It exceeded all Stuart Baxter’s expectations as Bafana Bafana secured one of their most auspicious scalps since returning to the international soccer fold in 1992 by beating the world’s sixth-ranked Mexico 2-1 with a makeshift combination in the Concacaf Gold Cup clash on the outskirts of Los Angeles on Friday night.
They had great expectations, but Africans mainly are disappointed by the crumbs that fell from the table of the Group of Eight (G8) powerful nations this week. The G8 leaders’ announcement of an aid package to Africa — including a doubling of aid to -billion — is not seen as enough to alleviate the continent’s grinding poverty.
No South Africans have been confirmed killed in the bomb blasts in London on Thursday, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Saturday. Unconfirmed reports earlier on Saturday said that four South Africans had been killed in the blasts. The rush-hour attacks on London’s transport system killed at least 50 people.
The salaries of public office-bearers should be increased by 5,75% for the 2005/06 financial year, a special commission proposed on Friday. The South African Reserve Bank’s inflation target was one of the factors taken into consideration in making its recommendation, the commission said in a statement.
Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana is expected to report to Parliament on his probe into the so-called Oilgate affair before month-end, his office said on Friday. The investigation, into claims about the alleged misuse of public money involving state oil company PetroSA, should be concluded in the next two to three weeks, a spokesperson said.
Cape Town taximen have been deliberately sabotaging the city’s rail services in order to gain customers, the commission of inquiry into violence in the Western Cape minibus taxi industry heard on Friday. Metrorail’s regional manager handed the commission a document he said contained ”very sensitive information” on the issue.
The African National Congress’s policy-making body had been correct to express its support for former deputy president Jacob Zuma "during these trying and painful times", wrote President Thabo Mbeki in his internet letter on Friday. "[Zuma] should have an opportunity to defend himself against whatever accusations have been made against him," said Mbeki.
Following the bombings in London on Thursday, in which more than 50 people died and about 700 were injured, Johannesburg residents can rest assured that there are preventative measures in place in the city if ever it should experience a sudden urban terror attack, a police spokesperson told the Mail & Guardian Online on Friday.
Eight South Africans suspected of involvement in a planned coup d’état in Equatorial Guinea had their trial set down on Friday for next year in the Pretoria Regional Court. During a brief appearance in the morning, their trial date was set for January 16 to February 3.
Thousands of glass workers went on a nationwide strike on Friday after the failure of wage negotiations with their employers. A spokesperson for the General Industries Workers’ Union of South Africa said between 6 000 and 7 000 glass workers went on strike from 6am.
Two South Africans were among the 700 people injured in Thursday’s bomb blasts in London, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Friday. One was in a critical condition, the other seriously injured, spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said. The identities of the man and woman cannot be released until their families have been informed.
Stopping HIV/Aids starts with knowing you have it, Global Business Coalition chief executive Richard Holbrooke said on Thursday. The former Clinton-era United States Cabinet member and ambassador to the United Nations is in South Africa to encourage local business to do more to save lives.
One person was killed and 61 people were injured when a bus overturned on the Mabopane highway on Friday morning, Tshwane metro police reported. Meanwhile, a passenger was killed and two people seriously injured in an accident involving four trucks on the R72 near Port Alfred on Friday morning.
”Every day and night I battle with my emotions about whether Bafana Bafana should qualify for the 2006 World Cup in Germany next year. I am a staunch supporter of Bafana Bafana … But I don’t want to cry any more. I believe the team has lost all of its old traits,” writes Ntuthuko Maphumulo.
South Africa will host the football World Cup five years from now. But, looking at what Germany has achieved a full year before it hosts the 2006 event, we have to meet a number of challenges urgently. The Germans have been preparing for the tournament for the past four years and that was evident during the Confederations Cup.
Due to the "tremendous response" by taxpayers to meet Friday’s 2005 tax return deadline, offices of the South African Revenue Service will open countrywide on Saturday from 8am to 12.30pm in order to accept returns, Sars said in a statement on Thursday. About two million taxpayers had submitted their tax returns by Thursday.
The Mail & Guardian has learned that South African involvement in the Iraqi Oil for Food programme, administered by the United Nations between 1996 and 2003, has become one area of focus for investigators probing massive international abuse of the programme.
The Zimbabwean government put the extent of displacement under its urban slum-clearance campaign at 130 000 families on Wednesday, saying it will not re-accommodate them all. Minister counsellor in the Zimbabwean embassy Pritchard Zhou told a seminar in Pretoria the operation has ”won praise countrywide”.
Former president Nelson Mandela will not have a high-profile birthday — on July 18 — this year, the Nelson Mandela Foundation said on Thursday.
Soccer player Benedict Vilakazi, who is accused of raping a 15-year-old girl, was granted bail of R1 000 in the Johannesburg Regional Court on Thursday afternoon. This follows an application by his legal team to have his bail reinstated after magistrate Naomi Manaka earlier revoked it when he failed to appear before her at 8.30am.
More than 10-million people in Southern Africa will need humanitarian assistance in the coming year because of poor agricultural production, food agencies said on Thursday. Following a recent crop assessment it was found that Lesotho, Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Swaziland are not able to grow enough food to meet domestic needs.
Barclays is looking forward to creating Africa’s ”pre-eminent bank” after the sanctioning of on Thursday of its R33-billion takeover bid for Absa. Judge Mohamed Jajbhay gave the go-ahead for deal on Thursday morning. He first dismissed an application by the human rights group Jubilee SA to postpone the sanctioning of the deal.
i capital, a leading independent investment and advisory company, announced on Thursday it had concluded a broad-based empowerment (BEE) transaction with Sceptre Holdings and the Disability Empowerment Concerns Trust. The transaction results in these two BEE shareholders acquiring a 25,01% shareholding in i capital.
Believe it or not — as Ripley would have chronicled it — another Bafana Bafana player has ”vanished” on the hazardous road to Los Angeles for Concacaf’s Gold Cup tournament. Bafana general manager Stanley ”Screamer” Tshabalala on Wednesday revealed that Thando Mngomeni has ”disappeared from the face of the earth”.
The remains of five people who disappeared during apartheid-era political violence will be returned to their families in a ceremony at the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) office in Pretoria on Sunday. ”The NPA have been assisted in this task by forensic experts from Argentina,” said Khulumani Support Group chairperson Marjorie Jobson.
A 20-year-old rape suspect committed suicide by cutting his throat with an electric grinder at the Tsolo police station in the Eastern Cape, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported on Wednesday. A police official said the rape suspect grabbed the grinder, an exhibit in another case, from the charge office and connected it to a power point.
South Africa has to move on from its apartheid history and forge ahead with democracy despite the pain it often causes, Johannesburg High Court Judge Mohamed Jajbhay said on Wednesday. He was addressing human rights activists opposing the Absa takeover bid by Barclays Bank.
The government should declare a ”state of emergency” in the Stilfontein area as thousands of miners and their families are going hungry, the trade union Solidarity said on Wednesday. Earlier in the day, thousands of unhappy miners from two liquidated mines in Stilfontein in the North West and their families blocked the N12 near the town.
The head of the commission into Western Cape taxi violence clashed on Wednesday with a senior legal adviser to the City of Cape Town on the issue of witness safety. The confrontation took place in the wake of the slaying at the weekend of a prominent figure in the taxi industry, who only days earlier had testified to the commission.
Thousands of workers in the metal and engineering industries will start protests on Thursday, building up to a full-scale strike on July 12, trade union Solidarity said on Wednesday. The protests are over a wage dispute with employees, who are offering 1% less than the amount demanded by the union.
The rape case against Orlando Pirates player Benedict ”Tso” Vilakazi was postponed on Wednesday for a day by the Johannesburg Regional Court. This was after his lawyers asked for time to bring an urgent application at the high court to review the regional court’s decision to go ahead with the trial.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party have resolved their differences with the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) over news coverage of labour issues at a meeting in Johannesburg on Wednesday.