Pretoria

South Africa and Cuba hailed what was described as the fruits of their friendship on Tuesday, vowing to cement their co-operation in a host of areas. ”I think we are reaching a stage where we can say our relations have a firm base,” said South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma in Pretoria.

Hassan Solomon was released on R3 000 bail by the Pretoria Regional Court on Friday after the State withdraw charges against him of conspiring to murder President Thabo Mbeki. Solomon, who also uses the aliases Bheki Jacobs and Uranin Vladimir Solomon, would still face charges of identity document and passport fraud.

Peacekeeping missions could not succeed unless they involved the destruction of weaponry used in conflicts, Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said on Wednesday. ”It is important to collect the weapons that you disarm, many of whom have killed people already. (They) simply have to be destroyed,” he said in Pretoria.

Year-on-year producer price inflation for all commodities sank to minus 1,8% last month from minus one percent in September, Statistics SA said on Wednesday. It ascribed the latest production price index (PPI) to, among others, an annual rate of decrease in the cost of manufacturing petroleum and coal products.

About 800 pages of a so-called secret informer file was handed to defence counsel in the Boeremag treason trial on Wednesday. This followed after senior counsel for the police, Bert Bam, studied the file and concluded that the defence was entitled to certain of the documents.

A former African National Congress intelligence operative appeared in the Pretoria Regional Court on Monday in connection with an alleged plot to oust or kill President Thabo Mbeki. The charge sheet against Uranin Vladimir Solomon listed an allegation of conspiracy or incitement in terms of the Riotous Assemblies Act.

Cash-in-transit robber Collen Chauke died of natural causes on Friday, the Department of Correctional Services said. Chauke, who was serving a 20-year sentence in C-Max, had been in the Kalafong Hospital for the past week, said departmental spokesperson Isaac Mosiane.

The Landless People’s Movement still intended to march on the Presidency on Friday to start its ”No Land, No Vote” campaign although permission had been refused, a spokesperson said.

A group of men allegedly planning a right-wing take-over of the government were given noms de guerre and military ranks and had to take an oath of loyalty, the Pretoria High Court heard on Tuesday. At meetings, the men also recited a rewritten version of the Blood River Covenant.

The Constitutional Court is to hear on Tuesday why or why not it should grant a retrial of apartheid era chemical and biological warfare expert Dr Wouter Basson. The state is seeking leave to appeal against a ruling of the Supreme Court of Appeal in this regard.

With a smile, President Thabo Mbeki put his job on the line on Friday in an effort to secure the 2010 Soccer World Cup tournament for South Africa. He, Deputy President Jacob Zuma and a number of Cabinet ministers had just met a five-man team of inspectors sent by the International Football Federation to assess the country’s ability to host the event.

The Transvaal Agricultural Union was implicated in the Pretoria High Court on Friday in a plot by the right-wing Boeremag to overthrow the government. TAU representatives and alleged coup plot leaders discussed the takeover at a meeting in Centurion in August 2001, police informer Johannes Coenraad Smit testified.

Africa should solve the Zimbabwean problem in the interests of that country’s people and the continent as a whole, German Vice-Chancellor Joschka Fischer told reporters in Pretoria on Thursday.

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe was in good health and was chairing a Cabinet meeting in Harare on Tuesday morning, according to that country’s high commissioner to South Africa, Simon Moyo.