Springbok flyhalf Meyer Bosman was recalled to the South African Tri-Nations squad on Friday after Andre Pretorius failed to recover fully from a thigh injury. Bosman, who was initially called up for Springbok duty at the start of South Africa’s international season, was excluded from the South African under-21 side for the recent world championships in France.
A worker was crushed by a six-ton rubbish truck in Durban on Friday morning. A Netcare 911 spokesperson said it appeared that the 40-year old man had slipped off the side of the moving Durban Solid Waste truck. The truck, weighing nearly six tons when empty and 10 tons when fully laden, drove over him.
The fizz went out of the Coca-Cola Cup competition on Thursday when the international soft-drink giant elected not to renew a lucrative five-year sponsorship contract with the Premier Soccer League (PSL). The tournament had already been penned in on the PSL’s fixture list for the 2006/07 season.
The stranded Safmarine Agulhas moved a few metres in a salvage attempt at high tide on Thursday afternoon, said the National Ports Authority (NPA). Two tugs attached to the bow and stern of the 16 800-tonne container ship would keep a steady line overnight.
Some HIV/Aids and tuberculosis (TB) patients in the Eastern Cape are refusing treatment because they fear losing their disability grants, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in the province said on Thursday. TAC coordinator Philip Mokoena said the number of people refusing treatment is growing.
The pension-funds adjudicator wants answers on how certain provisions in the Income-Tax Act affect approved retirement annuity-fund rules. He has given the Competition Commission and the South African Revenue Service until July 26 to respond to his questions in writing.
Western Cape education minister Cameron Dugmore has suspended a Delft school principal after his arrest on charges of indecent assault and possession of child pornography, media reports said on Thursday. Three parents laid indecent assault charges against the 57-year-old man who appeared in court on Wednesday.
In just four-and-a-half years, the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria has helped 544Â 000 HIV-positive people begin anti-retroviral treatment, distributed 11,3-million insecticide-treated bed nets and treated 1,4-million cases of tuberculosis. This is according to a progress report released by the fund on Thursday.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Thursday dismissed any notion that his country needed a ”rescue package” from the international community, Zim Online reported. ”We have heard of so many so-called initiatives to rescue Zimbabwe. Rescue this nation from what?” he asked at the burial of late Information Minister Tichaona Jokonya in Harare.
Seven men accused of taking part in the multi-million rand heist at Johannesburg International airport in March this year will continue their bail applications on Monday. They allegedly formed part of a gang that boarded a South African Airways plane and made off with R72-million in foreign currency.
Foreigners will no longer need to apply for transit visas for South Africa, the Department of Home Affairs announced on Thursday. Minister of Home Affairs Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said in a statement that she will commission a study into international best practice relating to transit visas.
The world-famous Comrades Marathon will no longer be run on Youth Day, Athletics South Africa (ASA) announced on Thursday. The race will be held on Sunday June 17 next year and on Sunday June 15 the following year. In 2009, it will be held on Sunday June 14, ASA president Leonard Chuene said.
As the 2006 Soccer World Cup draws to a close in Germany, the eyes of the world will focus on South Africa to see if it is ready to host the next one, says the Cabinet. Meanwhile, a business plan for Cape Town’s 2010 Soccer World Cup stadium shows a ”positive outlook” for the long-term viability of the project.
The Little Falls Christian Centre, west of Johannesburg, was awash with tears at Thursday’s memorial for the four police officers killed in a shootout with alleged robbers in Jeppestown. Deputy Minister of Safety and Security Susan Shabangu broke down as she took the podium.
A baby was critically injured when her father tried to attack her mother with an axe at Naboomspruit on Thursday, Limpopo police said. The baby was rushed to Mokopane hospital and later transferred to Polokwane hospital in a critical condition, said Captain Gabashane Moseki.
Remains of eight Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) cadres killed and buried in Mafikeng cemetery during the apartheid era will be exhumed from Monday, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said. NPA spokesperson Lucinda Moonieya said the exhumations are in line with the NPA’s investigations ”into crimes of the past”.
Most recent robberies in Gauteng were carried out by foreigners, South African police union president Mpho Kwinika said on Thursday. He was speaking at a memorial service for four slain police offices held at the Littlefalls Christian centre in Roodepoort. ”The first invasions in Gauteng took place in 2003 on a highway in Germiston. A gang of 14 men tried to rob a cash van … eight of them were foreigners.”
The Mail & Guardian will from next week be responsible for its own distribution, a key step in securing the newspaper’s independence, M&G chief operating officer Hoosain Karjieker said on Thursday. M&G Media, publisher of the M&G, has bought a stake in Central Media Distributors (Cape).
The alleged blacklisting by the state broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), was an ”internal matter”, the South African Cabinet said on Thursday. The SABC has appointed a commission of inquiry into the allegations that a number of commentators including Business Day‘s Karima Brown and author William Mervin Gumede had been ”banned”.
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The South African Cabinet has noted that the emblem for the 2010 Fifa World Cup will be unveiled in Berlin on July 7. In a statement on Thursday — after a regular Cabinet meeting in Pretoria on Wednesday — it said: ”As the 2006 Fifa World Cup reaches its climax in Germany, the world will be watching us carefully to judge whether we will be ready to host this prestigious event.
Police arrested a man on Thursday who allegedly stabbed his wife 12 times and then tried to disguise the murder as a botched hijacking by driving his bakkie into Durban’s harbour. The 37-year-old husband was arrested at Durban’s St Augustine’s Hospital on Thursday morning.
The Directorate of Special Operations, or the Scorpions as it is better known, will remain within the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), but political oversight will move to the Minister of Safety and Security. Director General in the Presidency Frank Chikane said on Thursday that Cabinet made the decision on Wednesday after studying the Khampepe Commission’s report.
A would-be initiate has died of malnutrition after he and twenty-one other boys were found hidden in the Ntabankulu mountains in the Eastern Cape, the province’s health department said on Thursday. Spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said the boys had been kept in the mountains for more than three weeks and were denied food. They were all taken to hospital suffering from malnutrition.
Police divers have recovered the body of a woman after the bakkie she and her husband were travelling in plunged into the Durban harbour on Wednesday night after an apparent hijacking. Paramedics said the 31-year-old woman had sustained about 12 stab wounds.
An attempt to refloat the stranded Safmarine Agulhas at East London has been postponed, the salvors said on Wednesday. Salvors started putting cables in place for the reflotation on Wednesday afternoon. However, they put off the planned reflotation to ensure the connections were made in daylight.
The South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) will oppose any attempt by the City of Cape Town to sue it for damages caused in a march that turned violent in May, the union said on Wednesday. However, it had yet to received any summons or letter of demand, said Satawu spokesperson Ronnie Mamba.
An attempt to set a new land-speed record at Verneukpan in the Northern Cape ended tragically after an accident during a test run on Tuesday, a local newspaper reported. Pretoria racing driver Johan Jacobs (40) died in the accident when his jet-propulsion vehicle turned sideways at a speed of about 500kph and started rolling, the Volksblad reports.
A magistrate on Wednesday refused bail to two of the nine men arrested after a night of murder, rape and robbery in Gordon’s Bay last month. Strand magistrate Du Toit Malherbe said they had failed to show the ”extraordinary circumstances” that merited him granting bail on the charges.
Police have clammed up about the Jeppestown attack in which 12 people — including four police officials — died on Sunday. No further details about the case will be communicated until further notice, said Gauteng police spokesperson Senior Superintendent Mary Martins-Engelbrecht.
Many African National Congress MPs are not performing properly and should be fired, the Democratic Alliance said on Wednesday. ”It is a fact that the average ANC MP is not up to the job. At least 100 of them should be fired and replaced by people who are competent,” DA chief whip Douglas Gibson said in a statement on Wednesday.
Employees of the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) and the office of the compensation commissioner could go on strike in July, the public service union (PSA) said on Wednesday. PSA and several other unions’ members were planning ”full-blown strike action” over what they called the Department of Labour’s ”unilateral phase-out of a production bonus scheme”.
SA Rugby has announced four new caps for the forthcoming Springbok’s Vodacom Tri-Nations tour to Australia and New Zealand. They are Akona Ndungane, JP Pietersen, Pierre Spies and Mahlatse (Chiliboy) Ralepelle. The 28 players will convene in Johannesburg on Monday before leaving for Australia on Thursday July 6.