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/ 10 February 2006
The government is to reach out to South Africans living in New Zealand to improve links between the two countries, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday. Mbeki met New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Helen Clark, who paid him a courtesy call in Pretoria ahead of the Progressive Governance Summit that both will be attending over the weekend.
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/ 10 February 2006
Anglican teenagers in the Western Cape are almost as sexually active as their peers outside the church, according to a survey reported in the latest issue of the South African Medical Journal. The survey was carried out by researchers from the Cape Town-based Fiklela Aids project and the University of Stellenbosch’s theology department.
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/ 10 February 2006
While negotiations are under way to resolve the impasse at state-held Transnet over its restructuring, three unions will on February 15 march on Parliament to submit a memorandum to Minister of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin and Maria Ramos, CEO of the state-owned entity.
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/ 10 February 2006
The South African government is faced with such an embarrassment of riches in 2006/07 that Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel will be able to cut personal income tax by 1% across the board, reduce corporate income tax by 2%, and possibly halve the rate of retirement tax to 9%, according to Investec Asset Management.
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/ 10 February 2006
The row over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons holds a lesson for ”callous” political parties in the Western Cape, provincial Premier Ebrahim Rasool said on Friday. ”Just like we must calm the flames of the cartoon anger, we must desist from fanning the flames of local identity issues,” he said at the opening of the provincial legislature.
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/ 10 February 2006
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Complaints by Ukhozi FM listeners had led to the withdrawal from its playlist of a song expressing support for former deputy president Jacob Zuma, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) said on Thursday. ”Zuma is facing serious charges of corruption and rape. Nobody is entitled to state an unqualified fact that he is guilty or innocent,” said SABC chief executive Dali Mpofu.
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/ 10 February 2006
A new fuel scheme in place at London’s Heathrow airport was good news for South African Airways as it ended diversions via Milan, the airline said on Thursday. ”It is good news on one hand but, on the other, something they can withdraw at a day’s notice,” SAA flight operations general manager Colin Jordaan said.
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/ 9 February 2006
Five KwaZulu-Natal municipal managers have been asked to repay more than R7-million embezzled during their terms of office. Local government department head Zandile Nyandu said on Thursday they would have to recover the money or face court applications for recovery.
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/ 9 February 2006
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Judge Phineas Mojapelo may preside over the rape trial of Jacob Zuma next week, but the final announcement will only be made on Friday. An official in the Johannesburg High Court registrar’s office said on Thursday that Mojapelo would preside over the trial, but an official in Mojapelo’s chambers said he could not confirm this.
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/ 9 February 2006
South Africa on Thursday said it would reopen a probe into the death of Mozambique’s first president Samora Machel, who was killed in mysterious circumstances in a plane crash during the apartheid era. ”We will deploy some of the best resources we have, human and material, to get to the bottom of that matter,” said Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula.
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/ 9 February 2006
South Africa’s fish stocks are a focal point of the World Wide Fund for Nature in SA’s (WWF SA) agenda for this year. Rob Little, head of conservation, told a press conference the WWF SA believed it would get the government to declare Prince Edward Island a protected area.
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/ 9 February 2006
A probe into alleged hoax e-mails aimed at discrediting senior ruling party figures could be completed by the end of the month, Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils said on Thursday. ”That is the hope and the expectation,” he told reporters at Parliament.
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/ 9 February 2006
The mooted biodiesel plant that is to be the subject of a pre-feasibility study by South African petrochemicals group Sasol and the Central Energy Fund (CEF), could almost triple soyabean demand in South Africa. Sasol and the CEF said the plant would require more than 500 000 tonnes of soya beans to produce 100 000 tonnes of biodiesel per annum.
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/ 9 February 2006
The sound of Muslims singing praises reverberated in Cape Town on Thursday, as an estimated 30 000 people marched in protest and called for a boycott of Danish products. It was the first mass South African response as worldwide condemnation of Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad gathered momentum.
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/ 9 February 2006
A South African veterinary institute is to conduct tests on bird samples from Kenya, Malawi and Sudan as part of international efforts to help track the possible spread of bird flu. Africa is on high alert after the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, which can be fatal to humans, was reported in Nigeria on Wednesday.
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/ 9 February 2006
Trade conditions have deteriorated over the past two months, but business expectations for 2006 remain positive, the South African Chamber of Business said on Thursday. While trade conditions gradually improved up to November 2005, the SA Trade Activity Index had been in negative territory for two consecutive months.
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/ 9 February 2006
British Prime Minister Tony Blair joins a dozen like-minded leaders at a game lodge in South Africa at the weekend to discuss ways to push for fairer trade rules and advance their shared agenda. The summit marks the seventh gathering of centre-left leaders since the club was created in 1999 by Blair and former United States president Bill Clinton.
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/ 9 February 2006
De Beers, the world’s largest diamond producer that is 45% owned by mining giant Anglo American, posted record diamond production of 49-million carats in 2005, according to newly appointed group MD Gareth Penny. De Beers is set to unveil its 2005 annual results on Friday.
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/ 9 February 2006
The South African Weather Service has warned of more rain for the flood-hit provinces of Gauteng and Free State. This came as traffic chaos and reports of cars and people being swept away in Gauteng dominated news reports on Thursday. In the Free State, reports indicated that homes had been flooded, and bridges were under water.
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/ 9 February 2006
Simone du Toit, the 17-year-old world youth shot-put champion, added another South African record to her collection when she won the junior discus with an excellent distance of 53,07m at the 18th annual Noordheuwel Hoërskool Top 10 Schools athletics meeting at the Ruimsig Stadium in Roodepoort on Wednesday afternoon.
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/ 9 February 2006
Cricket South Africa (CSA) will meet the captain and the coach of the South African cricket team next week to discuss the disappointing tour of Australia, and to decide what should be done in the future. CSA chief executive Gerald Majola welcomed the team back to South Africa after a two-and-a-half-month tour of Australia.
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/ 9 February 2006
The rock gods snatched Grammy history from the comeback queen on Wednesday, as perennial favourites U2 took home five trophies while Mariah Carey had to settle for three. ”If you think this is going to go to our head, it’s too late,” U2 frontman Bono said after winning song of the year for Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own.
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/ 9 February 2006
One of the 11 men accused of hijacking cigarette trucks became ”very religious” after a shooting incident that turned him into a paraplegic, a former member of the hijacking gang told the Cape High Court on Wednesday. Vernon Aspeling, who has turned state witness, gave the court a detailed account of the alleged hijackings.
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/ 9 February 2006
The yacht Moquini, which was found this week after being missing for six months, probably capsized, giving its crew little chance of survival. A private search was launched for the yacht when it went missing during the Mauritius-to-Durban yacht race in September last year.
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/ 8 February 2006
The publication of Nova, the four-and-a-half-month-old daily newspaper from the Media24 stable based in Johannesburg, is to be suspended, a statement from Red Ink Publishing on behalf of Nova said on Wednesday. Nova was aimed at young, high-income urban professionals.
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/ 8 February 2006
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South Africans have been called on to join a picket in support of axed deputy president Jacob Zuma at the start of his rape trial in Johannesburg on Monday. The Friends of Jacob Zuma Trust said about 5 000 people are expected to attend the picket outside the Johannesburg High Court.
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/ 8 February 2006
South African President Thabo Mbeki has himself been frank about the failure of his ruling-party-controlled municipalities to deliver services, Cape Town’s Democratic Alliance mayoral candidate Helen Zille said in Parliament on Wednesday as opposition parties commented on Mbeki’s State of the Nation address last week.
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/ 8 February 2006
Construction at the Johannesburg International airport to accommodate the A380 Airbus will be completed by the end of 2008, the Airports Company South Africa said on Wednesday. Chief airports planner Erik Kriel said the massive rehabilitation project, to cost about R10-billion over the next few years, has already begun.
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/ 8 February 2006
South Africa will ban poultry imports from Nigeria following an outbreak there of the deadly strain of the H5N1 bird flu, the first on the continent, the agriculture ministry said on Wednesday — but Pretoria will not step up its precautionary measures as the outbreak remains far from Southern Africa.
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/ 8 February 2006
Bloemfontein Celtic will be hoping to add to their silverware garnered this season when they line-up for the Chailanse Cup in Katlehong this weekend, hot on the heels of their Free State International Cup victory. Celtic overcame the challenge of AG Faarhus of Denmark 3-1 in the first game in Bloemfontein and then defeated Pirates 2-1 in the final.
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/ 8 February 2006
South African banking group Standard Bank has donated R1,2-million to help in the reconstruction of tsunami-ravaged Somalia. That country’s fishing industry was severely devastated by the tsunami that killed thousands and left a trail of destruction in Asia and parts of Africa in December 2004.
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/ 8 February 2006
Readers in the Mail & Guardian Online‘s discussion forums have been sharply divided in the past week regarding the world’s reactions to the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that first appeared in a Danish newspaper last year. The M&G is the only South African newspaper to have printed one of the cartoons.