The African National Congress (ANC) on Tuesday accused the Democratic Alliance (DA) of a persistent hatred towards it following a meeting between the parties on the future of the Scorpions. ”The only thing the DA and the Scorpions have in common is their persistent hatred of the ANC,” ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe said.
Democrat Barack Obama easily beat rival Hillary Clinton in Mississippi on Tuesday, giving him new momentum in their heated presidential fight as they head to the next showdown in Pennsylvania in six weeks. Obama, who would be the first black United States president, rode a wave of heavy black support to victory and extended his lead over Clinton.
Barack Obama on Monday ridiculed rival Hillary Clinton’s repeated hints she would take him for the number two spot on her presidential ticket, accusing her of playing political games in their hard-fought Democratic nominating race. Obama, campaigning in Mississippi ahead of the state’s contest on Tuesday, said he has won more states than Clinton.
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/ 1 February 2008
Prominent South African businessman Cyril Ramaphosa was expected in Kenya later on Friday to help mediate in talks between the government and the opposition aimed at ending a month of post-election violence. Ramaphosa led the African National Congress in negotiations with the National Party to end apartheid in the early 1990s.
Former state vice-president Alwyn Schlebusch died in Pretoria on January 7 at the age of 90, his son said. Schlebusch, who served as a National Party MP for two decades and held several Cabinet portfolios, was admitted to the Pretoria East Hospital two weeks ago and was in the intensive-care unit when he died.
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/ 27 December 2007
Leader and co-founder of the right-wing Herstigte Nasionale Party (HNP) Willie Marais has died of a heart attack at the age of 79, the party said on Thursday. Party chief secretary Louis van der Schyff said Marais was on holiday at Klein Brakrivier when he had a heart attack and died in hospital at Mossel Bay on Wednesday.
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/ 7 December 2007
The Pretoria High Court has reversed a temporary ban on the book White Power: The Rise and Fall of the National Party. Judge Willie Seriti on Friday discharged an interim court order granted last month to Eugene de Kock to recall the book and stop its further publication, distribution and sale.
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/ 6 December 2007
Holding the reigns of the ox-wagon that is pulling his father’s coffin, Nkosinathi Biko sits alone and solemnly among the masses of people. Surrounded by a throng of supporters, angry and tearful, he cuts a figure of solitude. A hero of the struggle is dead — but now lives on through the work of the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg.
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/ 15 November 2007
Piet Koornhof, who died in a Stellenbosch frail care centre on Monday at the age of 82, following a stroke, was a man of contradictions. Seen as a ”verligte” in successive apartheid-era Cabinets, the posts he accepted carried responsibility for some of apartheid’s most bizarre and inhumane policies.
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/ 7 November 2007
Self-regulation for newspapers ratcheted up a gear last week with the inaugural meeting of the Press Council in Johannesburg. But the African National Congress (ANC) is also notching up its own pressure on the press. Comprising a panel of citizens and journalists, the Press Council was launched earlier this year to beef up the existing ombudsman in handling complaints about coverage. The system is a kind of fifth estate to check on the fourth.
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/ 2 November 2007
Former anti-apartheid activist Helen Suzman has not been given the recognition she deserves in the new South Africa, Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi said on Friday. In a tribute to Suzman ahead of her 90th birthday next week, he said she had tirelessly used her position as MP during the Sixties and Seventies to break the apartheid mould.
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/ 31 October 2007
The Cape Town City council on Wednesday upheld the metro disciplinary committee’s recommendation that leader of the National People’s Party (NPP) Badih Chaaban be expelled as councillor. Chief whip of the council Anthea Serritslev said a full sitting of council voted in favour of Chaaban’s expulsion.
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/ 19 October 2007
A disciplinary committee of the Cape Town city council has recommended that controversial councillor Badhi Chaaban be removed from office. The disciplinary hearings — which Chaaban claimed were a kangaroo court — followed claims that he sought to bribe councillors to cross the floor to his National People’s Party.
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/ 18 October 2007
An American scientist who won the Nobel Prize for co-discovering the molecular structure of DNA has caused an uproar in Britain by reportedly saying tests have indicated that Africans are not as intelligent as whites. A government minister, scientists and a human rights activist condemned James Watson’s comments as racist.
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/ 12 September 2007
Thanks to floor-crossing, the African National Congress (ANC) has at last secured a clear two-thirds majority in the Morkel family. The decisive moment came on Wednesday when the last of the Morkel brothers, Craig, joined the party. But the patriarch, former premier Gerald Morkel, has no intention of following in his sons’ footsteps.
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/ 12 September 2007
In the latest twist in the current floor-crossing saga the African National Congress (ANC), despite all its previous protestations about taking firm action against members of Parliament convicted of fraud, on Wednesday accepted into their ranks Craig Morkel, who was convicted of fraud and theft in the Travelgate debacle.
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/ 4 September 2007
Representatives from Sunni and Shia groups in Iraq agreed on a road map to peace based on the experience in Northern Ireland after four days of secret talks in Finland. The meeting brought together 16 delegates from the feuding groups to study lessons learned from successful peacemaking efforts in South Africa and Northern Ireland.
After three weeks of negotiation and at least six meetings, the African National Congress, the National Party and the SABC have finally settled on the format of next Thursday’s televised presidential debate between Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk. They have squabbled over the smallest detail: the NP, for example, wanted the two leaders to […]
Thursday’s TV debate between South Africa’s two leading statesmen promises to be a psychological drama revealing much about how they are going to rule the country together.
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/ 8 September 1989
The National Party took a hammering from the left and the right. They lost their traditional volk base to the Conservative Party.