Market participants have the impression that insider trading in South African has decreased, according to a report released on Wednesday. ”The new regime has changed prevailing attitudes to insider trading, resulted in new policies and approaches among listed corporates and their advisers,” said the chairperson of the Insider Trading Directorate.
While the police and the government declined to comment on Wednesday on claims that two citizens held in Pakistan were plotting attacks on South African tourist destinations, the Democratic Alliance urged the authorities to keep the public properly informed of any real danger.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=119792">’Terror’ pair under lock and key</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=119782">’Terror’ pair were to ‘attack Jo’burg'</a>
At any given moment about 25 000 accused have been in prison in South Africa awaiting trial for over three months, and some have been there since 1996. ”Part of the Bill of Rights says that there should be no undue delay in concluding criminal trials. However, the reality is that these unsentenced prisoners often spend 23 hours of the day in a cell, with no rehabilitation, no work and no recreation.”
The Constitutional Court on Wednesday dismissed an appeal by 69 South Africans held in Harare against a judgement by the Pretoria High Court in June that the government be compelled to assist them. The men are being held on charges of plotting a coup in Equatorial Guinea.
Disgruntled municipal workers disrupted a meeting of the Tshwane Bargaining Council in Centurion on Tuesday and held officials there against their will. Tshwane Metro Council spokesperson William Baloyi said the group was angry about an apparent double deduction from their bank accounts in lieu of loan repayments.
About 35 workers may be retrenched from the Sowetan and the Sowetan Sunday World, following the newspapers’ recent purchase by Johnnic Communications, the Media Workers Association (Mwasa) said on Tuesday. The feared job losses stem from the purchase of the two newspapers from New Africa Publishing Limited.
While the overall composition of the student body at South African higher education institutions is changing to reflect the demographic profile of society, there is no room for complacency, says Minister of Education Naledi Pandor. Women — and particularly black women — are under-represented in a number of key study areas.
The man who pleaded guilty to murdering a Tshwane Technical University professor was on Tuesday sentenced to 55 years’ imprisonment by the Pretoria High Court. Professor William Papo and two other people were found dead in Papo’s house in Doornpoort, Pretoria, in January last year.
South Africa will host a new round of talks on Burundi to finalise a agreement on power-sharing and on holding elections, South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma said on Tuesday. The two days of talks beginning on Wednesday will be attended by all the parties in Burundi except for the Forces for the Defence of Democracy group.
A 34-year-old man appeared in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday in connection with the killing of three people during a road-rage incident at the weekend, Johannesburg police said. Three people were killed and another one wounded in the incident at Unigray on Saturday night.
There was laughter in the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday when "Rottweiler" and "KGB" emerged as some of the <i>noms de guerre</i> assumed by the alleged Boeremag coup plotters. One called himself "Motherfucker" and another "Volla", accused-turned-state-witness Henk van Zyl told the court.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=119751">Whites were to be ‘slaughtered'</a>
New-vehicle sales were up in July and expected to improve to a level last seen in 1983, the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (Naamsa) said on Tuesday. ”Current indications are that the new-vehicle market for the full year 2004 could exceed 410 000,” Naamsa said in a statement.
White fears of a massive slaughter by blacks were fuelled at meetings attended and addressed by some of the Boeremag treason trialists, the Pretoria High Court heard on Tuesday. The court was told of meetings where the predictions of Boer ”seer” Siener van Rensburg were used to incite whites to action.
The Inkatha Freedom Party has suspended national organiser and MP Albert Mncwango after he received a prison sentence on Monday for raping his former girlfriend in 2001. The African National Congress welcomed the 10-year jail sentence imposed by the Eshowe Magistrate’s Court.
The mayor, speaker and city manager of the Emthanjeni Municipality in De Aar have been arrested on charges of fraud, Northern Cape police said on Monday. The trio allegedly offered a local businessman a tender on July 2 in exchange for a kickback. The tender involved a municipal house that is to be sold.
Eighty-five people from Gamorona village near Vryburg in the North West appeared in court on Monday after being arrested over the weekend for public violence and assault, police said. The villagers called a meeting with a chief on Saturday, accusing a family of stocktheft. They attacked the family, burning their houses to the ground.
The Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) signed a deal on Monday for a loan of R56-million for the construction of a hotel in Bel Ombre on the southern coast of Mauritius. The hotel project forms part of a broader initiative for the development of the Bel Ombre sub-region.
A key provision in the current Immigration Act, which has led to much confusion over the recording of travel by South African citizens abroad, is to be dumped. Prior to the coming into force of the Act, the movement control system recorded the entry and exit of everyone who left or entered the country.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?ao=119707">Minister calls for immigration review</a>
Former Morning Live co-presenter Michelle Garforth said on Monday that internal politics at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) led to her early departure from the breakfast show. She now plans to produce an African travel and conservation show for the international market.
Harmony has made record production despite having downscaled some of its ”marginal shafts”, with production increasing for the seventh year in a row, the company said on Monday. The company said 3,3-million ounces of gold, 11% more than the previous year, were produced during the financial year ended on June 30 2004.
There is no possibility whatsoever that Christmas will be cancelled as a holiday, said African National Congress spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama on Sunday. He was responding to a story in the Sunday Times saying all public holidays in South Africa are up for review and some might be scrapped.
One of the seven travel agents arrested in connection with the parliamentary travel scam appeared briefly in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Monday. She is one of seven directors and consultants attached to Cape Town travel agencies arrested by the Scorpions in connection with defrauding Parliament of more than R12,5-million.
In a move to increases South Africa’s protected areas, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk has proclaimed more than 66 480ha of new land to be incorporated into the country’s national parks system. Three of the areas affected by the expansion fall within the Cape Floristic Kingdom.
Jazz legend Sipho Gumede, who died on Monday after a battle with lung cancer, was laid to rest in Durban on Saturday, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported. Kwazulu-Natal Premier Sibusiso Ndebele announced the establishment of a music academy as a tribute to Gumede, the report said.
A new chairperson and vice-chairperson have been appointed to the board of the Road Accident Fund (RAF), acting chief executive Thokozani Magwaza said on Friday. Saths Cooper was appointed chairperson and Vusi Twala as vice-chairperson, Magwaza said in a statement.
The amount involved in the parliamentary travel voucher scam could reach R16-million, Speaker Baleka Mbete said on Friday. She was speaking at a media conference the wake of this week’s court appearance by seven travel agency owners and employees, and speculation that MPs could be next on the Scorpions’ list.
Steps have been implemented to combat corruption at Gauteng vehicle testing stations, the community safety department said on Friday. This followed allegations that officials were fraudulently issuing roadworthy certificates at the Wynberg testing station. Officials allegedly colluded in this corruption by accepting bribes to ignore the fraud.
While the fate of two South Africans being held for suspected terrorist activities in Pakistan remained unclear on Friday, an independent analyst described their situation as bleak. If tried in Pakistan, the death penalty is mandatory for terrorism and the definition of the crime very broad, the analyst said.
In his weekly ANC Today newsletter, President Thabo Mbeki on Friday strongly criticised a report in last week’s Sunday Times, saying the newspaper is ”entirely wrong” in its claim that no additional funds have been set aside by the government for its expanded public works programme.
The South African Navy’s long-serving workhorse, the SAS Outeniqua, is being formally retired from the service on Friday — though she still has a lot of life left in her. The decommissioning of the 12-year old vessel marks a shift in the navy’s capability and spending priorities resulting in part from its acquisition of new corvettes.
Mail & Guardian editor Ferial Haffajee was on Thursday evening in Cape Town appointed Woman of the Year in the media and communications category. Sponsored by Shoprite Checkers and SABC2, the Women of the Year Awards recognise achievements by South African women in nine categories.
Former Grootvlei prison director Tatolo Setlai has been acquitted of corruption charges. Setlai had been charged with acting ”’grossly negligently” in allowing a prisoner and others at the prison to produce a video showing footage of wardens procuring sex with minors for prisoners and involved in other illegal actions.