each — apparently for use in cash-in-transit heists.
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/ 6 November 2006
While President Thabo Mbeki will only give up his Union Buildings office in 2009, the next president will effectively be chosen in just over a year’s time at the ANC’s watershed elective conference in Polokwane, Limpopo. How will it happen? And how are the cards stacked? Zukile Majova and Mbuyisi Mgibisa investigated to bring you this exclusive report, taking you into the mechanics of an elective conference.
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/ 2 November 2006
Over 8Â 000 health practitioners have been struck off the roll after failing to pay their annual fees, the Health Professionals’ Council of South Africa (HPSCA) said on Thursday. ”A total of 8Â 593 health professionals have been struck off the roll after failing to meet the deadline,” said HPCSA spokesperson Tendai Dhliwayo.
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/ 2 November 2006
"I was arrested a dozen times," notes Tapera Kapuya, a student leader at the University of Zimbabwe between 2001 and 2002 who says he was the target of both police and the Southern African country’s intelligence agents. "In November 2001 I was abducted from my room in the university by state agents and tortured for three days," he told Inter Press Service in South Africa, where he lives in exile.
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/ 2 November 2006
It’s been tucked away on a governmental website for years, but this week Lemmer discovered for the first time a testimonial as surreal as it is shameless. Lemmer has blanked the name in question, so that his readers can play Guess the Minister. ”The true greatness of a person is measured by the impact that person has on the lives of others. This statement rings true for the Minister of X, who has touched the lives of many in different ways.”
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/ 1 November 2006
The remaining two Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) ministers in the KwaZulu-Natal cabinet were fired on Wednesday and replaced with stalwarts from the African National Congress (ANC). KwaZulu-Natal premier Sbu Ndebele also axed the ANC’s Gabriel Ndabandaba, the agricultural and environmental affairs provincial minister.
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/ 1 November 2006
South African politicians paid tribute on Wednesday to former president PW Botha, who died on Tuesday night at his home in the Western Cape. Messages were received from President Thabo Mbeki, former presidents FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela, former parliamentarian Helen Suzman and many others.
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/ 30 October 2006
A woman accused of witchcraft died in the Mount Ayliff hospital on Monday after being stoned by an angry mob from a local community, Eastern Cape police said. ”The community kept assaulting her when police arrived but they managed to get her away eventually,” said spokesperson Superintendent Nondumiso Jafta.
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/ 30 October 2006
Crime levels on commuter trains are still unacceptable, but the dedicated rail-police unit is making a difference, government and commuter-rail officials said on Monday. They were speaking in Cape Town at the national launch of the South African Police Service Railway Unit, which began operating in the Western Cape in 2004.
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/ 29 October 2006
Landing in Johannesburg from anywhere else in Africa can be a deeply disorienting experience, no matter how many times you do it. In fact the contrasts are so great, you can end up wondering if you are still in Africa at all. Confusion sets in as soon as you head into town along a network of fine roads that would put London to shame.
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/ 28 October 2006
A senior KwaZulu-Natal official was stabbed to death in Pietermaritzburg, police said on Saturday. Police spokesperson Superintendent Joshua Gwala said Thulas Mngomezulu was stabbed to death on Friday night in Pietermaritzburg’s Boschoff Street.
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/ 27 October 2006
"When we want to work for a better future for our children, we must work together." These were the words of former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano on Thursday evening at the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> and Southern Africa Trust’s 2006 Investing in the Future Awards.
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/ 26 October 2006
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Allegations of racism at the University of KwaZulu-Natal were cause for concern, Jacob Zuma told students at the investiture of the university’s student representative council on Thursday. The former deputy president, who had been invited to speak at the university’s Westville campus in Durban by the newly elected SRC, said: ”If you get hooked on racism you become a slave.”
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/ 26 October 2006
OR Tambo International airport is one of hundreds of South African place names that have been officially changed since 2000. The airport’s new name and a bust of Tambo are due to be unveiled on Friday by President Thabo Mbeki. The South African Geographical Names Council lists 833 new names approved since 2000, including at least 145 names that were completely changed.
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/ 26 October 2006
Two senior KwaZulu-Natal education officials have been suspended amid a probe into alleged procurement irregularities, media reports said on Thursday. The staff at the education department head office in Pietermaritz Street were surprised to see a team of people arrive on Wednesday with boxes.
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/ 25 October 2006
President Thabo Mbeki warned earlier this month that strategic proposals conveyed by the South African Communist Party’s Blade Nzimande would result in the ”destruction of the African National Congress and the rest of the democratic movement”. But he decline of the ruling alliance was prophesied more than a decade ago, writes Ranjeni Munusamy.
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/ 24 October 2006
If metal detectors are necessary in certain schools to guard the safety of pupils, they must be used, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Tuesday. DA education spokesperson David Quail said there had been over 20 deaths in schools this year, and that media statements of shock and sympathy from the department are not enough to solve the problem.
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/ 18 October 2006
Two teachers who were arrested for allegedly forcing a 12-year-old pupil to drink his own urine have been suspended by the KwaZulu-Natal education department. Spokesperson Christi Naude said that Philile Mpanza and Willem Kriel had been suspended ”with immediate effect” pending the outcome of an investigation.
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/ 18 October 2006
Extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) has been found across South Africa, the Medical Research Council (MRC) said on Tuesday. ”The national health laboratory services have analysed the laboratory data for the past 18 months and have shown that these cases are present in every province,” the MRC’s Dr Karin Weyer told the South African Broadcasting Corporation.
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/ 16 October 2006
The National Development Agency (NDA) is tightening up its systems to prevent a repeat of an R8,8-million misappropriation of funds discovered in a recent forensic audit. It has also begun criminal proceedings against the former NDA employee allegedly at the centre of the fraud, NDA chief executive Godfrey Mokate said in Johannesburg on Monday.
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/ 13 October 2006
The baby girl who was shot dead during a cash heist in central Johannesburg this week was laid to rest at the Avalon Cemetery in Soweto on Friday. The funeral service of Nkhensani Mtileni, which started at 10am, was attended by the family, members of the public, the Pan Africanist Congress and the African National Congress Women’s League at the family’s home.
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/ 13 October 2006
Three of 10 men arrested after a cash heist in central Johannesburg which claimed the life of a 15-month-old baby, will appear in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court on Friday, police said. The men will appear on charges of murder, attempted murder and armed robbery.
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/ 12 October 2006
The Free State rugby union offices were hit this week by a small ”tsunami” of supporters booking and buying tickets for the 2006 Currie Cup final in Bloemfontein. Harold Verster, president of the union, said on Thursday: ”People just swamped us and we are still barely handling the requests still streaming in for tickets.”
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/ 12 October 2006
One of the four men arrested in connection with the shoot-out between police and robbers in a cash-in-transit heist in central Johannesburg committed suicide on Thursday, police said. The three other men who were arrested on Wednesday were expected to appear in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court.
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/ 12 October 2006
Experts believe the light aircraft that crashed in the southern Drakensberg should not have been flying at all, media reports said on Thursday. The pilot, Raymond Gleimus, his mother Yvonne Smith and a passenger, Johan Nel, were found dead in the mountains after their aircraft crashed near Underberg, KwaZulu-Natal.
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/ 11 October 2006
Four men were arrested on Wednesday after a shoot-out between robbers and security guards in central Johannesburg the day before left a baby dead and seven other people wounded, police said. Six other men were still at large after Tuesday’s cash-in-transit heist, and police have vowed to arrest them soon, said Senior Superintendent Mary Martins-Engelbrecht.
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/ 11 October 2006
The Tourism Business Council of South Africa has a new CEO, Mmatsatsi Marobe, who stepped into her role on October 1. ”I am committed to taking the TBCSA to a new level of service delivery and to bringing together public and private partners to realise the potential of tourism in the country,” Marobe said in a statement.
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/ 11 October 2006
A light aircraft that went missing after it took off from Pietermaritzburg was found on Wednesday morning with no survivors on board, rescue services said. The plane, with the bodies of three occupants, was found at Rhino’s Peak in the southern Drakensberg, near Underberg in KwaZulu-Natal, said Santjie White, a spokesperson for the South African Search and Rescue Organisation.
South Africa is set to seize two more white-owned farms, one of them run by a church, to fast-track land reforms to rectify apartheid-era imbalances, a top land official said on Monday. ”The minister [of agriculture and land affairs] has signed the notices of expropriation and they have been sent,” chief land claims commissioner Tozi Gwanya told the media.
South Africa’s Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) — which runs about half of the municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal and holds seats in the African National Congress-led government in that province — has warned against ”the peril of complacence” in face of the danger of South Africa descending into a one-party state.
The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) has asked all its elected members in provincial legislatures and Parliament to lodge letters of resignation, the Mercury reported on Monday. It said this was aimed at rooting out ”dead wood”, and the letters would only be activated in cases where representatives had failed to perform.