Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said on Friday she was shocked by reports of the attempted murder of Josiah Jele, a former South African envoy to the United Nations. Jele was shot outside his home in Glasgow Road in Lombardy West, south-east of Johannesburg, on Thursday.
Cape Town brothel-keeper Amien Andrews, who offered young girls for sex and watched as two of them were raped, was on Friday jailed for 17 years. Cape Town Regional Court magistrate Chris Naude jailed him for three years for keeping the Salt River brothel and an additional 14 years as an accomplice in the rape of the two teenagers.
Negative perceptions are a greater challenge than crime with regards to South Africa attracting tourists to watch the 2010 Soccer World Cup, bid committee CEO Danny Jordaan said on Friday. Jordaan said these perceptions are the result of crime and because South Africa is the first African country to host the World Cup spectacle.
An estimated half or more of the country’s kilometres of roads, and as much as two-thirds of roads in KwaZulu-Natal, have disappeared, largely due to ineffective administration, said a roads expert on Thursday. While the roads have not physically disappeared, they do not show up on official records.
The assets of Gauteng deputy director of public prosecutions Cornwell Tshavhungwa were attached by his own colleagues at the Assets Forfeiture Unit on Thursday. Tshavhungwa is currently in custody following his arrest on June 7 on fraud and corruption charges involving an amount of R1-million.
Two of the men arrested for suspected terrorist activities in Pakistan at the weekend are in fact South African, the Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed on Thursday. There have been three days of speculation regarding the identity and nationality of the two men after Pakistani newspapers published their names on Monday.
Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang on Thursday promised South Africans an accessible, caring and high-quality health system. She was speaking at the media launch of the Department of Health’s Strategic Priorities for the National Health System: 2004 to 2009 in Pretoria.
Cape Town gangster Amien Andrews was found guilty in the regional court on Thursday of keeping a brothel, and as an accomplice on two rape charges involving minor girls. Andrews’s brothel was well known in the underworld as ”Amien’s girls”, where girls aged between 12 and 16 were on offer for sex.
Traffic was brought to a standstill in central Johannesburg on Thursday as nearly 15Â 000 metalworkers marched for better wages. The protesters were marching to the offices of the Steel and Engineering Industry Federation of South Africa (Seifsa) and were protesting against Seifsa’s offer of a 7,1% wage increase.
Cape Town’s traffic and city police will apply the full force of the law in dealing with taxi violence, councillor Danile Landingwe said on Thursday. Landingwe said the city will take a ”zero tolerance” stance, following meetings with representatives from taxi organisations this week to discuss outbreaks of violence in the industry.
The Swaziland government’s contempt for court rulings and judicial independence has allowed impunity for perpetrators of human rights violations, Amnesty International said on Thursday in a new report titled Swaziland: Human Rights at Risk in a Climate of Political and Legal Uncertainty.
The African National Congress won a by-election in Umtata on Wednesday — the fifth upset victory by the party in the past few weeks — over General Bantu Holomisa’s United Democratic Movement. In other by-elections on Wednesday, the Democratic Alliance snatched a municipal ward in Somerset East from the ANC.
South African Tourism hopes to attract visitors by offering them real human contact experience. Presenting a new strategy for tourism on Wednesday in Kyalami north of Johannesburg, strategic relations manager Chantal Cuddumbey said the new approach demonstrates experiences that South Africa has to offer.
The recent brutal murder of a university student and the shooting of a soccer coach by a referee have rekindled the long-running debate about gun control in South Africa. Gun-related violence claims about 10Â 000 people in South Africa each year, according to the campaign group Gun-Free South Africa.
The Inkatha Freedom Party on Wednesday rebuffed a call by KwaZulu-Natal’s minister for safety and security, Bheki Cele, to extradite Philip Powell from Britain to stand trial in connection with arms smuggling before the 1994 elections. The call was made after the discovery of weapons caches in the Ulundi Legislative Assembly two weeks ago.
South Africa’s opposition Freedom Front Plus says it is concerned about the black economic empowerment charter for agriculture — dubbed AgriBEE — because it introduces unrealistic time frames with too little emphasis on productivity as well as creating unachievable expectations.
The carpet that for many years carried visible stains of the blood from the stabbing of South Africa’s apartheid Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd has been removed from the Old House of Assembly at Parliament in Cape Town. Veteran politician Helen Suzman on Wednesday said she wondered what "had been swept under it over the years".
Six people, believed to be the owners of Cape Town travel agencies, have been arrested by the Scorpions in connection with a parliamentary travel-voucher scam. Scorpions spokesperson Sipho Ngwema said the six were at the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court and should appear shortly.
An application to exclude 107 documents from the evidence against the 22 Boeremag treason-trial accused has failed, with the judge describing the application as premature and unfounded. The judge said he was unsure what documents he was being asked to exclude.
The chairperson of the Road Accident Fund has resigned to take up a position on the board of directors of a black empowerment company, a joint statement from the fund and William Huma said on Wednesday. The statement said that Huma has been ”relieved of his duties”, but not because of allegations of corruption or dishonesty.
It’s bigger and uglier than its male counterpart. Sometimes it even makes a noise. But many South African women who have used it say they prefer it. Ten years after it was first introduced to South Africa, the female condom, or femidom, is gaining popularity in the country, but cost is limiting its use. The government buys it at about R7 a unit, which is at least 10 times the price of a male condom.
Describing murderer, rapist and kidnapper William Kekana as ”Satan incarnate”, Judge Monica Leeuw in the Temba Circuit High Court on Tuesday sentenced him to six life sentences plus 60 years. ”He is the real reincarnation of the devil himself. I would say he is the devil personified,” Leeuw said, staring at Kekana in the dock.
Killer rapist blames apartheid
Although the economic powerhouse of Gauteng has only 1,4% of South Africa’s land area of 1,219-million square kilometres, it has 24% of the population aged between 25 and 59 years, Statistics South Africa said on Tuesday. It also announced that the life expectancy at birth in South Africa is forecast to be only 50,7 years next year.
Doctors will continue negotiating with the Department of Health in a bid to resolve differences over doctors requiring licences to dispense medicine. The South African Medical Association (Sama) is currently in communication with the department and has received a ”positive response”, Sama chairperson Kgosi Letlape said on Tuesday.
The Department of Foreign Affairs could still not confirm on Tuesday that South African citizens were among the suspected terrorists arrested in Pakistan on the weekend. On Monday a Pakistani newspaper reported that two South Africans were among terrorism suspects arrested after a shootout on a house in Gujarat early on Sunday.
A new R5 coin with added security features was launched at the South African Mint Company in Pretoria on Tuesday in a bid to outsmart counterfeiters. The new coin, seven million of which will come into circulation next Monday, sports a silver-coloured border with a bronze-coloured centre.
Convicted murderer and rapist William Kekana told the Temba Circuit High Court on Tuesday he had murdered members of a Pretoria family because they were white. Kekana’s remark elicited a gasp from the presiding judge and the public gallery. "I found it very easy and simple to commit the crimes," Kekana said.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=119316">Kekana is guilty</a>
The German government has provided €7,5-million (about R60-million) in funding for development in Cape Town’s poverty-stricken Khayelitsha township for social development purposes. This money is to be matched rand-for-rand by South Africa. This was announced by Cape Town mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo on Monday.
The timing and manner of National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka’s resignation speak of political pressure, not just a personal desire to move on, political analysts agreed on Monday. ”I am sure it is a pressurised resignation. He must be exhausted,” said political analyst Nic Boraine.
Ngcuka exit a matter of pressure
The Mpumalanga Parks Board has won a court judgement against the owners of a wildlife sanctuary who imported eight lions into the province illegally. The conservation authority removed the lions from Enkosini Wildlife Sanctuary in January 2003 after it was discovered they had been imported without a permit.
There is no need for alarm at an expected budget deficit in the education and social development departments of the Eastern Cape, Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel said on Monday. ”The scenario was being attended to,” Finance Ministry spokesperson Manelisi Wolela said in a statement.
William Kekana was found guilty in the Temba Circuit Court on Monday on all 14 charges relating to the hijacking, abduction, murder and rape of Janine Drennan and members of her family. Judge Monica Leeuw described Kekana as a ”pathological liar” who tried to blame his now-dead accomplice.