The Choice on the Termination of Pregnancy (CTOP) Amendment Act and the Traditional Health Practitioners Act were declared invalid by the Constitutional Court on Thursday. A challenge was brought last year by Doctors for Life International to the validity of four health-related Acts. The CTOP Amendment Act allows for nurses to perform abortions.
The Land Claims Commission is refusing to allow voluntary sellers of land to appoint their own conveyancers, thus delaying the finalising of land claims, organised agriculture said on Thursday. ”In some cases documents were already at the deeds office … when the commission … withdrew the documents,” said Annelize Crosby, spokesperson for AgriSA.
South Africa’s cricketers have struck back at suggestions made in Sri Lanka that senior players bullied lower-profile colleagues into agreeing to abandon the tour on security grounds. Local newspapers lambasted the tourists on Thursday in a series of articles, which called captain Mark Boucher and his team ”chickens”.
Pre-HIV test counselling may be a luxury South Africa can no longer afford given the scale of the pandemic, according to Judge Edwin Cameron. Cameron, himself HIV positive, said in an article in the latest newsletter of the South African HIV Clinicians’ Society that Aids is now a medically manageable disease, and no longer a necessarily fatal condition.
The South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) has accused a division of South African Airways of racism and non-compliance with employment-equity laws. ”SAA Technical remains lily white at the top and pitch black at the bottom,” Satawu spokesperson Ronnie Mamba said on Thursday.
A South African Express Airways plane en route to Richards Bay from Johannesburg was diverted to Durban on Thursday morning due to a security alert, the carrier said. Sniffer dogs and the South African Police Service searched the plane and its passengers’ luggage after the aircraft landed at Durban International airport.
South African aviation security does not fully conform to international security standards. This much is admitted by the Civil Aviation Authority, whose website notes that a national aviation safety plan, effective since 2004, is not compliant with the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s standards.
There is no evidence of any organised group of any sort being the agent of an act of sabotage at Koeberg — which led to the shutdown of the nuclear plant earlier this year — South Africa’s Minister of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin told Parliament on Thursday. Erwin was speaking after months of controversy over remarks he made the day before the local government elections on March 1.
The case of convicted paedophile and serial murderer Sipho Dube was postponed on Thursday because his lawyer, Jesse Penton, had to attend to his ailing mother. Johannesburg High Court prosecutor Joanie Spies told the court that Penton’s mother was gravely ill in hospital and asked the matter to be postponed to next Tuesday.
Women police and metro officers handed a memorandum to Gauteng provincial minister of security Firoz Cachalia at Constitution Hill in Johannesburg on Thursday, pledging their support in the fight against crime. The event was part of Women’s Month celebrations.
The economic collapse of South Africa’s neighbouring state, Zimbabwe, is stripping South Africa of economic growth of about 2% per year, yet South African President Thabo Mbeki has "handed over the baton" to others to resolve the political impasse in that country, Zimbabwe opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) policy adviser Eddie Cross said on Thursday.
Decades of exclusion and marginalisation of black lawyers have resulted in a skewed distribution of established and profitable law firms, Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Brigitte Mabandla said on Thursday. Speaking at the opening of a two-day indaba, Mabandla said special measures are needed if the problem is to be solved.
South Africa is pressing ahead with a law to ban mercenaries, clouding the prospects of thousands of South Africans now fighting for foreign armies or working for security companies in Iraq. But critics say the draft law will have far-reaching consequences for South African soldiers fighting for legitimate foreign forces.
The owner of a game lodge in the Free State where two security guards were killed by lions has been charged with culpable homicide, police said on Thursday. aptain Rosa Benade said the man was taken in by local police on Thursday. ”His fingerprints were taken and a charge laid,” said Benade.
Eskom has been ordered to pay R15 000 in damages after a giraffe was electrocuted when it touched a power line in Limpopo, News24 reported on Thursday. The judge ruled that Eskom should have envisaged that the placement of the power lines could injure giraffes on the farm in the Phalaborwa area.
The Eastern Cape is fast-tracking housing for those left homeless by recent floods, said the provincial department of housing and local government on Wednesday. Up to 20Â 000 families were either displaced or partially affected by the recent floods, storms and snowfall disasters that struck certain parts of the province.
On a day when their Fifa ranking plummeted to a disturbing 76th in the world, Bafana Bafana hardly enhanced a diminishing reputation on Wednesday night with a scrappy, scrambled 1-0 victory over 137th-ranked Namibia at the Sam Nujoma Stadium on the outskirts of Windhoek.
Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has condemned the vandalising of the South African exhibit at the International Aids Conference in Toronto, Canada. A group of Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) activists occupied the stall, with some lying on the ground to symbolise the dead.
South Africans are heading to the point where the country will be as wealthy as it was in 1981 — a 25-year gap of economic decline and claw-back — with a per capita income per head of about R24Â 000 a year, futures trend analyst JP Landman told the Cape Town Press Club on Wednesday.
South Africa’s National Assembly has given the nod to an ad hoc committee recommendation that Terrence Mncedisi Nombembe, the current Deputy Auditor General, be approved as the new auditor general. The current Auditor General, Shauket Fakie, retires at the end of November.
Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad said on Wednesday his office had reminded him that he had met an official from French arms company Thomson CSF. ”Arising from reports in weekend newspapers and subsequent media enquiries, in good faith I requested my office to verify whether I had met with a representative of Thomson CSF,” said Pahad in a statement.
Three people were found dead after they were trapped in snow in Mount Fletcher in the Eastern Cape, South African Broadcasting Corporation news reported on Wednesday. ”Today’s [Wednesday] freezing weather in the area is probably the cause of their death.” Disaster teams in the Eastern Cape were also battling to clear roads of snow that fell overnight in Barkly East and Elliot, Arrive Alive said.
Sipho Dube is a serial murderer and paedophile who cannot be rehabilitated, a police forensic psychologist told the Johannesburg High Court on Wednesday. ”Studies prove that child molesters are most difficult to rehabilitate … In this instance the accused qualifies,” said Dr Gerald Labuschagne.
A sum of  000 deposited in an offshore trust set up by LeisureNet boss Peter Gardener was cash for a joint investment in property, not an extortion payment, the Cape High Court was told on Wednesday. Gardener, former joint chief executive of the now-defunct group, was in the witness stand for the third day in succession.
The case against Cezanne Visser, alias Advocate Barbie, will be reopened in the Pretoria High Court later this month in an attempt to prove that she was abused. Judge Essop Patel on Wednesday postponed Visser’s trial to August 29 to give her new senior advocate, Johan Engelbrecht, time to find out if the fact that Visser was abused by her partner, Dirk Prinsloo, can be used as a defence.
Detailing the suffering of a late Durban Westville prisoner, Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) chairperson Zackie Achmat on Wednesday called for homicide charges to be instituted against two Cabinet ministers. Achmat, supported by a group of TAC activists, made the call after occupying the offices of the South African Human Rights Commission in central Cape Town.
The African National Congress in the Western Cape on Wednesday condemned overtures allegedly made to disgraced former party members, Truman Prince and Jeffrey Donson, by the Democratic Alliance. ”The ANC removed both Donson and Prince because they were an embarrassment to the ANC and the councils they lead,” Max Ozinsky, the ANC’s provincial deputy secretary said.
South Africa have pulled out of the limited-overs tri-series against India and hosts Sri Lanka due to security concerns after a deadly bombing, a Sri Lankan cricket official said on Wednesday. ”South Africa have told us they want to pull out. It is unfortunate but true,” Sri Lanka Cricket media manager Samantha Algama said.
The Great Limpopo Transfrontier National Park, which links three countries, is a unique opportunity for Southern African eco-tourism and cooperation, said President Thabo Mbeki on Wednesday at the opening of the park’s border post. ”We, the people, now have another possibility to reach out and join hands in partnership,” said Mbeki in a speech released by his office.
Former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide is welcome to continue his exile in South Africa as long as necessary, according to Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. Dlamini-Zuma on Wednesday said that the open invitation was part of the international process to create ”peace and stability in Haiti”. Aristide fled Haiti in February 2004 amid violent unrest.
The Boland Rugby Union has served charge sheets on the two clubs involved in the match in which Riaan Loots was fatally injured earlier this year. Attorney for the union Chris Faure said on Wednesday that charge sheets had also been served on five players, one spectator and seven officials.
Further work is required on the accrual accounting format that is being adopted by the South African government, Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel said on Wednesday. He was replying to a question from official opposition Democratic Alliance finance spokesperson Ian Davidson.