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/ 21 October 2004
Health and beauty retailer New Clicks Holdings is confident that its model for including pharmacy dispensaries and related health services across its Clicks chain of stores will prove profitable, even if the current regulations fixing dispensing fees and establishing single exit prices for medicines prove to be permanent.
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/ 20 October 2004
A group of handicapped South Africans has threatened legal action against a local airline for charging extra fees to passengers who need assistance boarding, an MP said on Wednesday. The South African-based Nationwide Airlines will answer to complaints of discrimination before the Equality Court, a Cape Town-based tribunal.
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/ 20 October 2004
South Africa’s employment rate has grown 3% over the past four quarters but that is not enough to halve unemployment by 2010, said economist Mike Schussler in Pretoria on Wednesday. Addressing journalists at a Solidarity union meeting, Schussler nevertheless painted a rosy picture of the South African economy.
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/ 20 October 2004
A school bus was torn open in a freak accident on a Johannesburg highway on Wednesday, killing one person and injuring 42, many of them children. The bus was taking the children back to Grayston Preparatory after a school outing when its wheel got caught in an open storm-water drain.
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/ 20 October 2004
Conservationists, scientists and animal-rights campaigners from around Southern Africa gathered on Wednesday at the start of a three-day conference to discuss ways of controlling the region’s expanding elephant population. Debate around the elephants has been characterised by sharply conflicting views and high emotion.
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/ 20 October 2004
Former Bela-Bela farmer Deon Crous told the Boeremag treason trial on Wednesday how he was brought in to drive rented cars — in which bombs were to be planted — from Johannesburg International airport. Crous also said he had built petrol bombs on the instructions of the accused Herman van Rooyen.
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/ 20 October 2004
Minister of Communications Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri announced on Wednesday the names of two of the three potential bidders for the unallocated equity in the second national telephone operator (SNO). They are Old Mutual Asset Managers and Tata Africa Holding.
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/ 20 October 2004
French arms-company executive Alain Thetard had an explosive temper and threw things at his staff, the Durban High Court heard on Wednesday. This was testimony from the fourth witness to be called in the Schabir Shaik fraud and corruption trial.
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/ 20 October 2004
New data suggest economic activity has increased, but this may not translate directly into similar increases in the gross domestic product (GDP), Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said in Pretoria on Wednesday. Criticised for large revision figures of final GDP results, Stats SA admitted they are not on par with global adjustments to such figures.
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/ 20 October 2004
All Southern African countries need to outlaw money laundering because it is costing their economies several billion dollars a year, says a specialist researcher. Angola, Malawi and Lesotho are some of the countries in the region that still do not have in place legislation criminalising money laundering.
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/ 20 October 2004
Absa Corporate and Merchant Bank, corporate advisers to Matlapeng Strategic Investments, has assisted with the acquisition of a 25% shareholding in the share capital of Raubex Construction. The transaction, which was closed on October 2, gives Matlapeng the opportunity to expand on Raubex’s national presence in the civil construction industry.
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/ 19 October 2004
Although ”elements” of al-Qaeda have been detected in South Africa, the terrorist organisation has established no networks here, Minister of Intelligence Ronnie Kasrils said on Tuesday. Speaking at a Cape Town Press Club luncheon, he described al-Qaeda as ”a huge international threat”.
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/ 19 October 2004
An estimated R13-billion will have to spent by the government to complete land restitution in South Africa, Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Thoko Didiza said on Tuesday. She was speaking to reporters after attending the commercial agriculture working group meeting at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.
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/ 19 October 2004
Deputy President Jacob Zuma gently chided the religious on Tuesday for not doing enough to challenge the portrayal of violence and sex in the media. ”There is something wrong in society if religious people are afraid to challenge things,” said Zuma, delivering the inaugural Desmond Tutu Peace Lecture.
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/ 19 October 2004
The four convicted murderers of the Van der Merwe family, two of whom were also convicted of rape, were sentenced to life imprisonment in the Circuit High Court in Secunda, Mpumalanga, on Tuesday. The men were also sentenced for other crimes, amounting to 240 years’ imprisonment — but the sentences will run concurrently.
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/ 19 October 2004
South African joint venture brandhouse, newly formed between Diageo, Heineken and Namibia Breweries, is notching up success in the local spirit-cooler sector through the recent launch of two South African-designed brand innovations — Smirnoff Triple Spin and Archers Aqua.
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/ 19 October 2004
The South African Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed on Tuesday that 14 South African fishermen had been arrested overnight in Zimbabwe and then released. Reports from Zimbabwe said 26 white campers were arrested at a government-run camp site after failing to pay camping fees in foreign currency.
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/ 19 October 2004
Listed retailer Pick ‘n Pay has managed the current South African environment of very low inflation and deflation in some categories by improving its operational efficiencies as well as encouraging higher sales volumes, reflected in an improvement in its operating profit margin to 2,6% from 2,4% a year earlier.
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/ 19 October 2004
Schabir Shaik’s comments about the Heath Investigating Unit to arms-company head Alain Thetard were in the context of a general discussion about other contractors and their suspicions about these contractors, his advocate told the Durban High Court on Tuesday.
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/ 18 October 2004
The Pharmaceutical Society of South Africa has welcomed the introduction of professional service fees that may be levied by pharmacists. The new fees mean pharmacists may now charge up to R60 for their ”time and skill” in preparing certain products, and as much as R24 for a ”consultation” with a customer.
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/ 18 October 2004
An Anglican church commission’s report calling for a halt to the public blessing of same-sex relationships offers a ”win-win” opportunity, the Archbishop of Cape Town, Njongonkulu Ndungane, said on Monday. The report also calls for no more actively gay bishops and criticises bishops who have acted in areas outside their jurisdiction.
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/ 18 October 2004
Fraud and corruption accused Schabir Shaik’s former assistant Bianca Singh told the Durban High Court on Monday she had to sign a confidentiality clause on leaving his employ because she knew too much about his relationship with Deputy President Jacob Zuma.
Shaik’s assistant spills the beans
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/ 18 October 2004
Sectoral education and training authorities (Setas) are here to stay, Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana said on Monday about the oft-criticised learning institutions. ”We are not going to scrap the Setas. On the contrary, we are going to do what we can to strengthen them,” Mdladlana said.
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/ 18 October 2004
The South African government has taken "strong exception" to reported comments attributed to the interim Haitian Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, accusing President Thabo Mbeki of failing to respect international law by allegedly "allowing a person in his territory to organise violence in another country".
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=123896">’Mbeki not respecting international law'</a>
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/ 18 October 2004
The African Christian Democratic Party has called on President Thabo Mbeki to respond to claims he is breaking international law by allowing deposed Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide to incite violence, from South Africa, among his followers in his homeland. The Democratic Alliance also called on Mbeki to respond to the allegations.
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/ 18 October 2004
Rough seas and bad weather on Monday were preventing the salvage of the BBC China, which ran aground at Grosvenor Point on the Wild Coast at the weekend. All 16 crew members were airlifted off the ship during a six-hour rescue operation in the early hours of Sunday morning.
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/ 18 October 2004
The Nigerian government should intervene to protect two more women sentenced to death by stoning by Islamic courts, the Law Society of South Africa (LSSA) said on Monday. Sentencing women to death by stoning goes against every human rights standard, said Thoba Poyo, chairperson of the LSSA standing committee on gender equality.
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/ 18 October 2004
Schabir Shaik’s former personal assistant told the Durban High Court on Monday of a phone call in which Shaik asked Deputy President Jacob Zuma for help securing a slice of the arms deal. Bianca Singh said that at one point late in 1998 she was in Shaik’s office when his cellphone rang. She gathered that the caller was his brother Chippy, then head of acquisitions in the Department of Defence.
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/ 18 October 2004
The South African government has confirmed that Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will visit South Africa from Wednesday to Saturday and has defended the visit "in the context of ongoing efforts by South Africa to assist Israelis and Palestinians to find a long-lasting resolution to the political crisis currently affecting the Middle East".
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/ 18 October 2004
The recent launch of the National Treasury’s Urban Renewal Tax Incentive is certain to stimulate further investment in Cape Town’s central city and immediate surrounds, according to Cape Town Partnership CEO Andrew Boraine. The incentive will first apply to Cape Town and Johannesburg.
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/ 15 October 2004
About 30 hawkers, mostly women, were chased off the streets of Johannesburg during a joint operation by metro police and the South African Police Service in Yeoville on Thursday. The head of the Traders Crisis Committee, Edmund Elias said: ”The hawkers, mostly elderly women who have been trading here, were terrified.”