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/ 29 January 2006
Imagine a microwave-like machine that can wash and dry your smelly sneakers in ten minutes — because one day very soon you might be able to buy one. South African Cheslyn Swart has invented a super-fast washing machine for sports shoes ”out of pure desperation” after losing his job as floor manager in a cellphone warehouse six years ago.
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/ 28 January 2006
Golden Lions and Springbok rugby player Andre Pretorious was arrested and charged with drunken driving after an accident early on Saturday. Pretorious (27) was in Main Road, Bryanston, in Johannesburg, when his vehicle collided with another vehicle just after 1am. He was arrested and charged, as was the other driver.
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/ 28 January 2006
Land worth R2,2-billion has been restored to South Africans who lodged land claims, the Land Claims Commission said on Friday. Tozi Gwanya, Chief Land Claims Commissioner, said out of 79Â 696 land claims lodged nationally, 68Â 730 have been settled — benefiting 186Â 862 households.
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/ 28 January 2006
Former Cabinet minister Chris Heunis died on Friday, Beeld newspaper reported. Heunis had been treated for organ failure in a Somerset West clinic for the past six weeks. Heunis was born in 1927 at Uniondale in the Cape. He went to school in George, where he began practising as an attorney in 1951, and became district leader of the National Party and a member of the town council.
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/ 27 January 2006
The press ombudsman has ruled against the Saturday Star newspaper regarding its report on the gay blood debate that started two weeks ago when the discredited Gay and Lesbian Alliance claimed that it had recruited gay men to donate blood without disclosing their sexual activities.
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/ 27 January 2006
”I thought the president was a bit taller,” one of the 18 recipients of a university scholarship from President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday. This was Akwaowo Akpabio’s only disappointment on a day where he received a laptop and a full scholarship covering the cost of his tuition, books and accommodation for the year.
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/ 27 January 2006
South African President Thabo Mbeki has congratulated the radical Hamas movement for winning this week’s legislative elections in Palestine and also praised the moderate outgoing rulers, Fatah, for accepting the ”freely expressed voice” of the people.
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/ 27 January 2006
Prince Zwelonke Sigcawu was named on Friday as the new king of the Xhosa kingdom at Willowvale in Eastern Cape, the Xhosa royal house said. Sigcawu succeeds his late father, King Xolilizwe Sigcawu, who died in Pretoria last year after suffering a long illness.
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/ 27 January 2006
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The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) urged political parties and the public on Friday to take complaints about the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) election coverage to the SABC itself and to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa), and not to the IEC.
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/ 27 January 2006
The fire that ravaged the lower slopes of Table Mountain’s Camps Bay side since Thursday afternoon was mostly contained by Friday morning, but the wind was key to winning the final battle, officials said. The fire, which broke out at about 4pm on Thursday, has so far destroyed 700ha of vegetation
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/ 27 January 2006
Gauteng social development minister Bob Mabaso has resigned amid allegations of sexual harassment. He said on Friday that he had informed the premier and speaker of the Gauteng legislature that he was stepping down as a member of the executive council, and as a member of the provincial legislature.
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/ 27 January 2006
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The opposition Democratic Alliance says South Africa would save R622-million a year by dissolving district municipalities. Speaking at the Meyerton Golf Club in Midvaal — a municipality controlled by the DA — party leader Tony Leon said the responsibilities of district municipalities should be shifted to local municipalities.
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/ 27 January 2006
The British citizen who allegedly started Thursday’s Table Mountain fire in which a woman died appeared in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Friday morning. The man — who faces charges of culpable homicide and arson — was arrested on Friday for allegedly starting the fires when he dropped a cigarette on the mountain.
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/ 27 January 2006
South Africa’s retail petrol price for all grades of petrol will rise by 14 cents per litre (c/l) from February 1, the Department of Minerals and Energy announced on Friday. The latest changes bring the retail price of a litre of 93 octane petrol in Gauteng to R5,63 a litre and to R5,40 a litre at the coast.
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/ 27 January 2006
Police have appealed to the public not to take short cuts across swollen rivers and streams after a pregnant mother and her daughter were found drowned on Friday morning. ”Many people drown this way,” said spokesperson Superintendent Eugene Opperman, of the North Rand policing area.
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/ 27 January 2006
The Bafana Bafana players currently doing duty in the African Cup of Nations (Afcon) in Egypt suffered the shock defeat of their careers, and it was not only on the field of play. The players expected a groundswell of support for their demands for more pay, probably banking on the entrenched contempt for the South African Football Association.
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/ 27 January 2006
”There is a loud crack as Don Quixote charges the windmill, which he believes to be an adversial, but palpably vulnerable giant,” wrote Miguel de Cervantes in his immortalised account about the lantern-jawed, lanky knight. Ted Dumitru has done his fair share of tilting at windmills since succeeding Stuart Baxter at the helm of Bafana Bafana.
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/ 27 January 2006
Mark Fish says he and other former South Africa stars should choose the next coach of the disgraced national football team. He was reacting to a 2-0 defeat by Tunisia on Thursday which eliminated Bafana Bafana from the 2006 African Nations Cup in Egypt in the first round without securing a point or scoring a goal.
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/ 27 January 2006
The Travelgate scandal is growing. Investigators are working through a new list of 100 names that could implicate senior MPs, including two Cabinet members, members of the whippery and parliamentary office-bearers. New information gleaned by the legislature’s axed finance chief, Harry Charlton, and liquidators indicates that Parliament may be owed as much as R36-million by travel agents and MPs for fraudulent travel claims.
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/ 27 January 2006
Winds of up to 60 knots continued to pound Table Mountain on Friday morning — but Thursday’s inferno was under control by daybreak. Parts of the city remained engulfed in smoke, according to Clarence van Roodt, station commander at Cape Town Regional Control.
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/ 26 January 2006
A 65-year-old British woman out walking with her daughter died in the fire raging across the lower slopes of Table Mountain above Cape Town’s city bowl, according to radio reports. Three German tourists are also reported to be trapped on the mountain, and rescue crews are searching for them.
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/ 26 January 2006
South Africa doubled the amount of its foreign direct investment (FDI) into neighbouring Mozambique in 2005, retaining its position as the single largest foreign investor in the country, South African government news agency BuaNews reported on Thursday.
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/ 26 January 2006
South African gun lobbyists were launching a new organisation on Thursday to press their case that more — not fewer — weapons are needed to curb crime in a country notorious for murders and armed robberies. South Africa’s 45-million people own an estimated 3,7-million licensed guns and many more illegal ones.
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/ 26 January 2006
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The Democratic Alliance has presented a memorandum of grievances to the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) over its coverage of the run-up to the March 1 municipal elections. The DA believes the prospect of free and fair local government elections has been compromised by the SABC’s approach to election coverage.
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/ 26 January 2006
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South Africa’s municipal election on March 1 will be a test of whether the African National Congress (ANC) will be able to retain municipalities which ”turned” to it during two floor-crossing periods since the last national municipal election in December 2000.
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/ 26 January 2006
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Putting a former Travelgate MP on the ANC’s proportional representation list for the Ugu District Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal shows the party is corrupt, the Democratic Alliance said on Thursday. Ruth Ntshulana-Bhengu resigned from Parliament following her conviction in the Travelgate scandal.
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/ 26 January 2006
Former Beaufort West mayor Truman Prince could be expelled from the African National Congress at the weekend, members of the ANC’s Western Cape provincial executive committee said on Thursday. Twenty-three members of the ANC in the Western Cape have already been expelled.
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/ 26 January 2006
Insurance giant Sanlam has sold 13% of the high-voting shares in Naspers, but in such a way as to keep the shares out of the hands of a corporate ”raider”. The shares — known as ”A” shares — have been injected into a new company, provisionally named Wheatfields 221, Naspers said in a media release on Thursday.
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/ 26 January 2006
A fire that started on Saturday was out of control on Baines Kloof Pass in the Western Cape on Thursday morning, having already destroyed about 600ha of plantation and fynbos. ”Our people have been battling right through the night,” said Cape Winelands executive mayor Clarence Johnson.
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/ 26 January 2006
The Warriors lost it on all fronts on Wednesday night as their hopes of staying in contention for the Standard Bank Pro20 cricket series disintegrated with an amateurish display against the Free State Eagles at Sahara Oval St George’s. Sending the visitors into bat, the Warriors bowled with ill discipline to concede 173 runs in 20 overs.
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/ 26 January 2006
Gauteng police Commissioner Perumal Naidoo has appointed a team of senior officers to investigate allegations of racism in the North Rand dog unit. It was reported on Wednesday that a black member allegedly made a written threat to kill three white policemen and a female administrative officer.
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/ 26 January 2006
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Controversy surrounding the compilation of the local government election candidates’ list for the Bophirima region in North West is deepening, media reports said on Wednesday. The Democratic Alliance has formally complained following ”an incident” at the regional electoral offices in Vryburg on Friday.