Pretoria

While the media mayhem that attended South Africa’s first two democratic elections is undoubtedly a thing of the past, there was still a blizzard of flashlights when the country’s first citizen cast his ballot on Wednesday morning. Addressing journalsts after voting for the national and provincial legislatures, President Thabo Mbeki said, ”I think it’s now time for the people to speak.”

Trapped beneath a 20-ton truck, two motorists spent their last moments alive watching emergency personnel frantically trying to rescue them in Pretoria on Tuesday. The runaway truck’s brakes failed, its unlicensed driver said, and it careered through seven sets of traffic lights, smashing five vehicles in its path.

South Africa apologised to Rwanda on Wednesday for not ”crying out” loud enough when hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives in 100 days of genocide in that country in 1994. ”We did not cry out as loudly as we should have,” President Thabo Mbeki told a commemoration ceremony in the Rwandan capital of Kigali.

The Pakistani High Commission on Wednesday was trying to establish the correctness of reports that South Africans were among 14 people arrested in Lahore on drug-smuggling charges. Pakistani authorities on Tuesday said they had busted an international drug smuggling ring headed by an airport customs official.

President Thabo Mbeki and his wife, Zanele arrived in Kigali, Rwanda, on Wednesday morning for the commemoration of the genocide in that country 10 years ago, the Department of Foreign Affairs said. They are accompanied by Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and other senior government officials.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=33786">West ignores Rwanda anniversary</a>

Six South African soldiers serving in a peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo were believed killed in a road accident near Goma on Tuesday, the South African National Defence Force said. It is believed the troops were travelling in a Casspir vehicle, which swerved off the road and plunged into Lake Kifu.

The state might challenge a Supreme Court of Appeal decision to substitute the life imprisonment imposed on a woman who hired two men to murder her abusive partner with a suspended sentence. The appeal court last week replaced the life sentence of Anieta Natasha Ferreira with one of six years.

Three of the Boeremag treason trial accused will find out next week whether their advocates will have to withdraw from the trial. The national director of public prosecutions launched an urgent application on Friday in the Pretoria High Court for an order forcing advocates Harry Prinsloo and Louisa van der Walt to withdraw from the trial.

The South African military and the United Nations are trying to determine if the shooting of a South African soldier in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was related to a recent coup attempt in that country. South African National Defence Force spokesperson Colonel Kwena Mangope said the soldier was shot at about 11pm on Monday.

Taxi organisations will patrol the country’s highways with traffic officers this Easter in a bid to boost road safety, the Arrive Alive campaign announced on Tuesday. South African National Taxi Council president Tom Moufe said taxi drivers would respond better to those who knew the way they worked.

Veteran journalist, author and artist Hans Strydom (68) died in Pretoria on Sunday, his family confirmed on Monday. He had been ill for a long time. Strydom was a doyen of South African journalists and was the chairperson of the Southern African Society of Journalists. He also chaired the Johannesburg and Durban press clubs.

The first medicine-dispensing licences, allowing health-care practitioners to provide medicine to clients, were handed out by the Health Ministry in Pretoria on Tuesday. This follows a law promulgated last year to prevent doctors from dispensing medicine without the licences.