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/ 18 January 2006
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The manner in which the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and other state organs operate needs to be reviewed, former deputy president Jacob Zuma said on Wednesday. Again indicating political motives behind the NPA action against him, Zuma said a review of state organs might be needed.
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/ 18 January 2006
The government asked the Durban High Court on Wednesday to seize R34-million in assets from Schabir Shaik, the former financial adviser of dismissed deputy president Jacob Zuma. Lawyers and journalists crowded the court room on Wednesday, but Shaik did not attend the hearing, radio reports said.
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/ 18 January 2006
Motorists were contacting the Johannesburg metro police’s new SMS information service at the rate of one a second at times on Wednesday to find out whether there were any unpaid fines or warrants of arrest against them. ”It’s like New Year’s Eve. It’s going crazy,” said metro police spokesperson Edna Mamoyane.
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/ 18 January 2006
The ruling African National Congress should amend its municipal councillors’ oath to include a penalty for non-compliance, the opposition Democratic Alliance said on Wednesday. Failure to do so renders the ANC’s stated commitment to fighting corruption, maladministration and mismanagement mere rhetoric, chief whip Douglas Gibson told reporters in Cape Town.
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/ 18 January 2006
A woman arrested for abandoning her newborn baby near the Hennenman railway station would remain in custody until her next court appearance at the end of the month, Free State police said on Wednesday. She appeared briefly in the Hennenman Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday for child neglect and would appear again on January 30, Captain Stephen Thakeng said.
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/ 18 January 2006
The tripartite alliance of the ruling African National Congress, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party in the North West is in tatters ahead of the municipal elections, Cosatu said on Wednesday. The SACP and Cosatu were ”marginalised from the alliance processes of drawing up candidate lists”.
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/ 18 January 2006
An Eastern Cape high school is to add fishing to its formal syllabus this year, the Dispatch reported on its website on Wednesday. John Amoah, principal of Inkwenkwezi High School in NU6 in Mdanstane, said he was offered a donation of 100 fishing rods in December, and at first he had no idea what to do with the rods.
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/ 18 January 2006
Charges of misconduct could be brought against 23 Eastern Cape school principals for inflating their pupil numbers, a Department of Education spokesperson said on Wednesday. ”This has been an ongoing problem in our province,” said Loyiso Pulumani.
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/ 18 January 2006
American scientist Stuart Poss has discovered a new species of fish — in a bottle at the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity in Grahamstown, IOL reported on Wednesday. The waspfish, a relative of the venomous stonefish and scorpionfish, was found in 1994 off the coast of KwaZulu-Natal.
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/ 18 January 2006
Police and navy divers were still combing an area off Cape Point on Wednesday afternoon for the body of a trainee pilot who plunged to his death in a helicopter crash. The man was flying alone at about 10.30am on Tuesday when witnesses saw his Robinson R22 helicopter crash into the sea.
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/ 18 January 2006
The public protector confirmed on Wednesday it had received complaints from two opposition parties about Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka’s state-funded holiday. The requests for the matter to be investigated came from the Democratic Alliance and the Freedom Front Plus.
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/ 18 January 2006
South African Rugby Union president Brian van Rooyen received a stay of execution on Wednesday afternoon when Judge Edwin King resigned as head of an inquiry to investigate corporate mismanagement by Van Rooyen. King cited personal reasons as well as SA Rugby dragging its feet with proceedings.
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/ 18 January 2006
Former South African president FW de Klerk and former deputy president Jacob Zuma are to be among honoured guests at the official opening of Parliament and the State of the Nation address. This emerged at a press conference at Parliament on Wednesday addressed by the presiding officers.
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/ 18 January 2006
The South African men’s hockey team bounced back from Monday’s embarrassing 8-0 defeat to England to draw 2-2 with Ireland in the first Test at the Tshwane University of Technology on Tuesday night. But there was still disappointment as the South Africans squandered what looked to be a match-winning 2-0 lead.
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/ 18 January 2006
The fight against cancer is the most important thing in Lance Armstrong’s life. The legendary seven times winner of the Tour de France said in Johannesburg on Wednesday that if he had to choose between his personal battle with cancer, and winning the Tour de France, he would choose cancer.
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/ 18 January 2006
e.tv has decided against the airing of an interview with former state president PW Botha, news editor Patrick Conroy said on Tuesday. ”We have seen the interview and have decided not to use it,” Conroy said of the interview conducted by former SA Broadcasting Corporation journalist Cliff Saunders.
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/ 18 January 2006
The Presidency has denied being inconsistent in its explanations on Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka’s state-funded holiday trip to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). ”The consistent theme has been that she was on vacation,” said presidential spokesperson Murphy Morobe on Wednesday.
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/ 18 January 2006
Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka avoided any reference on Tuesday to her controversial state-funded holiday to the United Arab Emirates in December. ”I don’t want to say too much. Everything that you say will be used against you,” she joked about the furore that media reports about her R700 000 flight on a South African Air Force jet had caused.
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/ 17 January 2006
The South African National Blood Service is to initiate discussions with interested parties to resolve the challenges posed by its policy of excluding gay male donors, the health department said on Tuesday. The decision came after a meeting between the health department and the SANBS in Johannesburg on Tuesday morning.
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/ 17 January 2006
Workers called to clean up blood were witnesses to the murder of three employees of Protea Dry Cleaners, the Vereeniging Magistrate’s Court heard on Tuesday. Opposing a bail application by the four accused, investigating officer Inspector Sello Molapisi said he believed the state had a strong case.
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/ 17 January 2006
Biotechnology research and development in South Africa should not be hampered by onerous and unnecessary safety checks, members of Parliament’s agriculture and land affairs committee heard on Tuesday. University of Pretoria honorary Professor Jocelyn Webster said it only very large companies or public institutions in wealthy countries that could afford all the biosafety assessments required.
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/ 17 January 2006
No laws had been broken through Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka’s holiday trip to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in December, the presidency said on Tuesday. Spokesperson Murphy Morobe dismissed as ”preposterous” the view that Mlambo-Ngcuka had abused her power by taking Thuthukile Mazibuko-Skweyiya — wife of Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya — with her on the trip.
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/ 17 January 2006
Johannesburg residents should be allowed to use boom or electric gates to protect themselves from crime, which remains a national crisis, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said on Tuesday. He was addressing residents who live in a cul-de-sac at Storms Place in Gallo Manor.
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/ 17 January 2006
A policy for the prosecution of apartheid-era political crimes was unveiled by the National Prosecuting Authority in Cape Town on Tuesday. It sets out directives for the prosecution of individuals denied amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and those who declined to seek such indemnity.
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/ 17 January 2006
The Democratic Alliance and the Freedom Front Plus have asked Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana to probe Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka’s recent trip to the United Arab Emirates. The parties want Mushwana to investigate possible violations of the Executive Members Ethics Act by the deputy president.
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/ 17 January 2006
The discredited Gay and Lesbian Alliance’s (GLA) alleged mass defiance of a ban on blood from gay male donors could still not be confirmed by the South African National Blood Service on Tuesday. Gay community organisations and spokespersons have slammed the GLA as a fake organisation.
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/ 17 January 2006
A newborn baby girl found naked and abandoned near the Hennenman train station in the northern Free State over the weekend had been sexually assaulted, local police said on Tuesday. Constable Kiddy Kitime said the baby was found at 6.45pm on Sunday and taken to the Bongani Hospital for treatment.
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/ 17 January 2006
The South African canoeing community is mourning the death of pioneering black paddler Robert Lembethe, who passed away at the weekend after a short illness. Lembethe (56) died a week before the Hansa Powerade Dusi marathon, the race that attracted him to the sport in the early Eighties.
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/ 17 January 2006
Defending champions South Africa top the seedings in the 2006 International Rugby Board (IRB) Under-21 World Championship to be played in France from June 9 to 25. The IRB said on Monday South Africa will be locking horns with Argentina, Georgia and France during the pool stages of the tournament.
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/ 17 January 2006
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) on Tuesday said the latest allegations regarding the air-force flight of Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka when she travelled to the United Arab Emirates reinforce its call for a new rule book to be drafted to regulate the use of public facilities by government ministers.
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/ 17 January 2006
More than 50 African human rights and civil society groups have written to the continent’s leaders expressing alarm at Sudan’s bid to chair the African Union despite continued violence in its western Darfur region. The groups warned such a move could destroy efforts to resolve a conflict that has killed an estimated 180 000 people.
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/ 17 January 2006
Zimbabwean police have launched a manhunt for High Court Judge Benjamin Paradza who was convicted of corruption last week, that country’s Herald newspaper reported on Tuesday. Its website said indications are that the fugitive judge skipped the country to London via South Africa soon after he was convicted last week.