The South African Army band, a guard of honour and a red carpet were in place at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on Thursday when President Thabo Mbeki officially welcomed his Singaporean counterpart President Sellapan Ramanathan. Mbeki and Ramanathan went straight into talks after the official welcoming ceremony.
President Thabo Mbeki will host talks with his Singaporean counterpart, President Sellapan Ramanathan, in Pretoria on Thursday. Ramanathan, who is the first Singaporean president to visit South Africa, arrived in the country on Wednesday. High on their agenda are trade and economic relations between the two countries, said the Foreign Affairs Department in a statement.
An 18-year-old youth was arrested on Wednesday for sending a package containing the severed head of a Chihuahua dog through the post, Pretoria police said.”It was apparently related to satanic belief,” said Inspector Paul Ramaloko. The Pretoria resident was handed to police by his parents on Wednesday afternoon.
South Africa’s companies will soon be able to have a stake in Niger’s meat and diary industries, Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said on Wednesday. She met her Niger counterpart, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and African Integration Aichatou Mindaoudou, in Pretoria.
Award-winning Tsotsi actor Presley Chweneyagae pleaded guilty to a charge of fraud when he appeared in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday. He was given a fine of R5 000 or six months’ imprisonment. The star was accused of driving with a fake Ivorian driver’s licence doctored to look like an international licence.
The United States’s principal deputy undersecretary for defence, Ryan Henry, met South African government officials on Tuesday to inform them of plans for the US military’s new Africa command. Henry is on an African tour to convince governments on the continent that there is nothing sinister about the proposed command.
Hours after Transport Minister Jeff Radebe gave the upgraded transport information system the ”all clear” on Tuesday, vehicle testing and licensing stations in Johannesburg and Pretoria were still not up and running on Tuesday. Tshwane metro spokesperson Alta Fourie said the system was going on and off.
South Africa was shocked by the shooting rampage at the United States’s Virginia Tech University, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said on Tuesday. The event also triggered shock and sympathy in the rest of the world, along with questions over gun culture in the US.
Pretoria High Court Judge Essop Patel, who was presiding over the criminal trial of alleged child molester Cezanne Visser, alias ”Advocate Barbie”, has died. Patel died of cancer after a long sickness, media reports said on Tuesday. He will be buried according to Muslim rites on Tuesday morning at Johannesburg’s Newclare cemetery.
A new judge has not yet been appointed to hear the criminal trial of alleged child molester Cezanne Visser, alias ”Advocate Barbie”. The trial was delayed for a considerable period when trial Judge Essop Patel fell ill and was unable to resume, resulting in the trial having to start afresh before a new judge.
The board of Eskom has elected Jacob Maroga as its new CEO, Eskom said on Friday. Maroga will take over from current CEO Thulani Gcabashe, whose term ends on April 30. Gcabashe will remain at Eskom to lead a project intended to leverage the economic benefits resulting from the utility’s capital-expansion programme.
The killers who left police crime intelligence Captain Carrim Alli to die in a fire deserved nothing less than life imprisonment, a Pretoria High Court judge said on Thursday. Alli’s dying words, in which he identified Isa Mohammed as the man who had attacked him, was partly responsible for his killers’ conviction.
Pretoria police have finally been cleared of accusations of beating a local prostitute into a coma, police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi said on Thursday. In January this year, newspapers reported that a 17-year-old girl was fighting for her life in a Pretoria hospital after being severely assaulted by Sunnyside police officials.
The fee model for current automated teller machines (ATMs) promotes the development of a nationwide ATM network to which customers of all banks have access, said Absa executive director Louis von Zeuner on Wednesday. Last week, First National Bank proposed that Saswitch ATM fees be eliminated.
Relatives of crime intelligence officer Captain Carrim Alli reacted with relief on Wednesday to the conviction of a police sergeant and his business partner for his murder. In October 2004, Alli and his car were set alight on a lonely farm road outside Pretoria.
The total number of people killed in road accidents during the Easter holidays was 276, up from 257 last year, the Department of Transport said on Wednesday. This is an increase of 19 fatalities over the same period last year. On Monday, the department’s figures had stood at 139 killed — fewer than the number killed in 2006.
The Centre for Justice and Crime Prevention on Wednesday launched an online tool that provides accessible data on crime trends in the country. The crime and victimisation monitoring tool will combine victim data and police statistics on crime to paint a better picture of crime trends in South Africa, the centre’s research director said.
A damages claim of more than R500 000 against the police and prisons services will cost rightwinger Piet ”Skiet” Rudolph and two others dearly. A Pretoria High Court judge on Tuesday dismissed with costs a damages claim instituted by Rudolph and fellow Orde Boerevolk members Wentzel Laubscher and Andre van der Walt.
Two Chinese nationals accused of murdering a Chinese businessman and his family applied for their discharge in the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday, saying there is no evidence against them. Counsel for Siyuan Liu (48) and Jiansen Bai (54) handed in written argument in the trial, asking for their discharge.
The fraud and corruption case of former Scorpions boss Geoffrey Ledwaba was postponed for the last time in the Pretoria Commercial Crimes Court on Tuesday. The postponement was to allow Ledwaba to sort out his legal representation matters as he wanted the National Prosecuting Authority to pay for his legal fees.
The case of former spy boss Billy Masetlha and two accused was postponed in the Pretoria Commercial Crimes Court on Thursday. Masetlha and his co-accused — Muziwendoda Kunene, a software salesperson, and Sunokwakhe Madladla, former National Intelligence Agency (NIA) manager for electronic surveillance — are charged with fraud.
South Africans can expect electricity to get more expensive in coming years as a way of cutting consumption, the chairperson of the Big Business Working Group (BBWG), Saki Macozoma, said on Wednesday. He was briefing the media after discussions between the BBWG and President Thabo Mbeki in Pretoria.
The extensive ATM network in South Africa could be used more efficiently if Saswitch fees, paid by customers for using ATMS of banks other than their own, were eliminated, First National Bank (FNB) said on Tuesday. ”If adopted by all banks, this will save South Africans R500-million in Saswitch fees annually,” said FNB chief executive Michael Jordaan.
The pain felt by Zimbabweans is a pain that South Africans feel and it is South Africa’s task to work together with Zimbabweans to resolve their problems, President Thabo Mbeki said on Tuesday. He was addressing the National House of Traditional Healers in Pretoria.
Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu handed 250 houses to new home owners in Olievenhoutbosch in Pretoria on Friday. The 250 subsidised houses are part of the inclusionary housing plan, which sees low-cost houses being built in the same area as high-cost houses.
The backlog of housing currently stands at 2,4-million houses across South Africa, and the government hopes to reduce or do away with the shortfall by 2014. ”Yes, there is a problem with the backlog,” housing director general tumeleng Kotsoane said in an interview in Pretoria on Thursday. Kotsoane detailed the obstacles faced in the housing sector.
The South African unemployment rate declined to 25,5% in September 2006, down from 26,7% in September 2005, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said on Thursday.
Releasing results of the labour-force survey done in September last year, Stats SA said 4 391 000 people were unemployed, compared with 4 487 000 people who were unemployed in September 2005.
The Democratic Repubic of Congo’s ex-vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba, who has taken refuge in South Africa’s embassy in Kinshasa, can remain there for as long as he wants, the Pretoria government said on Tuesday. Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad said Bemba had yet to reveal his long-term plans.
The future of the former vice-president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Jean-Pierre Bemba, could be decided by the DRC Parliament on Monday. Bemba was still taking refuge on Monday in the South African embassy compound in the DRC capital, Kinshasa, said South African foreign affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) on Monday voiced its support for the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) to hold the rights to broadcast Premier Soccer League (PSL) matches. The SABC was involved in a court battle last week in order to stop the PSL from selling broadcast rights to other broadcasters.
About 350 workers at Nissan South Africa and members of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) protested against retrenchments outside the Japanese embassy in Pretoria on Friday. Nissan SA has given 410 of its workers retrenchment packages, with effect from April 12.
Tackling the future of Freedom Park, on Thursday its CEO, Dr Mongane Wally Serote, denied that there is an inherent contradiction in the park’s mandate. ”The contradiction exists in the nation,” he said in response to recent criticisms from some organisations and individuals that the park is not as all-inclusive as it claims to be.