The African National Congress has misled the nation on the Oilgate scandal. Documents in the possession of the Mail & Guardian make it clear that Imvume Management — the company that channelled R11-million in state oil money to the ANC before the 2004 election — was effectively a front for the ruling party.
Johannesburg is expected to be the 12th-largest city in the world by 2015, Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu said on Thursday. ”Paradoxically, Gauteng is known to be the smallest province geographically,” Sisulu said in a speech prepared for delivery at a Gauteng housing summit.
The Competition Commission on Thursday recommended the approval, under certain conditions, of a merger between Media24 and the owners of the Natal Witness newspaper. The condition is that the shares held by the Natal Witness in Lincroft Books be transferred to Lexshell 496 Investments.
The mass evictions from a building in Bree Street in central Johannesburg are ”utterly barbaric” and unconstitutional, a legal expert said at the site on Thursday afternoon. Stuart Woolfson, of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies, said to evict people without giving them interim shelter is cruel and an abuse of human rights.
Mlindazwe Nkula, a founding member of the Pan Africanist Congress, has died at the age of 76, the PAC announced on Thursday. Nkula, who died on July 8, was also a founder member of the PAC’s armed wing, Poqo, in 1959. After the 1994 elections, he worked at the pension division of the Department of Finance in Pretoria.
The Vredefort Dome, spanning the Free State and the North West provinces, has been declared a World Heritage Site, the Department of Arts and Culture said on Thursday, making it the country’s seventh such site. This decision was made earlier in the day at the 29th World Heritage Committee meeting being held in Durban.
Twenty-one years after losing their sons to the anti-apartheid struggle, 10 families could finally be able to bury their remains, which are being recovered from unmarked graves north of Pretoria. National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi said the remains will be subjected to DNA and forensic testing.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma on Thursday defended South Africa’s policy of quiet diplomacy on Zimbabwe, saying louder lobbying of President Robert Mugabe has not yielded results. Dlamini-Zuma was speaking following talks in London with Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
Leaders of the Group of Eight (G8) nations slammed the door in Africa’s face in Gleneagles last week, just as the continent thought it was on the verge of a breakthrough in new aid and fair trade, ActionAid said on Thursday.
Former South African president Nelson Mandela and United States First Lady Laura Bush campaigned in two South African cities this week against the spread of Aids. Mandela, about to turn 87, urged young people to use condoms and not to have sex prematurely, and recruited four new ambassadors for his 46664 campaign.
New information and pictures of former president Nelson Mandela, his life and his time in prison will be available to South Africa from November.
About 700 illegal occupants were evicted from a Bree Street office building in central Johannesburg on Thursday. The building was pronounced unsafe by the Johannesburg City Council. A municipal spokesperson said between 500 and 700 people were evicted, and those left homeless said they were ”desperate, confused and stranded”.
Premier Soccer League (PSL) CEO Trevor Phillips has come up with a much-needed sprinkling of local soccer matches to ease the six-week fixture ”drought” in January and February as a result of the African Nations Cup tournament. A four-team club tournament is planned, in which three leading overseas clubs will be involved.
A significant proportion of the planned R180-billion in South African government and parastatal spending on infrastructure projects over the next five years is destined to go overseas due to the lack of workers qualified to implement these projects, according to Frater Asset Management analyst Matthew Kreeve.
President Thabo Mbeki’s office was unmoved on Wednesday by assertions that he is to abandon what has been labelled as his approach of quiet diplomacy toward Zimbabwe. ”We have never classified our diplomacy as quiet or loud or whatever,” presidential spokesperson Bheki Khumalo said in Pretoria.
Elisabeth Anderson is passionate about books and reading, which is perhaps no more than one would expect from the head of Cape Town’s Centre for the Book. But she also burns with an almost missionary zeal to infuse this passion into others. And if there is for this champion of the written word a force of darkness that has to be beaten back, it is South Africa’s massive illiteracy rate.
Hollywood actor Wesley Snipes is an ”undesirable person” and his fake South African passport has been confiscated, the Department of Home Affairs said on Wednesday. Spokesperson Nkosana Sibuyi said Snipes slipped into the country undetected on May 23 through the Johannesburg International airport.
About 161 people were injured when two Metrorail trains collided in Soweto on Wednesday evening, Johannesburg Emergency Services spokesperson Malcolm Midgley said. A train ploughed into a stationary train at Merafe station in Naledi following a power failure.
Municipal officials and councillors found guilty of misusing public funds will be strictly dealt with, Matjhabeng executive mayor Serake Leeu warned on Wednesday. He was reacting to a report by the Free State auditor general’s office into alleged irregularities in debt collecting at the Matjhabeng local municipality in 2001 and 2002.
Former president Nelson Mandela is an inspiration to the youth to strive for greatness rather than material success.
The Zimbabwean government’s demolition of houses and policy of forced removals must be stopped, the South African Council of Churches (SACC) said on Wednesday. ”In God’s name, stop Operation Murambatsvina,” the SACC central committee concluded after a two-day meeting held in Johannesburg.
Local coin dealer Investgold may trade in gold coins bearing former president Nelson Mandela’s image for the next six months, the company said in Johannesburg on Wednesday. This follows months of negotiations between Investgold and the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
Edgars Consolidated Stores (Edcon), one of South Africa’s largest retailers, will see its shares split in a ratio of 10 new shares for every one existing Edcon share at the beginning of trade on Monday July 25, the company said on Wednesday. The share split will facilitate a staff empowerment transaction.
The Cape Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry has asked the government for a moratorium to be placed on a new requirement that all companies submit annual returns and pay fees to the Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office.
The man whose body was found encased in concrete in a dustbin in Boksburg over the weekend has been identified, the East Rand police said on Wednesday. Superintendent Andy Pieke said the man was Gisli Thorkellson (54) from Iceland. He had been living in South Africa since 1994.
There were cheers on Wednesday as Simmer & Jack mine bosses got operations going again at the newly acquired Stilfontein mine in the North West. Simmer chairperson Roger Kebble ordered the switching-on of the mills at the metallurgical plant at the mine. ”It has been far too quiet for far too long,” he said.
KwaZulu-Natal’s libraries will feel the effects of a R90-million budget cut in the 2005/06 financial year, but officials in the province’s department of arts, culture and tourism say they are seeking ways to minimise the impact. Department head Bonga Ntanzi said the reprioritisation should at most slow down library purchases.
Three troops of rowdy baboons are harassing Zeerust residents by rummaging for food in rubbish bins in the North West town. The baboons, numbering about 30, first showed up at the Abjaterskop hotel just outside the town a few months ago. The hotel is near the rubbish dump, which has been moved closer to town recently.
A person leapt in panic from the first floor of the Rand International hotel in Bree Street, Johannesburg, on Tuesday afternoon to escape a fire raging through two shops below on street level. ”The fire was not even in that part of the building,” said Johannesburg fire and emergency services spokesperson Malcolm Midgley.
Governments succeed only if they use public service delivery to structure a society in which social justice can prevail, Minister of Public Service and Administration Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi said on Wednesday. She was addressing public-sector managers at the fourth annual Service Delivery Learning Academy in Cape Town.
A syndicate dealing illegally in semi-precious stones and diamonds has been uncovered by the public in South Africa’s big centres, Gauteng police said on Wednesday. The syndicate operated in the Johannesburg area, Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town and other major centres, Superintendent Chris Wilken said.
The quest among the country’s 14 rugby provinces to qualify for the Super 8 of the country’s premier domestic tournament, the Absa Currie Cup, is set to intensify this weekend as teams gain a clearer idea of what they need to do to qualify. In section X, the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks host the Lions at Durban’s Absa Stadium.