Northern Cape Premier Dipuo Peters has undergone major abdominal surgery at the city’s Kimberley Hospital Complex, a provincial health official said on Monday. ”The procedure was successful and she is recuperating satisfactorily,” Dr Dion Theys, medical director at the Kimberley hospital, said on Monday afternoon.
Nearly five-million people in South Africa are totally illiterate, Minister of Education Naledi Pandor said on Monday. Another 4,9-million South Africans were functionally literate — people who dropped out of school before grade seven. Pandor said the figures were compiled by a ministerial committee she appointed to help find the best way to tackle illiteracy.
According to information obtained from a DA parliamentary question, only 52% of South Africans infected with TB are treated successfully, compared with the World Health Organisation’s target of 85%, the DA’s spokesperson on health, Dianne Kohler-Barnard, said in a statement on Monday.
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress has extended its heartfelt condolences to the families, friends and colleagues of the four members of the South African Police Service who died in a confrontation with armed criminals in Jeppestown on Sunday.
The case against an IT salesperson involved in an alleged hoax e-mail conspiracy within the African National Congress was postponed in the Pretoria Regional Court on Monday. Muziwendoda Sikhona Kunene, who stands accused of contravening the Intelligence Services Oversight Act will again appear in court on July 14.
Six months after being convicted of the theft of a lion cub, a Cato Ridge man was charged in Pietermaritzburg on Monday with stealing an endangered 75-year-old giant Seychelles tortoise from the same complainant, the Natal Lion Park Zoo. Two sangomas allegedly bought the tortoise — presumably to use as muti.
Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula said on Monday that he was very concerned about the serious and violent nature of crimes against ”soft targets”. He said police action in high-crime areas sometimes drove criminals out to other areas and places considered to be soft targets.
South Africa’s municipalities are owed R19,2-billion and do not expect to recover more than 50% of this debt. Municipalities’ failure to effectively collect money for services rendered is severely impacting on service delivery, Auditor General Shauket Fakie said on Monday. Johannesburg alone has made a bad-debt provision of R7,2-billion.
Three policing agencies are to meet on Tuesday to discuss ways to step up the fight against the continuing stonings on Cape Town’s highways, according to Western Cape provincial minister for community safety Leonard Ramatlakane. This follows the weekend death of city motorist Nolan Daniels, hit by a brick thrown through a window of his car as he drove along the R300.
Four armed robbers on Monday overpowered a Coin security guard and made of with tens of thousands of rand that he had collected at the offices of Sunday newspaper publisher RCP Media in Pretoria. Police spokesperson Inspector Katlego Mogale said: ”He was accosted by four suspects, all armed. They made off with the money in a black Toyota Tazz.”
Minister of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin has declined to answer a parliamentary question about whether Western Cape farmers — hit by recent power outages — could sue the power parastatal Eskom. He was asked by Democratic Alliance MP Sarel van Dyk whether Eskom will give financial compensation to fruit-crop farmers.
The four police officers killed in Sunday’s bloody clash in Jeppestown in Johannesburg have been identified, while Gauteng’s provincial minister for community safety warned that criminals are mounting a guerrilla war. Captain Dennis Adriao said on Monday the police officers died when the West Rand flying squad and dog unit ”heroically” chased down the heavily armed fugitives.
About 100 families were left homeless on Monday morning after a fire destroyed their shacks in Alexandra, northern Johannesburg. Emergency services spokesperson Malcolm Midgley said residents of the shacks at the corner of 8th Street and Selbourne Avenue had tried in vain to put out the fire that was raging through the settlement.
Tinashe Rioga, the 21-year old Zimbabwean accused of trying to hijack a South African Airways domestic flight from Cape Town on June 17, appeared briefly in the Bellville Magistrate’s Court on Monday. The case was postponed for a bail application on July 5, and he was remanded in the Bellville South police station cells.
No strategic equity partner is being contemplated for state-controlled South African Airways (SAA) "at this stage", Minister of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin reports. "The airline industry is a difficult and highly competitive one. To meet these challenges the [public enterprises] department is continually attempting to improve its risk management in regard to SAA."
<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=soccer_world_cup_2006"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/272488/icon_focuson_wc3.gif" align=left border=0></a>The official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) says it is to submit questions to all national departments of government in South Africa about which politicians and officials have gone to Germany during the World Cup at taxpayers’ expense. This follows a report that the KwaZulu-Natal transport department was sending a delegation to look at the German transport system.
A shootout in Jeppestown, Johannesburg, on Sunday ended in what was described as a bloodbath with four police officers and eight suspects killed. An emotional Gauteng provincial Commissioner Perumal Naidoo told reporters at the scene that ”four policemen had lost their lives in the line of duty”.
The chasm between Super 14 experience and Vodacom Cup rugby was further exposed when defending champions the Cheetahs hammered Griquas 55-14 in a one-sided opening Currie Cup encounter played in Bloemfontein on Saturday. The Cheetahs surprisingly won the Currie Cup last year.
Five boys have died in the Eastern Cape since last week, the start of the circumcision period in that province, the provincial health department said on Saturday. The fifth body was picked up by the police at an initiation school late on Saturday, said Sizwe Kupelo, departmental spokesperson.
France gave the Springboks a rude awakening to their international season when they produced a classy performance of total rugby to beat the Springboks 36-26 at a packed Newlands on Saturday. The French completely outplayed the Boks, and brought an abrupt halt to the Boks’ proud 13-match unbeaten run on home soil.
Diphetogo Primary School in Mafikeng lost two-thirds of its teachers when their minibus taxi crashed early on Saturday near Lichtenburg, said the North West education department. A departmental spokesperson said Diphetogo had 23 teachers. Fourteen of them, including the principal, died in the collision.
Wing Wylie Human got a hat-trick of tries for the Lions but his side ended up with a single bonus-point reward for their efforts in their opening Absa Currie Cup rugby match in Durban on Friday night as the Natal Sharks claimed the spoils for a 33-22 victory and a bonus point for four tries.
The Blue Bulls were lucky to scrape home 18-16 against a motivated Falcons side in a game on a cold and bitter evening at Loftus Versfeld on Friday night. The Bulls struggled in a second-half performance that must go down as one of the worst in years as the Falcons stormed back in the game.
The Eastern Cape province has defended a planned visit to Germany by its premier and senior officials in what has been dubbed a ”Soccer World Cup junket” by a watchdog body. The Public Service Accountability Monitor said the ”junket” should be declared fruitless and wasteful expenditure by the auditor general.
The Siamese twin girls born in the Arwyp hospital in Kempton Park on Wednesday night are doing well, the hospital said on Friday night. Hospital superintendent Wiam Stander said the babies will ideally stay in the hospital for the next four to six months while scans and tests are done to facilitate their separation.
A construction worker trapped when a wet concrete slab collapsed was found dead at midnight on Friday after hours of searching. ”Just after midnight we found the body,” Johannesburg emergency services spokesperson Malcolm Midgley said on Saturday. ”He was in several metres of concrete that were starting to set.”
The son of former Cape Town mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo, Onele Mfeketo, was on Friday let off the hook on a shoplifting charge in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court. Mfeketo was scheduled to go on trial, charged with stealing potato crisps, fruit juice and maize meal from the V&A Waterfront’s Pick ‘n Pay in May last year.
Managers can help South Africa overcome such crippling problems as poverty, racial divisions and resistance to gender equality, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday. He was addressing members of the Black Management Forum at the forum’s 30th-anniversary celebrations held at Emperor’s Palace near Kempton Park.
A 16-year-old initiate died in Libode on Friday, bringing to three the number of deaths from illegal circumcisions since the start of the initiation season last week, the Eastern Cape department of health said. ”He died in the bush at an illegal initiation school,” said spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo.
Hypodermic needles have been designated as dangerous items — as opposed to prohibited articles — on passenger aircraft by the chief of civil aviation. This follows the alleged attempted hijacking of a local passenger airliner last weekend by a man who threatened the crew with a hypodermic syringe, demanding that the plane be diverted to Maputo.
Businessman Patrice Motsepe will be stepping down from his high-level position in business organisations to concentrate on black empowerment. He made the announcement at a media briefing on Friday after the National African Federated Chamber of Commerce’s (Nafcoc) two-day biannual national conference.
An historian is leading a search for a handgun that Nelson Mandela buried at a farm outside Johannesburg before his arrest by apartheid police in 1962, the owner of the site said on Friday. Nicholas Wolpe, the founder of the Liliesleaf Trust said the gun was of tremendous historical value.