Pretoria

South Africa will use its presidency of the United Nations Security Council in March to push for the organisation to pay for African Union peacekeeping operations. The Security Council has agreed on a so-called hybrid force in Sudan which will comprise African Union peacekeepers supported technically and financially by the UN.

Transport Minister Jeff Radebe avoided contentious issues during his first public event as acting health minister on Friday. Opening the newly built Pretoria Academic Hospital, Radebe focused on programmes to improve hospital infrastructure around the country.

Technical arguments and a clash of wits played out in the Hatfield Community Court where the case against former National Intelligence Authority (NIA) director general Billy Masetlha resumed on Thursday. He is accused of withholding evidence from NIA inspector general Zolile Ngcakani relating to alleged hoax emails.

The state will apply to keep the media and public out of the trial of two foreign nationals accused of being part of an international nuclear-smuggling ring. The trial of Swiss citizen Daniel Geiges (67) and German citizen Gerhard Visser (66) was on Thursday postponed in the Pretoria High Court to July 22.

There had been no political conspiracy to oust former National Intelligence Agency director general Billy Masetlha from his position, the Hatfield Community Court heard in Pretoria on Wednesday. Inspector General Zolile Ngcakani said the intelligence service does not resort to any method to make its staff leave their posts.

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is to exhume the remains of Looksmart Ngudle, the first security detainee to die under apartheid detention laws back in 1963. The authority began investigations last year to locate his remains at the request of Ngudle’s son, Siyanda, an NPA spokesperson said on Wednesday.

Africa needs a ”fair break” from the rest of the world and the determination to address its own problems, former president FW de Klerk said on Wednesday. In a lecture at the University of Pretoria, De Klerk said there is an unfair perception that Africa is lagging further and further behind in the global race.

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has been given the go-ahead to seize assets worth millions of rands from a businessmen facing cigarette smuggling. NPA spokesperson Lucinda Moonieya said the case against Hendrik Delport was ”one of the biggest asset-forfeiture orders ever obtained in South Africa”.

South Africa supports Iceland’s wish to join the United Nations Security Council, Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said in Pretoria on Tuesday. ”South Africa has a seat in the UN Security Council for the first time, so we would be very happy to support their wish to join,” she told reporters.

South Africa’s cricketers received well wishes of the highest order on Monday when President Thabo Mbeki visited them in Pretoria. ”We’ll all be rooting for you,” Mbeki told them ahead of their departure for the West Indies on Wednesday. Team captain Graeme Smith, for his part, said the Proteas were confident of doing well in the International Cricket Council World Cup next month.

The eight men accused of involvement in an attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea were found not guilty in the Pretoria Regional Court on Friday. The magistrate said that while the men’s actions were unlawful, he could not find by ”any stretch of the imagination” that they had knowingly contravened the Regulation on Foreign Military Assistance Act.

Russian companies are welcome to tender for building a second nuclear power plant in South Africa, Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said in Pretoria on Thursday. Although no agreement was signed on nuclear energy, businesses from both countries had agreed to work on it, she said.

The state has not reached the ”required threshold” to prove its case against eight men accused of contravening sections of the Regulation on Foreign Military Assistance Act, the Pretoria Regional Court heard on Thursday. Defence advocate Margie Victor, appearing for six of the eight accused, asked the court to discharge her clients.

A former law student on Wednesday told the Pretoria High Court how he had bludgeoned his friend with a dumbbell before slicing off his private parts because of his unwelcome sexual advances. Frank Lebogang Mahlakoana (24) said that he found it so shocking and horrifying that he could not even look at photos of the murder scene, as it frightened him.

South Africa and Russia will cooperate in the fields of exploration of outer space and trade, Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said on Wednesday. Dlamini-Zuma is hosting Russian Minister of Natural Resources Yuri Petrovich Trutnev for the sixth session of the South Africa-Russia Joint Intergovernmental Committee on Trade and Economic Operations.

Officials from President Thabo Mbeki’s office and the South African secret service are likely to be called to testify in a case against eight men who were allegedly involved in an Equatorial Guinea coup plot. State advocate Torie Pretorius SC on Wednesday asked the Pretoria Regional Court for a postponement to call officials from the president’s office and the secret service.

The former national director of public prosecutions, Bulelani Ngcuka, might be called to testify in the court case of eight men charged with contravening sections of the Regulation of Military Assistance Act relating to an alleged attempted coup in the Equatorial Guinea. State advocate Torie Pretorius told the Pretoria Regional Court on Tuesday that he might call Ngcuka.

One of the men who allegedly plotted to topple the government of Equatorial Guinea feels he has done nothing wrong, despite pleading guilty, the Pretoria Regional Court heard on Tuesday. Harry Carlse, who turned state witness, was testifying against eight alleged co-conspirators accused of contravening the Regulations on Foreign Military Assistance Act.

Police have lashed out at a message campaign warning white people that black people will attack them when former president Nelson Mandela dies, saying they are without substance. A spokesperson for the police national commissioner, Director Sally de Beer, said the messages also incited white people to prepare to congregate at pre-identified ”safe areas” and to defend themselves.

The state has sought to counter outrage that met a recent court ruling on a Limpopo farmer who shot dead an 11-year-old boy he mistook for a dog. ”It cannot be argued that the conviction of culpable homicide is incorrect, having read the statement of the witnesses,” the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said in Pretoria on Tuesday.