The Blue Bulls and the Natal Sharks renew their long-standing rivalry when they meet in an Absa Currie Cup qualifying competition clash at Securicor Loftus in Pretoria on Friday night. The result will have no bearing on the outcome of the qualifying stage, with both teams having already qualified for the Super 8 stage.
The Inkatha Freedom Party’s support base is ”eroding” in urban areas but still strong in rural KwaZulu-Natal where people believe it represents the interests of the Zulu people, according to a political analyst. ”There are two factions … one loyal to the leadership of Mangosuthu Buthelezi and another pressing for democratisation,” he said.
A total of 131 prisoners released on a special remission of sentence 10 weeks ago have been rearrested, Minister of Correctional Services Ngconde Balfour said on Thursday. ”We are going to interview them to see where it went wrong. We need to give them that second chance,” the minister said.
The Johannesburg High Court on Thursday ordered the Johannesburg City Council to pay at least R130-million in arrears to two pension funds, a legal firm said. ”This must be one of the biggest pension fund cases this country has ever seen,” said a spokesperson for Routledge Modise Moss Morris attorneys.
The Cabinet’s unconditional endorsement of Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana’s report into the so-called Oilgate scandal comes as no surprise, the Democratic Alliance said on Thursday. Mushwana said in his report that he found no evidence of wrongdoing in the Oilgate scandal.
Western Cape police are investigating necrophilia and the illegal amputation of body parts at the Salt River mortuary. Superintendent Rian Pool said a pathologist took fluid and tissue samples from a body as a ”precautionary measure” to determine whether the corpse had been sexually violated after death.
A Pretoria cosmetic surgeon has been found guilty of unprofessional conduct for performing unnecessary surgery on a patient and leaving her scarred, the Health Professions Council of South Africa said on Thursday. The complaint related to two cosmetic eye operation Jacobus Francois Scholtz performed.
Financial-services groups Old Mutual and Nedbank on Thursday announced one of South Africa’s biggest information and communications technology (ICT) deals to date, which will enable both companies to achieve collectively cost savings of more than R1-billion over the next five years.
Nedbank, one South Africa’s top four commercial banks, has reported a 44,5% rise in its headline earnings per share for the six months to the end of June to 354 cents, from 245 cents a year earlier. The group declared an interim dividend of 105 cents per share, representing a 139% increase on the 44 cents declared at the halfway stage last year.
A Cape Town magistrate on Thursday authorised a warrant of arrest for Pan Africanist Congress leader Motsoko Pheko. The move followed a request by Bernhard Kurz, the attorney acting for the liquidators of Star Travel, one of the companies involved in the parliamentary travelgate saga.
The Department of Water Affairs and Forestry and the Namibian government are studying the possibility of building a dam on the lower Orange River. Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry Buyelwa Sonjica said that the proposed dam would ensure a stable supply of water to the Northern Cape in the future.
Convicted killer Donovan Moodley will remain behind bars until he is 65, the Johannesburg High Court ruled on Thursday. Judge Joop Labuschagne sentenced the 25-year-old to life imprisonment for the murder of university student Leigh Matthews.
Wage talks between the SA Revenue Service (Sars) and the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union deadlocked on Wednesday. Sars spokesperson Tasneem Carrim said the two parties held a formal dispute meeting between Sars management, the union and an independent third party.
The so-called Oilgate scandal has been laid to rest as it relates to the government, government communications head Joel Netshitenzhe said on Wednesday. He said the Cabinet noted and accepted Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana’s report on the matter, in which Mushwana said he found no evidence of wrongdoing in the Oilgate matter.
The Cabinet has confirmed South Africa’s willingness, in principle, to assist Zimbabwe, including providing a loan facility in relation to Zimbabwe’s obligations to the International Monetary Fund. Such assistance should benefit the Zimbabwean people as a whole, said government communications head Joel Netshitenzhe.
The Cabinet on Wednesday approved the establishment of the National Water Resource Infrastructure Agency, aimed at ensuring long-term water security for South Africa. The agency will take responsibility for developing and operating South Africa’s major national dams and water-transfer schemes.
The 250-million-year-old galesaurus on Annelise Crean’s workbench at the South African Museum is a superbly prepared fossil, its tracery of delicate off-white bones standing out from a matrix of fine grey sandstone. But where the dusty eye sockets should be, there is a surprise: the creature has protuberant, glistening and definitely not prehistoric brown eyeballs.
The Springbok management breathed a collective sigh of relief as veteran loosehead prop Os du Randt passed a fitness test and was included in the Bok starting line-up announced by coach Jake White on Wednesday for their Tri-Nations rugby match against the All Blacks at Newlands on Saturday.
Squatters in Marlboro, Johannesburg, will not be satisfied with council offers of temporary accommodation unless they are told where it is and are able to inspect it. This emerged on Wednesday at the meeting of area leaders of the squatters following talks with council officials. Violence flared again in Marlboro on Wednesday.
Police offered a R50 000 reward on Wednesday for information leading to the arrest of William Nkuna, accused of the murder of missing police Constable Francis Rasuge. Nkuna’s trial was supposed to have started on Monday at the Mmabatho Circuit Court sitting in Ga-Rankuwa, but he failed to arrive.
About 125 Gauteng bus operators refused to run their buses on Wednesday, leaving thousands of pupils stranded, the South African Bus Operators’ Association said. The operators demand 35c/km for each child transported, while the Gauteng education department is offering 25c/km per child.
The police are searching for a man who was seen with a little girl shortly before she was strangled in Sundimbili in northern KwaZulu-Natal on Tuesday. Police spokesperson Captain Jay Naicker said according to reports the girl was last seen with a man who was visiting his family in the area.
World Cup-winning loosehead prop Os du Randt could miss the Springboks’ crunch Vodacom Tri-Nations Test against New Zealand this weekend after picking up a knock during a training session at Bishops College on Tuesday afternoon. Du Randt was struck down during a move early in the session on Tuesday.
Food of gluttonous proportions was served to all and sundry at this week’s function to launch the 2005/06 Premier Soccer League (PSL), but the soccer programme itself starts with something more in line of an aperitif when Ajax Cape Town entertain Jomo Cosmos at Newlands Stadium in Cape Town on Wednesday night.
Police on Tuesday seized more documents in their continuing probe into claims of tender irregularities in Cape Town, this time from offices in the Civic Centre. Last week detectives raided the offices of procurement director Mabela Satekge in Wale Street in the city centre, as part of what mayoral spokesperson Mandla Tyala said was an investigation into security tenders awarded by the city.
Johannesburg’s city council was helpless when it came to so-called building hijackings and all it could do was offer advice, a city spokesperson said on Tuesday. Inner City Task Force spokesperson Roopa Singh said it was up to the owners to report the illegal occupation of their properties to the police.
About 80 000 mineworkers will down tools on Sunday night for the first strike in the gold sector since 1987, the National Union of Mineworkers said on Tuesday. This came after at least two unions in the gold industry on Tuesday afternoon received strike notices from the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration.
Valuable South African cultural treasures, including art works, firearms, furniture and archaeological artefacts, are being smuggled out of the country for foreign collectors. According to South African Heritage Resources CEO Phakamani Buthelezi, the value of objects taken ”ranges between R500 to R50 000, even to R100 000”.
A Durban North couple alleged to have conned investors out of R20-million to R25-million were arrested by the commercial crime unit on Tuesday afternoon. The unit’s Captain Dean Misra said the investigation began a year-and-a-half ago when the Financial Services Board lodged a complaint against the couple.
The South African Municipal Workers’ Union will embark on another strike next week, the union said on Tuesday. Meanwhile, figures gleaned from a reply in Parliament from the minister of provincial and local government show that the average municipal manager in South Africa’s 47 district municipalities earns R642Â 376 a year.
Squatters in Marlboro, Johannesburg, have vowed to fight any new attempts to evict them from the abandoned factories where they have lived in squalor for as long as seven years. They held off the sheriff’s ”Red Ants” workers on Monday with burning barricades at the intersections of roads leading to the area.
New statistics involving gun-related cases handled by emergency service Netcare 911 show a decline over recent months, the company said on Tuesday. ”It may well that stronger policing and gun laws in South Africa are having an effect on reducing the number of guns and gun-related violence in the country,” said Netcare 911’s CEO.