An urgent bid to free right-wing leader Eugene Terre’Blanche after an alleged parole violation will be made in the Pretoria High Court on Monday, his lawyer said. Terre’Blanche was arrested at a guest house in Bethlehem at about 3pm on Sunday for allegedly being outside the area to which he is restricted.
The cost of food, in real terms, has come down to 1999 levels, according to a Food Price Monitoring Committee report released on Friday. ”The general price of items in a shopping trolley has decreased by three percent in the last year,” committee chairperson Johann Kirsten told reporters in Pretoria.
The South African Students’ Congress on Wednesday decided to embark on mass protests against alleged racist policies at the University of Pretoria (Tuks). At a meeting attended by approximately 150 students, it was decided to ”go to the streets” in protest against allegedly racist policies adopted by the university.
The South African Navy’s fourth and last patrol corvette, the SAS Mendi, will set sail from Kiel, Germany, on Friday, the navy said in Pretoria on Wednesday. The ship, a German-built Meko A200SAN patrol corvette, will be joining her three sisters — the SAS Spioenkop, the SAS Amatola and the SAS Isandhlwana — in Simon’s Town.
A total of 118 South African women have discovered since the beginning of the month that they had been married without their knowledge, the Home Affairs Department said on Wednesday. This emerged from a campaign urging women to check their marital status on the department’s records in a bid to curb the problem of fraudulent marriages, the department said in a statement.
Allegations of racism and unfair discrimination may lead to class boycotts and protest rallies at the University of Pretoria, the South African Student Congress (Sasco) warned on Monday. ”We will be calling on students to boycott classes and join marches on campus,” said Sasco branch secretary Joe Heshu.
Some of the Boeremag treason-trial accused feel so aggrieved about media reports on their trial that on Monday they threatened to apply for an order to have journalists barred from court. The men complained about an Afrikaans radio talk show on radiosondergrense on Friday in which they claim they were ridiculed.
The rand lost about 20 cents against the United States dollar on Thursday at the news that the South African Reserve Bank dropped the repo rate at which it lends money to commercial banks from eight percent to 7,5%. The move, which saw commercial banks lowering their interest rates by the same margin to 11%, has taken economists by surprise.
Mboweni surprises, cuts interest rates
More than 40 South African women have discovered that they had been married without their knowledge, the Home Affairs Department said on Thursday. They were among about 2 000 women checking their marital status on the department’s records, as part of a campaign to curb the problem of women being unknowingly married to foreigners.
The Boeremag wanted to throw poisoned oranges in the streets of Soweto as part of its strategy to create chaos in the country, the Pretoria High Court heard on Wednesday. Free State potato farmer Henk van Zyl testified about events leading up to "Operation Popeye", a trigger for a Boeremag plan to take over the government.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=120126">Boeremag had breeding plans</a>
The interests of the country will be central to any decision on the strength of the rand, South African Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni said on Wednesday.
He was addressing mine and textile workers protesting in Pretoria against job losses resulting from the currency’s strength.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=120185">Union asks for urgent rand summit</a>
The Boeremag dreamed of using a building like that of Armscor in Pretoria as a sort of breeding farm for ”a new [Afrikaner] nation”, the city’s High Court heard on Tuesday. Free State potato farmer Henk van Zyl also told the court of a plan to blow up Afrikaans comedian Casper de Vries because ”he was not on the right path”.
The death toll from an accident at an illegal drag race at the Odi airstrip in North West on Sunday rose to six when a second man died in hospital on Tuesday. A spokesperson at George Mukhari hospital said Lucky Simbambo (19) died of multiple injuries in the hospital’s intensive-care unit.
Residents of Soshanguve were on Monday night threatening to dig up an entire road because it contained no speed bumps which they believed led to the death of a child. According to police spokesperson Percy Morokane about a 100 residents burnt tyres and blockaded the Morula Sun road.
Public service wage negotiations officially broke down in Pretoria on Friday, labour unions said. ”The conciliator issued a certificate of non-conciliation this morning after minimum talks in the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council,” said Public Servants’ Association general manager Anton Louwrens.
The majority of Burundian parties early on Friday signed a power-sharing deal brokered by South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma to pave the way for elections in the Central African nation which has been ravaged by war. Twenty parties inked the deal in Pretoria but 10 did not sign — a fact which did not faze either Zuma or Carolyn McAskie, the head of the United Nations mission in Burundi.
The South African government vowed on Thursday to continue exerting diplomatic pressure to gain access to two of its citizens being held in Pakistan since July 25 on terrorism accusations. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad reiterated that South African authorities have no indication of any terrorist threat against the country.
Retail figures from 1998 have been revised following criticism of their adjustment in June to reflect an expanded register of South African businesses, Statistics SA said on Thursday. In its June release, Stats SA said retail trade for 2003 was 20% higher than previously reported. The figure was based on an expanded business register drawn from the SA Revenue Services’ VAT database.
President Thabo Mbeki and Deputy President Jacob Zuma met on Thursday with a key Burundi leader to try to break the deadlock over a power-sharing deal to pave the way to elections in the central African country. There are no immediate plans to bring together all of the political leaders from Burundi who have travelled to South Africa for talks aimed at finalising an agreement.
More than 20 000 workers are to get average wage hikes of 7,5% thanks to a deal signed by the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa and the Automobile Manufacturers Employers’ Organisation. The agreement was signed in Pretoria after three months’ negotiations.
While the police and the government declined to comment on Wednesday on claims that two citizens held in Pakistan were plotting attacks on South African tourist destinations, the Democratic Alliance urged the authorities to keep the public properly informed of any real danger.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=119792">’Terror’ pair under lock and key</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=119782">’Terror’ pair were to ‘attack Jo’burg'</a>
Disgruntled municipal workers disrupted a meeting of the Tshwane Bargaining Council in Centurion on Tuesday and held officials there against their will. Tshwane Metro Council spokesperson William Baloyi said the group was angry about an apparent double deduction from their bank accounts in lieu of loan repayments.
The man who pleaded guilty to murdering a Tshwane Technical University professor was on Tuesday sentenced to 55 years’ imprisonment by the Pretoria High Court. Professor William Papo and two other people were found dead in Papo’s house in Doornpoort, Pretoria, in January last year.
South Africa will host a new round of talks on Burundi to finalise a agreement on power-sharing and on holding elections, South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma said on Tuesday. The two days of talks beginning on Wednesday will be attended by all the parties in Burundi except for the Forces for the Defence of Democracy group.
The government was setting itself up for failure if it introduced its further education and training (FET) curriculum for grades 10 to 12 in 2006, the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa) said on Tuesday. Naptosa president Dave Balt was commenting after Education Minister Naledi Pandor’s said on Monday that, as far as she was concerned, the deadline remained 2006.
There was laughter in the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday when "Rottweiler" and "KGB" emerged as some of the <i>noms de guerre</i> assumed by the alleged Boeremag coup plotters. One called himself "Motherfucker" and another "Volla", accused-turned-state-witness Henk van Zyl told the court.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=119751">Whites were to be ‘slaughtered'</a>
White fears of a massive slaughter by blacks were fuelled at meetings attended and addressed by some of the Boeremag treason trialists, the Pretoria High Court heard on Tuesday. The court was told of meetings where the predictions of Boer ”seer” Siener van Rensburg were used to incite whites to action.
Children are not obliged to attend school in the year they turn six, Education Minister Naledi Pandor said on Monday. Children should be taken to school in the year that they turn seven, unless their parents can provide proof that their child was ready for school at an earlier age, the minister told reporters in Pretoria.
The Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) signed a deal on Monday for a loan of R56-million for the construction of a hotel in Bel Ombre on the southern coast of Mauritius. The hotel project forms part of a broader initiative for the development of the Bel Ombre sub-region.
While the fate of two South Africans being held for suspected terrorist activities in Pakistan remained unclear on Friday, an independent analyst described their situation as bleak. If tried in Pakistan, the death penalty is mandatory for terrorism and the definition of the crime very broad, the analyst said.
Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang on Thursday promised South Africans an accessible, caring and high-quality health system. She was speaking at the media launch of the Department of Health’s Strategic Priorities for the National Health System: 2004 to 2009 in Pretoria.
Hundreds of Telkom workers are expected to take part in protests on Thursday against planned retrenchments at the company, the Solidarity trade union said. Employees at the Telkom’s head office are expected to present the company’s management with a petition signed by thousands of Telkom workers countrywide, the union said in a statement on Wednesday.