South Africa’s top teams face a hectic soccer schedule that will see at least two-thirds of the domestic league fixtures and four knockout competitions (the Vodacom Challenge, Telkom Charity Cup, SAA Super 8 and Coca-Cola Cup) completed before the Christmas break.
One of the unions involved in the Metrorail pay protest called off its strike on Thursday, with the second waiting for word from its members on whether to continue the strike. The United Association of South Africa said it called off its strike on Thursday morning and asked its members to return to work.
The City of Johannesburg does not have a billing crisis, but a service crisis, its finance department said on Thursday. ”It is not really accurate to say we have a billing crisis, but rather to say we have a customer-service crisis,” said Roland Hunter, acting head of the city’s revenue shared services centre.
When the Springboks take to the field at Absa Stadium in East London on Saturday, there will be far more than just a convincing Test win over the underdog Uruguayans at stake. South Africa are guaranteed to rout a team 11 places below them on the International Rugby Board world rankings.
The government has denied asking the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) to investigate whether any organised force was behind recent service delivery protests. It said in a statement on Thursday this was confirmed at the Cabinet’s fortnightly meeting in Cape Town on Wednesday.
Winter in the northern parts of the country has been very mild, but winter woollies could come in handy from next week, the South African Weather Service said on Thursday. Forecaster Evert Scholtz said average temperatures north of Bloemfontein have been about five degrees Celsius higher for June than normally.
Calm returned to the Putco bus company’s depot in Bloed Street, Pretoria, by Thursday morning after stranded commuters went on the rampage on Wednesday, police said. Commuters infuriated by a bus drivers’ strike, which left them without transport home, torched six Putco buses on Wednesday evening and set fire to a ticket office.
Controversial Beaufort West politician Truman Prince on Wednesday night committed himself to promoting the rights of women after being found guilty by an African National Congress disciplinary committee. The three-person committee sitting in Cape Town suspended Prince’s ANC membership for six months.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has appeared in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court as a witness, testifying against her nephew in a theft case, The Star website reported on Thursday. It said her nephew and former bodyguard, Mzontsundu Madikizela (34), is charged with 97 counts of theft.
The salvage tug Nikolay Chiker was on Thursday morning closing in on the stranded log-carrier Kiperousa, as part of an effort to refloat her, the South African Maritime Safety Authority said. Spokesperson Captain Peter Kroon said the tug would try to refloat her during the high tide on Thursday afternoon.
The body of a 74-year-old woman who disappeared from a ward at the Kimberley hospital this week was found on the hospital grounds on Thursday, Northern Cape health authorities said. Shiwe Selao, Northern Cape minister of health, said hospital personnel found the woman’s body, after an extensive search, early on Thursday morning.
Deputy President Jacob Zuma said on Thursday the media have treated him in a ”grossly unfair” way and used the Schabir Shaik trial for political reasons. Meanwhile, hundreds of youths, participating in a protest against unemployment on Thursday, called for Zuma to become the country’s next president.
Giant Springbok lock Bakkies Botha became the latest withdrawal from Jake White’s injury plagued squad when he was diagnosed with a stress fracture of the right foot on Wednesday. Coach Jake White expressed his concern over the number of overuse injuries sustained before the start of the international season.
If you ask outgoing Kaizer Chiefs coach Ted Dumitru — and a good many South Africans — about the consequences of a North African being appointed to referee the World Cup qualifying game between Bafana Bafana and Ghana, the reply would probably suggest it is further evidence of a dastardly conspiracy against South Africa.
Describing corruption as a ”pervasive and insidious evil”, Durban High Court Judge Hillary Squires sentenced businessman Schabir Shaik to an effective 15-year jail term for fraud and corruption on Wednesday.
Claims by the Congress of South African Trade Unions that the strike by Metrorail workers is predominantly white were rejected by the Federation of Unions of South Africa on Wednesday. Meanwhile, negotiations between unions and Metrorail management were under way in Johannesburg.
The Central Unions have retained South Africa’s fifth Super 14 franchise, South African Rugby Union president Brian van Rooyen confirmed on Wednesday. However, the South-Eastern Cape franchise will play in the 2007 and 2008 Super 14, with the South African team that finishes last in 2006 dropping out to make way for them.
Embattled South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma was welcomed in the National Assembly with a standing ovation by his African National Congress MPs on Wednesday afternoon. Zuma slipped through a side entrance of Parliament from the presidential office, Tuynhuys, evading journalists who were waiting for him.
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Durban businessman Schabir Shaik was sentenced to an effective 15-year jail term for fraud and corruption in the city’s high court on Wednesday. Judge Hillary Squires likened corruption to a ”cancer eating away at the fabric of corporate probity” and said Shaik had ”lost his moral compass”.
The bulk carrier Kiperousa is still aground by the stern off the Eastern Cape coast and is awaiting a salvage tanker from Cape Town, the National Ports Authority (NPA) said on Wednesday. Shortly after 11am on Tuesday, a Mayday signal was put out by the vessel and a massive rescue operation was launched.
The MPs and travel agents charged in connection with Travelgate, the parliamentary travel-voucher scam, will go to trial in the Cape High Court on July 31 next year, if the National Prosecuting Authority has its way. But lawyers for most of the accused said on Wednesday that they intend to fight the move to transfer the case to the high court.
The Scorpions are questioning eight people in connection with an e-mail scam that targeted customers at South African banks last month, a Standard Bank spokesperson said on Wednesday. Erik Larsen said the eight are all South Africans and that there have been no further attacks since the scam was exposed in late May.
South Africa will play its part in reforming the United Nations, President Thabo Mbeki said in Chile on Tuesday. ”We will play our part to ensure that we transform this world body to be a true representative of all the peoples of the world,” he said in Santiago on receiving an honorary degree from the Salon de Diputados.
South Africa’s health minister angered Aids activists on Tuesday when she told a national Aids conference that they should focus on other diseases and reiterated her view that drugs are not the only answer to fighting HIV. ”I hope you have come in such big numbers not just to focus on one ailment but to focus on all of them,” she said.
Springbok coach Jake White on Tuesday used the Border Bulldogs to fine-tune his team ahead of Saturday’s rugby Test against Uruguay. The practice session at the Absa Stadium was watched by an appreciative crowd of young and old, with many fans able to secure autographs from the Springboks after the session.
Three people were injured on Wednesday when an Air Zimbabwe Boeing 737 made an emergency landing at Johannesburg International airport, an Airports Company South Africa spokesperson said. Jacqui O’Sullivan said the injured three were a pregnant woman, an epileptic and a passenger suffering from back pains.
It will be a veritable who’s who of South African soccer when a South African Invitation XI take on the Lucas Radebe All-Stars in a benefit game for the former Bafana Bafana captain and Leeds United stalwart at King’s Park Stadium in Durban on Saturday night. The provisional squads were announced on Tuesday.
Quick-service restaurant group Famous Brands is confident of experiencing enough sustained demand to open 80 new restaurants per year on average across its franchises over the next three years, the company said in its 2005 annual report, published on Tuesday.
Former president Nelson Mandela is leading a last-ditch attempt to save Deputy President Jacob Zuma, the Business Day website reported on Wednesday. It said this came after President Thabo Mbeki said he would announce his decision on Zuma’s fate after his return from a two-day state visit to Chile.
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The Pretoria High Court had a chilling insight into the mind of a killer when a tape recording of the dying moments of his two victims was played as evidence on Tuesday. Judge Johan Els sentenced self-confessed double killer Barend (Ben) Bieldt (61) to 36 years’ imprisonment, of which he effectively has to serve 26 years.
The South African National Blood Service has received two testing instruments as part of efforts to exclude racial profiles from its blood safety procedures, the service said on Tuesday. Last year, the service was ordered by the Department of Health to develop blood safety procedures less reliant on a racial profile.