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.
A nurse from Bushbuckridge in Mpumalanga has been found guilty of infecting her stepson with HIV after giving him an injection with contaminated blood, South African Broadcasting Corporation news reported on Thursday. Pinky Mabuza (33) stood trial in the magistrate’s court at Mkuhlu near Hazyview.
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/ 27 September 2006
South Africa had more than 2,7-million tourist arrivals between January and April, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk revealed on Wednesday. This was the first time arrivals had broken through the 2,5-milion mark in the first four months of the year, he quoted from the latest tourism review.
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/ 18 September 2006
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) on Monday denied that it mishandled a case where 10 people accused of a spree of bank robberies, which netted over R100-million, walked free from a Mpumalanga court. The City Press newspaper reported on Sunday that the NPA misquoted its own law in appointing the prosecutor, resulting in the collapse of the case.
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/ 12 September 2006
The auditor general’s (AG) performance audit on the approval and allocation of housing subsidies to municipal employees by the Mpumalanga department of local government and housing has highlighted discrepancies of more R4-million in subsidy allocation.
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/ 6 September 2006
The 21 000 civil servants caught fraudulently claiming social grants should all be prosecuted, face disciplinary hearings and be made to pay back the money, two rights monitoring groups said on Wednesday. ”It is vital that justice in these cases be seen to be done,” the Grahamstown offices of the Black Sash and the Public Service Accountability Monitor said in a joint statement.
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/ 4 September 2006
The statement by religious commentator and director of the Institute of Justice and Reconciliation in South Africa, Charles Villa-Vincencio, that South African whites should act in their own ”enlightened self-interest” and put something back into the country has evoked a storm of reaction.
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/ 4 September 2006
More children are attending and finishing school but more are vulnerable due to poverty and the death of at least one parent, said an Education Department report released on Monday. The report found that the demand for high school and higher education institutions would probably grow strongly while demand for primary schools would grow more slowly.
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/ 4 September 2006
South Africa had to become an advanced information-based society in which information and communication technology (ICT) tools were the drivers of economic and societal development,” President Thabo Mbeki said on Sunday. Although South Africa had a diverse and dynamic telecommunications market with world-class technology, there were still many untapped opportunities.
South Africa’s dams are 92% full, according to the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry’s records. The department reports on its website that the dams were only 65% full this time last year. This week, dam levels in the provinces ranged from overflowing in the Northern Cape to 72% full in Limpopo.
A police officer who was shot and wounded by two men in an attack in Lydenburg had one of his attackers arrested when the man was brought to the same hospital, Mpumalanga police said on Monday. Constable Dumisani Mhlanga was walking to his home at midnight on Saturday when he was wounded in his stomach and arm by four armed men, said Captain Leonard Hlathi.
Members of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) staged protests outside government offices around the country on Thursday. The illegal protest was part of a ”global day of action” to pressure the government on its response to HIV/Aids. However, the Department of Health said it will continue to focus on prevention in its fight against HIV/Aids.
Rainfall has eased in the sodden southern Cape but more is expected, said the South African Weather Service on Thursday. In the 24 hours to 8am on Thursday, the weather service recorded 11,6mm in Riversdale, compared to 28mm the day before, 4mm in George (71,5mm on Wednesday) and 18mm in Heidelberg (25mm on Wednesday).
The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) is remaining tight-lipped hours ahead of a planned international day of action on Thursday. ”It is a secret,” said Rukia Cornelius, the TAC’s national manager, on Wednesday. The day will see protests at South African embassies and government institutions in South Africa, the United States and Europe.
A police director of the South African Police Service (SAPS) who survived a car accident two years ago was killed in a hit-and-run accident in Kwamhlanga, Mpumalanga, police said on Wednesday. Director Kelly Chilli (41) was knocked down by a car on Monday, Commissioner Afrika Khumalo said in statement.
Eleven women and eleven girls were raped in Mpumalanga over the weekend, police said on Tuesday. Superintendent Leonard Hlathi said nine minors were raped in Siyabusa and four suspects were arrested. In one incident a 40-year-old man was caught in the act of raping a six-year-old girl. He was arrested.
A 28-year-old man was arrested after a chopped-up body was found dumped in a pit toilet in Tubatse near the border of Mpumalanga, Limpopo police said on Monday. A head, legs, hands and private parts were found severed from the rest of the body and in the toilet.
The government payment of R50Â 000 per vehicle in the taxi recapitalisation programme should be doubled or trebled and supplemented with a subsidy, the National Taxi Alliance said on Monday. The alliance said some taxi drivers are illegally overloading because they cannot afford the new standards.
South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki cannot demand a new positive image of Africa while continuing to condone the flagrant abuse of office and squandering of public money that typifies so much of the continent, says official opposition Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon.
A decision to seize white-owned land if negotiations linger or end in deadlock is paying off with more and more farmers accepting the price offered by the state, a top land official said on Wednesday. ”These farmers have become more supportive because we are cracking the whip,” chief land claims commissioner Tozi Gwanya said in an interview.
Roofs of houses and businesses were in danger of collapsing under the weight of snow in Barkly East and Elliot in the Eastern Cape, Arrive Alive said on Wednesday. Disaster teams and traffic authorities were using graders to clear snow off the road. ”But it is very, very cold and the snow is very thick,” said an Arrive Alive spokesperson.
She considers herself lucky to be alive, says Patricia Mbiza, who was seriously wounded in last week’s boardroom shooting in Pretoria. The Pretoria News on Monday quoted her as saying: ”He wanted to kill us, and he killed my colleagues and friends.” Mbiza recounted how a colleague at a Sunnyside engineering firm, Happy Nkosi, pulled out a firearm at a board meeting on Friday.
The National House of Traditional Leaders says it is planning public hearings on circumcision in a bid to counter the continuing deaths resulting from the ritual. Chief Dikgale Solomon, head of a four-man task team, said on Friday it was intended to hold the hearings before the December circumcision season.
A 35-year-old man appeared in the Ermelo Magistrate’s Court on Monday after he allegedly stole a corpse from a local mortuary and had sex with it, Mpumalanga police said. The man faces charges of breaking and entering, theft and violation of the body of a dead person, said Superintendent Abie Khoabane.
Civil servants who fraudulently claimed social grants include police officers, National Prosecuting Authority employees and a staffer in the president’s office. The list of 1 792 civil servants who are required to pay back fraudulently obtained grants was released by the Department of Social Development.
The Asbestos Relief Trust, set up to compensate asbestosis claimants, paid out more than R91-million in 1 378 claims in the past two years. Trust chairperson John Doidge said in his report on Monday: ”The manager’s report shows that to date we have been able to compensate 1 378 people suffering with an asbestos related disease.
This week South Africa experienced weather extremes starting with a berg wind and a tornado, and ending with snow and floods. A report by South African Weather Service meteorologists Luis Fernandes and Lee-Ann Clark — from the National Forecast Centre in Pretoria — detailed the week’s strange weather.
The body of a 45-year-old Mpumalanga woman was stolen from a mortuary in Ermelo, police said on Friday. Superintendent Abie Khoabane said that Sibongile Nhlabathi’s body was taken to Siza Funeral Services at 11am on Thursday after she died of natural causes.
Criminals have become so determined that they have resorted to blowing up ATMs with explosives believed to have been stolen from mines. In the last two months, seven ATMS have been blown up, and the police believe that the explosives were stolen from mines. Three of the affected ATMs belong to Standard Bank while four belong to Absa Bank.
Fourteen people were rescued from a truck in a flooded river in Plettenberg Bay using a front-end loader, the National Sea Rescue Institute said on Wednesday. A massive cold front has brought freezing conditions and flooding to the country. Four bodies were recovered after a car was washed away in floods in George.
A massive cold front sweeping across South Africa has brought freezing conditions to much of the country, with snow reported as far north as Bloemfontein in the Free State and parts of Gauteng, as well as reports of serious flooding in the southern Cape and a tornado in Dullstroom in Mpumalanga.
Labour unions embroiled in a wage dispute with mining company Kumba will continue strike action until their demands are met, the unions said on Tuesday. The workers are demanding a 9% wage increase for higher earners and 10,5% for lower earners. Kumba has countered with an offer of 7% for higher earners and 8% for lower earners.