The recent burning of train coaches by angry commuters might not be the last, the United Association of South Africa (Uasa) said on Friday. At about 8pm on Thursday, angry commuters burnt eight coaches at Germiston station and set two offices alight, causing damage to the coaches estimated at R60-million.
Evidence is being prepared by William Nkuna’s defence in his trial for the murder of missing police constable Frances Rasuge, after an application for his acquittal was refused on Friday. Judge Ronnie Hendricks ruled against the defence’s application to acquit Nkuna on the grounds that the state had no prima facie evidence linking him to Rasuge’s murder.
The Durban Magistrate’s Court will be closed between 9am and 11am on Tuesday next week until the corruption case against former deputy president Jacob Zuma is completed. Court manager Cyril Mncwabe insisted that Zuma is not getting ”preferential treatment” and that the magistrates have agreed to make up for the lost time.
Pretoria advocate Cezanne Visser had admitted to committing sexually explicit deeds with her then lover Dirk Prinsloo in front of two girls in 2002, the Pretoria High Court heard on Friday. Children’s home manager Martie Booyse told the court Visser had admitted to allegations levelled by the two girls.
President Thabo Mbeki on Friday accused the countries of the North of having the wherewithal, but lacking sufficient will to help end poverty in Africa. He said recent events in the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla on the Moroccan coast have brought into sharp international focus the fact that Spain is facing a new invasion from the South.
There was ”bewilderment and disbelief” when Mail & Guardian cartoonist Zapiro, alias Jonathan Shapiro, heard that he had been chosen as this year’s principal Prince Claus laureate in The Netherlands, with prize money of €100 000 (almost R800 000).
Comedian Marc Lottering plans to become a walking, talking condom dispenser, to ”encourage all Capetonians to protect themselves and to survive”, he said in a statement announcing the launch of an innovative nationwide HIV/Aids pledge campaign this weekend. Pledges will be not for money, but rather for action.
Problems between the Scorpions and the police are among the inevitable challenges of managing a society’s law enforcement, the Institute of Security Studies told the Khampepe Commission on Friday. The commission entered its fifth day of public hearings into the future of the Scorpions, which operates as an elite crime-busting unit.
The massive HIV/Aids campaigns that South African society is constantly bombarded with has no effect on reducing the pandemic’s prevalence rate. This is according to Warren Parker, a researcher and director of the Johannesburg-based Centre for Aids, who was addressing the Gauteng Aids conference in Midrand on Friday morning.
Minister of Education Naledi Pandor expressed horror on Thursday at the disruption of the matric-exam process in the Eastern Cape by teachers involved in a labour dispute. ”We must not allow the Eastern Cape to get the lowest pass rates again,” she reacted to reports that teachers have been prevented from submitting pupils’ year marks.
Mpumalanga Premier Thabang Makwetla’s office on Friday morning vehemently denied reports that he had to be rescued from a stone-throwing crowd in Delmas the previous afternoon. Makwetla was meeting residents on the typhoid outbreak and was seeking to reassure them that the water in the area was safe to drink.
Erotic-club owner Andrew Phillips failed in his Constitutional Court bid to have a restraining on his assets rescinded, the court ruled on Friday. Phillips was arrested in 2000 to face charges under the Sexual Offences Act and a restraining order was placed on his assets.
The chairperson of Skandia Insurance, Bernt Magnusson, has decided to resign from the company’s board due to differences of opinion with fellow board members about Old Mutual’s bid for the firm, AFX reported from Stockholm on Friday. The board of the Swedish insurer was split over the R38-billion bid from Old Mutual.
Strike action by staff of beauty and pharmacy retailer Clicks who are members of the South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union was under way across the country on Friday, although most stores were open, both the union and New Clicks said.
If ever there was doubt that 2005 marked a watershed in South African football, some newspaper stories doing the rounds ahead of this weekend’s qualifier, served as confirmation of how times have changed. In normal times, the words ”World Cup” would have preceded ”qualifier” when referring to the match against the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Democratic Alliance has pulled out of talks to design a framework governing political donations, sparking an attack from the Institute for Democracy in SA (Idasa) over the party’s ”superficial” commitment to democracy, media reports said on Friday.
Brett Kebble’s funeral was reminiscent of the Eighties. With the flag-draped coffin, the national anthem reverberating through St George’s Cathedral and a guard of honour by the African National Congress Youth League, his life ended in a struggle send-off.
An 11-year-old girl was allegedly made to watch acts of oral and simulated sex while spending a weekend with two Pretoria advocates in 2002, the city’s high court heard on Thursday. The girl was allegedly taken into a bathroom by the pair, where Cezanne Visser undressed and told the child to touch her breasts, according to a caregiver at the children’s home the girl attended.
A black T-shirt helped identify William Nkuna as the man withdrawing money from missing constable Frances Rasuge’s account days after she disappeared, the Mmabatho Circuit Court heard on Thursday. The man captured on bank surveillance cameras withdrawing money from Rasuge’s account was Nkuna, investigating officer Captain Tsietsi Mmano said at Nkuna’s trial for her murder.
Marine scientists from South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) were part of a group of international scientists studying a female great white shark, which crossed the Indian Ocean from South Africa to Australia and back within a record-breaking 99 days, DEAT reported on Thursday.
Creditors of DRDGold’s North West operations, including organised labour, have approved the planned R45-million acquisition of the Buffelsfontein Gold Mines by listed mining group Simmer & Jack Mines, Simmers said on Thursday. The approval from creditors comes hours after permission from the Competition Commission was granted for the arrangement.
An indigent burial support programme was needed to cope with the rising number of HIV/Aids deaths in South Africa, a researcher said on Thursday. Shirley Ngwenya, a public health researcher in Johannesburg, was addressing a Gauteng Aids conference at Gallagher Estate.
Claims by two girls of sexual abuse at the hands of two Pretoria advocates were brought into question in the city’s high court on Thursday. Defence counsel questioned a social worker on why certain serious allegations against the pair came to light only months after the girls’ initial complaints.
There is a steady increase in HIV prevalence in South Africa, a professor from the University of KwaZulu-Natal said at the opening of the Gauteng Aids Council conference in Johannesburg on Thursday. The life expectancy in the country would soon plummet from 63 years to 46, Professor Alan Whiteside said.
An immediate investigation by the Department of Health and the Medicines Control Council into the activities of anti-Aids-drug lobbyist Matthias Rath in the Western Cape township of Khayelitsha is needed, says the University of the Witwatersrand. "What he does is actually against the law," said a director at the university.
A top plastic surgeon and his 49-year-old wife were murdered in their bed shortly before midnight on Wednesday, Johannesburg police said. Spokesperson Sanku Tsunke said on Thursday that two armed men entered the house in Mayfair, and fired several shots at Dr Mahomed Anwar Kadwa and his wife, killing both.
With nothing but pride at stake for his team in the Currie Cup, Sharks coach Dick Muir has left out his Springbok pair of John Smit and Percy Montgomery for the return clash against the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein on Saturday. In the first round, it was the Cheetahs who halted the Sharks’ progress with a 29-18 victory in Durban.
The soccer gods in Olympus, if indeed they exist on this lofty perch, on Wednesday appeared to provide a bitterly ironical twist to the much-debated appearance of Shaun Bartlett, Bafana Bafana’s most-capped player and top scorer, in the crunch African Nations Cup qualifier against the Democratic Republic of Congo on Saturday.
While Leigh Matthews’s kidnapper and murderer Donovan Moodley sits behind bars, an expert detective is continuing his search for accomplices he believes helped Moodley, News24 reported on Thursday. He is searching for a possible witness who could shed further light on who looked after Matthews’s body.
Cape High Court Judge President John Hlophe has dismissed as ”utter rubbish” allegations that he racially abused a top white lawyer and told him to go back to The Netherlands. Hlophe said on Wednesday night he had no idea where the allegations came from. ”It is absolute rubbish,” he said.
Scorpions detectives belonged in the police and prosecutors with the National Prosecuting Authority, a commission of inquiry heard on Wednesday. South African Police Service advocate Philip Jacobs said prosecutors should remain true to their role while investigators have to fall under the command and control of the police.
A witness in the sex-crimes trial of two Pretoria advocates was accused in the city’s high court on Wednesday of helping to ”build” a case against the pair. Social worker Marlene Malan was unable to explain why a claim that Cezanne Visser had asked an 11-year-old girl to touch her then-partner Dirk Prinsloo’s private parts came to light months after the initial complaint.