Pretoria

If violence, abuse and drug use are allowed to become a familiar and accepted part of schooling, the future is lost, Education Minister Naledi Pandor said on Tuesday. She was speaking at a school-safety colloquium in Pretoria. ”All of us must act and act in unison to indicate that these objectionable forms of conduct have no place in education,” Pandor said.

President Thabo Mbeki told religious leaders on Monday to trust what he had done regarding the controversy around police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi — and they did. This was after the religious leaders had suggested an inquiry into the relationship between Selebi and Glenn Agliotti, who was arrested last week for the murder of Brett Kebble.

The Department of Education has expanded the number of schools that will not be charging school fees by 40% for next year. ”Funding is available and this will be implemented. It is also in keeping with government’s commitment that no child should be denied an education,” Education Minister Naledi Pandor said on Monday.

President Thabo Mbeki congratulated the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Independent Electoral Commission on Thursday for organising the first and second round of presidential elections in that country. Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said Mbeki was aware of the announcement of the provisional results, which make President Joseph Kabila the winner.

Members of the Tshwane metropolitan police will not take leave in order to tackle crime effectively during the festive season. This was announced by advocate Kamela Kekana at the launch of the festive-season operation plan for the Tshwane metro police in Pretoria on Thursday.

Certain roads in the Pretoria central business district were clogged with traffic on Wednesday as the Tshwane Metro Police cracked down on traffic violators with outstanding warrants of arrests. The metro police held several roadblocks, stopping cars and looking at the registration of vehicles and drivers’ licences.

The South African Air Force needs to improve the quality of its new recruits, Major General Mandla Mangethe, the force’s new chief of Air Command, said on Wednesday. ”We need more young people wanting to join the air force so that we can have quality recruits, especially at the sharp end of the force where we need pilots and fighter pilots,” he said.

South Africa will press on with its mediating role in Burundi to get the last active rebel group to sign a peace accord, Pretoria’s special envoy to the Great Lakes region said on Tuesday. "We are not throwing in the towel. We will carry on," Kingsley Mamabola told a seminar, adding that the National Liberation Forces rebel group was "the one piece left out of the jigsaw puzzle".

Drivers should expect delays on their way to the office on Wednesday in Pretoria’s central business district (CBD), Tshwane Metro Police have warned. ”Operation Adherence”, the metro police’s search for drivers with outstanding warrants of arrest, would move into the city on Wednesday, said metro police spokesperson Mel Vosloo in a statement.

Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota is misleading whites when he asks them to join the South African National Defence Force, the Freedom Front Plus said on Monday. Media reports on Monday said top white students in the South African Air Force won’t be trained as fighter pilots because they have to make way for black students.

The police need more dogs for the 2009 general elections and the 2010 Soccer World Cup, police Deputy National Commissioner Mala Singh said on Friday. She was speaking at a ceremony where four Star of Bravery medals were awarded to police dogs. Of the four, only one was still alive to receive the medal.

A man charged with 32 counts of armed robbery on Wednesday tried to escape from a police vehicle, only months after being rearrested following another escape, Pretoria police said. The escape attempt happened when the man and nine others were being transported to the Pretoria High Court from the central prison.

South Africa on Wednesday blamed Israel of being in violation of international law and the Geneva Convention for shelling a town in the Gaza Strip. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad condemned Israeli shelling of civilian homes in the town of Beit Hanun in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday morning that left 18 Palestinians dead.

National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi believes a smear campaign is being waged against him to remove him from his post. ”I don’t do crime; I am not corrupt,” Selebi reacted to newspaper reports implicating him, his Deputy Commissioner Andre Pruis and other senior police officers in criminal activity.

Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula and several Cabinet colleagues in his cluster will meet with the Big Business Working Group on Friday to discuss their joint programme to fight crime. The meeting in Johannesburg comes only weeks after the two groups agreed on ways to fight crime.

Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota reacted with outrage on Wednesday to reports that the defence force had lost millions of rands worth of equipment and vehicles during peacekeeping operations in Burundi. ”The disturbing thing about this report is that it is so grossly inaccurate as to suggest bad faith,” he told journalists in Pretoria.

Members of Solidarity were ”disappointed” by reports of the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) to the effect that the ANC will disregard the minority of people who question name changes, Solidarity said on Tuesday. Solidarity chairperson Ernst Roets said a report in Beeld mentioned the ”important role” of the ANCYL, which was ”to protect the country’s democracy”.

Sunday’s run-off election in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was democratic, peaceful, credible and transparent, the South African election observer team in the country said on Tuesday. Head of the South African observers, Deputy Defence Minister Mluleki George, said the Congolese were able to freely bring out their vote.

An appeal to uphold sexual harassment findings against former ambassador Norman Mashabane was again delayed in the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday. Mashabane was to have appeared in the court but the case was put down for December 1.

President Thabo Mbeki has conveyed South Africa’s condolences to the families of the dozens of people who died in the Nigerian airliner crash. Presidential spokesperson Mukoni Ratshitanga said Mbeki assured Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo of South Africa’s ”thoughts and prayers during Nigeria’s period of grief”.

The government’s taxi-recapitalisation programme in its current form should be scrapped, taxi owners and drivers demanded in Pretoria on Friday, where thousands marched to the Union Buildings. Traffic was also disrupted in Johannesburg and Cape Town, with reports of roads blocked off and stonings of vehicles.

The Young Communist League is ”flabbergasted and disturbed” by a school that still flies the old South African flag and sings the old national anthem, the YCL said on Wednesday. Pupils at the Christelike Volksonderwys primary school in Lichtenburg, North West, apparently still sing Die Stem at morning assemblies.