”Operation Most Wanted” led to 11 arrests on a variety of charges on Thursday and Friday, the Pretoria police said. The Rietgat tracing unit made four arrests for armed robberies and attempted murder, the Pretoria flying squad arrested five men for hijacking and the city’s organised crime unit made two arrests for drug dealing, said Constable Brenda Kgafela.
Twenty-one years after losing their sons to the anti-apartheid struggle, 10 families could finally be able to bury their remains, which are being recovered from unmarked graves north of Pretoria. National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi said the remains will be subjected to DNA and forensic testing.
Former president Nelson Mandela is an inspiration to the youth to strive for greatness rather than material success.
Combating organised crime and illegal migration were identified on Tuesday as two areas of potential cooperation between South Africa and Mexico. Organised crime is a challenge both countries face, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said in Pretoria after hosting his Mexican counterpart for political and economic talks.
Discussions on expanding the membership of the United Nations Security Council should not eclipse the need for pursuing more general UN reforms, deputy foreign minister Aziz Pahad said on Tuesday. Pahad was speaking after hosting his Mexican counterpart, Maria de Lourdes Aranda Bezaury, for bilateral political and economic discussions.
One of the most colourful and legendary Blue Bulls of all time, Fiks van der Merwe, has died in Pretoria at the age of 88, family members confirmed on Monday. He was also the second-oldest living Springbok. Van der Merwe played on the flank in the Springboks’ first post-World War II Test against the All Blacks in 1949.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) expressed support on Monday for a countrywide strike by more than 200 000 municipal workers to take place on Tuesday. The two unions representing municipal workers were right to reject their employer’s wage offer, Cosatu said in a statement.
South Africa backs Iran’s stance on the right of a country to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said on Monday in Pretoria on the first day of the second session of the South Africa-Iran Deputy Ministerial Working Group’s meeting.
Last week’s London bombings have again highlighted the vulnerability of public transport systems to disruption and terror, Minister of Transport Jeff Radebe said on Monday. He told a Southern African transport conference in Pretoria that this presents a serious and continuing challenge to all states.
The remains of five men who fought the apartheid regime in the 1980s and whose fate remained unknown until this year were returned to their families on Sunday during a moving ceremony that paid tribute to them as ”giants” in South Africa. About 400 people attended the ceremony held at Freedom Park in Pretoria.
The salaries of public office-bearers should be increased by 5,75% for the 2005/06 financial year, a special commission proposed on Friday. The South African Reserve Bank’s inflation target was one of the factors taken into consideration in making its recommendation, the commission said in a statement.
Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana is expected to report to Parliament on his probe into the so-called Oilgate affair before month-end, his office said on Friday. The investigation, into claims about the alleged misuse of public money involving state oil company PetroSA, should be concluded in the next two to three weeks, a spokesperson said.
Eight South Africans suspected of involvement in a planned coup d’état in Equatorial Guinea had their trial set down on Friday for next year in the Pretoria Regional Court. During a brief appearance in the morning, their trial date was set for January 16 to February 3.
One person was killed and 61 people were injured when a bus overturned on the Mabopane highway on Friday morning, Tshwane metro police reported. Meanwhile, a passenger was killed and two people seriously injured in an accident involving four trucks on the R72 near Port Alfred on Friday morning.
The Zimbabwean government put the extent of displacement under its urban slum-clearance campaign at 130 000 families on Wednesday, saying it will not re-accommodate them all. Minister counsellor in the Zimbabwean embassy Pritchard Zhou told a seminar in Pretoria the operation has ”won praise countrywide”.
The National Prosecuting Authority will focus increasingly on crimes occasioned by greed rather than those arising out of poverty, National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli said on Tuesday. However, this does not mean that poor people committing crimes will not be prosecuted.
The country’s first female deputy president had a group of women in the palm of her hand as she elaborated on Tuesday on daily tribulations facing the fairer sex, at a conference on gender issues. There were murmurs of agreement and some giggles as Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka painted a picture of the day in the life of an average woman.
Minister of Sport and Recreation Makhenkesi Stofile, while congratulating the performance of rugby teams, still wants the South African Rugby Union to work on racial transformation in the sport. ”His praise of the teams does not in any way represent a change of heart on certain issues,” a departmental spokesperson said on Monday.
The African National Congress’ national general council meeting ended in Pretoria on Sunday with the party reaffirming its support for axed deputy president Jacob Zuma. ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe told journalists the party was working on the principle of innocent until proven guilty.
Construction of the high-speed train connecting Johannesburg, Pretoria and Johannesburg International airport will begin ”today”, Gauteng premier Mbhazima Shilowa said on Saturday. He also announced Bombela, a French-Canadian-South African consortium, as the preferred bidder for the Gautrain Rapid Rail Link Project (Gautrain).
The African National Congress (ANC) has reaffirmed its character as a national liberation movement, it emerged on Saturday from the party’s national general council (NGC) meeting in Pretoria. ”As the ANC, we remain a national liberation movement,” deputy secretary-general Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele told reporters.
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Former deputy president Jacob Zuma could stand for the presidency of the African National Congress in 2007, and might be earning an unprecedented party salary before long, it emerged on Friday.
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A decision by the African National Congress’ national general council not to accept Jacob Zuma’s withdrawal from party structures gave him the go-ahead to accept nomination for president in 2007. Based on the presumption of innocence, the party would have no grounds not to allow him to stand for the position, said an ANC spokesperson.
South Africa’s new Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka should address the gap between the ruling African National Congress’ words and deeds and speak out against President Robert Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe, says official opposition leader Tony Leon.
There was much ululating as President Thabo Mbeki and former deputy president Jacob Zuma entered this week’s gathering of the African National Congress’s policy conference. One was the overall leader of the country as well as the party while the other had fallen from political grace after being ”released” as the country’s deputy president by Mbeki before a joint sitting of Parliament.
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The African National Congress reaffirmed its confidence in former deputy president Jacob Zuma on Thursday, but the party’s national general council (NGC) meeting was instructed by President Thabo Mbeki not to discuss Zuma’s dismissal or the charges against him.
After three months and 12 editions the Afrikaans Sunday newspaper Die Wêreld has closed down, the publication’s management said on Thursday. It had been apparent from the paper’s beginnings that there was not satisfactory financing, Kobus Wolvaardt — head of a trust which funded the paper — said in a statement.
South African President Thabo Mbeki on Thursday cited fears about the ”diminution” of Afrikaans as an issue that the ruling African National Congress should address in leading the country’s social transformation.
Group of Eight leaders meeting in Scotland next week are unlikely to agree on a ”Marshall Plan” for Africa that will see massive aid flow to the continent, South African Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel told French news agency AFP in an interview on Wednesday.
Talks aimed at unblocking the peace process in Côte d’Ivoire entered a second day on Wednesday in Pretoria with leaders drafting a document that was to be adopted later in the day. The Pretoria accord ran into a major hurdle this week when rebel forces made clear they would not abide by the June 27 deadline to disarm.
The firearms amnesty, in effect since January 1, will end at midnight on Thursday, said Safety and Security minister Charles Ngakula. ”We would like to appeal to those who are in possession of illegal firearms or ammunition to hand over these to the nearest police station,” he said. More than 80 000 firearms have been handed in.
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang says South African HIV/Aids patients should be given the option to turn to traditional forms of medication as an alternative to anti-retroviral treatment. She said garlic is a key ingredient in the fight against HIV/Aids and is particularly useful in fighting fungus ”in the intestines and in the vagina”.