South Africa

South African film sensation Tsotsi is winning acclaim with its raw and compassionate depiction of Johannesburg’s criminal underworld, where poverty and HIV/Aids are mainstays of existence. The film tells the story of a 19-year-old ”tsotsi”, or thug, who is confronted with the depravity of his life while caring for a baby found in the back seat of a car he hijacked after shooting the mother.

The SA Revenue Service (SARS) this week seized possessions of mining tycoon Roger Kebble, including three of his homes, a 47-foot yacht, luxury cars, a piano, paintings, antiques and firearms, the Sunday Times reports. Kebble was quoted by the paper as saying ”it’s done”, and that he was pleased the matter had been resolved.

Sunday newspapers will not be allowed to publish a controversial cartoon of the prophet Muhammad after a Muslim pressure group was granted a court interdict. The Jamiat-ul Ulama of Transvaal, which sought an interdict against Johncom Media and Independent Newspapers among others, said the cartoon was ”deeply offensive”.

A Cabinet minister and two deputy ministers are among 86 MPs implicated in the Travelgate scandal, media reports said. It said the names of a senior African National Congress MP and a premier were also on the ”A list” drawn up by forensic investigators and senior officials from Parliament.

Nine out of 10 South African teenagers in drug rehabilitation will revert to their addictions within a year, an expert working with young people said on Friday. ”The drug rehabilitation system is not geared towards teenagers,” Quintin van Kerken, spokesperson for Bokatie, a teenage rehabilitation centre in Johannesburg, said.

The South African Football Association (Safa) is fully committed to ensuring the 2010 Fifa World Cup is the best to date — and that South Africa fields a winning team. That was the response from Safa chief executive Raymond Hack to comments made by President Thabo Mbeki in his state of the nation address at the opening of Parliament in Cape Town on Friday.

The Council of Muslim Theologians in South Africa was ”deeply offended” by caricatures of the prophet Muhammad depicting him as a terrorist, which were published in European newspapers. ”The publication of these cartoons demonstrates contempt for the religious beliefs of the Muslim community,” the council said.

The 50 A1 Grand Prix cars attached by court order in Durban earlier this week would be able to leave the country on Friday after a settlement was reached with the insurance company. Insurance brokers Aon South Africa had the vehicles attached earlier this week in connection with R36-million in outstanding premiums.

North West police on Thursday arrested a 20-year-old man for allegedly raping a three-year-old girl in Wolmaransstad. The girl came crying out of a room rented by the alleged rapist at her home on Thursday evening, Captain Afjee Botma said. A relative then examined the child and took her to a clinic.

Fifty A1 Grand Prix cars were attached by court order at the Durban International Airport and were unable to leave the country on Thursday night, The Star newspaper reported on Friday. This followed a wrangle between their international owners and a local insurance company, the paper said.

The head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, the oldest of African churches, is scheduled to visit South Africa for four days next week. ”His Holiness Pope Shenouda III, Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of Saint Mark … is the only African Pope and 117th in the Apostolic succession of Saint Mark,” the Egyptian embassy said.

Two-thirds of South Africans believe the country is going in the right direction and nearly 80% are satisfied with the performance of President Thabo Mbeki, a survey revealed on Thursday. Only slightly more than four out of every 10 think Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka is doing good work.

The United Nations food agency needs -million to feed up to 10-million people in Southern Africa, hit by successive years of drought and some of the world’s highest HIV/Aids infection rates, a UN envoy said on Thursday. ”This is the place in the world where the issues are the most intense and the most people are at risk,” said James Morris.

Nobody was arrested or taken into custody when police raided two residences in Johannesburg early on Wednesday in connection with the Brett Kebble murder, police said. Earlier, radio reports had said that an advertising man — identified as the Kebble hit man — and his girlfriend had been questioned, and that the man had been arrested.