National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi may have been "grandstanding" when he told Parliament’s safety and security portfolio committee that several al-Qaeda operatives were arrested in South Africa ahead of the April 14 elections, the Democratic Alliance said on Thursday.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=66946">SA arrests lead to al-Qaeda: Selebi</a>
A fundamental change in economic policy is necessary if the government wants to cut unemployment and poverty by half within the next 10 years, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said on Thursday after a three-day meeting of its central executive committee.
South African Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang took aim on Thursday at doctors for holding protests against legislation regulating their dispensing of medicines. Doctors marched on Parliament earlier this year in protest. About 500 doctors — of about 8Â 500 involved — have completed dispensing courses and obtained licences.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=66984">’Hey Manto, get off drugs'</a>
Denel, the state arms manufacturer, will be manufacturing more of the parts used in the construction of Boeing commercial airliners, the two companies said at a function at Denel Aviation in Kempton Park on Wednesday. ”We find it heartening that Boeing selected Denel as sole supplier of certain parts for their airplanes,” Denel’s chief executive said.
The query backlog at the revenue department of the City of Johannesburg has been reduced by more than 66 000, but more than 70 000 still remain, executive Mayor Amos Masondo said on Wednesday. He was addressing a media conference on the problems experienced in the revenue department.
Fighting poverty and creating a climate for growth and development are the key challenges facing Durban, eThekwini Mayor Obed Mlaba said in his budget speech on Wednesday. ”The budget represents continuity and change. We continue to … build our people and growing the economy,” said Mlaba.
President Steyn gold mine near Welkom plans to retrench 1 500 workers by the end of July, the trade union Solidarity said on Wednesday. Solidarity said the mine management highlighted the strengthening of the rand as the reason for the upcoming lay-offs.
New Clicks Holdings, which has created a new retail pharmacy chain in South Africa, has instituted urgent legal proceedings to have the new medicine pricing regulations set aside and declared invalid, a statement said on Wednesday. The group believes the pricing regulations are financially and legally unsustainable.
The coverage of the 2004 elections by the broadcast media was credible, free and fair, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) said on Wednesday. Icasa councillor Lumko Mtimde said the authority had monitored 102 broadcasting licensees during the election campaign.
Year-on-year consumer inflation less mortgage costs (CPIX) stayed at 4,4% last month, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said on Wednesday. This was the same as the corresponding rate in March. Year-on-year headline inflation — also known as the consumer price index (CPI) — was 0,2% in metropolitan areas in April.
Zimbabwe last year stepped up attacks on critics of the government, including torture and kidnappings, gagged the media and misused scarce food stocks for political ends, Amnesty International said in a report published on Wednesday. ”There was an escalation in state-sponsored attacks on critics of the government, particularly supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change,” the report said.
Fraudulent, negligent and malpractising doctors will soon be facing much more stringent disciplinary procedures, the Health Professions Council (HPC) said on Tuesday. ”The medical profession must see us as taking these offences seriously,” said Nicky Padayachee, the newly appointed HPC president.
A former South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) employee cried bitterly when the Johannesburg Regional Court found her on Tuesday guilty of defrauding the public broadcaster almost R1-million. During 1993 and 1994 Sheila Dlikilili, with the assistance of others, ”recklessly squandered the SABC’s money”, the court heard.
South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma — facilitator of the Burundi peace process — on Tuesday welcomed the United Nations Security Council’s resolution to deploy 5 650 military personnel and 120 civilian police in Burundi for an initial period of six months, beginning from June 1.
Black economic empowerment, poverty, education, HIV/Aids, tourism and the Soccer World Cup in 2010 were some of the issues KwaZulu-Natal Premier S’bu Ndebele touched on in his ”state of the province” address in Pietermaritzburg on Tuesday. He plans to pay particular attention to broad-based economic empowerment.
Setting aside parts of Cape Town’s controversial new municipal rates system will prove ”catastrophic”, the city’s legal counsel argued in the Cape High Court on Tuesday. The Rates Action Group has challenged the validity of the city’s sewerage and refuse charges, which are linked to the market value of a ratepayer’s property.
Long-serving Pick ‘n Pay director and disabled rights champion Martin Rosen, who was also managing director for group enterprises, has retired from the group after 33 years with the company. Pick ‘n Pay said Rosen, who was also a member of the chairperson’s executive committee, started at Pick ‘n Pay in 1971 as a trainee manager.
Alluvial and marine diamond mining group Trans Hex has no plans to reduce jobs at its mining operations across South Africa, Namibia and Angola despite pressure on its earnings stemming from the strong exchange rate of the rand against the United States dollar, according to deputy chairperson Bernard van Rooyen.
South Africa’s Minister of Provincial and Local Government, Sydney Mufamadi, says R5,9-billion has been spent on rural upliftment nodes and R4,2-billion on their urban counterparts in the past financial year. The upliftment involves the provision of housing, free basic service delivery as well as food security and land restitution.
The Merafong city local municipality is to move the entire township of Khutsong, outside Carletonville, because of the increasing danger of sinkholes in the dolomite underneath the 50-year-old suburb. A technical report released by the municipality puts the price of the move to a new location south of the far West Rand town at R700-million.
Environmental lobby group Biowatch sought a Pretoria High Court order on Monday compelling the government to divulge details of all genetically modified (GM) organisms brought into or manufactured in the country to date. The body wants the state to make available an extensive list of facts concerning each permit.
At least 42 traditional surgeons have been arrested in the Eastern Cape since the provincial government introduced legislation on circumcision in 2001, Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi said on Monday. He said of the 42, 18 have been convicted of crimes linked to initiation circumcisions gone wrong.
A new monthly tabloid newspaper for the growing expatriate West African community in South Africa has gone on sale, the publishers said on Monday. The monthly, known as FS African Standard, will also provide information for local companies interested in doing business in West Africa.
New Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk says he has no doubt that the decision to cull Table Mountain’s alien tahrs is the right thing to do. ”I think it’s the right thing to do. We have to protect Table Mountain as one of our heritage sites,” he said in Cape Town on Monday.
New South African Minister of Transport Jeff Radebe, speaking on Monday at a media briefing, has pledged an institutional change of public transport and a review of the subsidy system applying to rail and buses. This includes the possibility of extending a state subsidy to taxis.
Large Durban taxi protest dispersed
Police on Monday dispersed more than 800 protesters and 150 taxis that blocked Durban’s Mangosuthu Highway on Monday morning, police said. The blockade caused chaos as commuters could not use the M4 to and from Umlazi and Durban International airport early on Monday morning.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela will have to fight another day — her and her financial adviser Addy Moolman’s Pretoria High Court appeal against their criminal convictions was postponed on Monday. Moolman’s legal team had requested the postponement. Madikizela-Mandela’s team was ready to go ahead.
In an ordinary society, Phillip Jabulani ("Be Happy") Moleketi would have become a medical doctor, but South Africa in the mid-1970s was not an ordinary society and did not cater for the aspirations of its young black elite. Now Moleketi has been appointed South Africa’s Deputy Minister of Finance.
The manager and two waitresses of a restaurant in Johannesburg’s Cresta shopping centre were seriously injured following a fire on Friday morning, Johannesburg emergency services reported. The fire apparently broke out at the Beef and Lobster Company, situated on the ground floor.
A 26-year-old former employee of the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) shot a 42-year-old woman in the head on Thursday afternoon at his former place of work and afterwards shot himself, Pretoria police said. The man was on the second floor of the SABS building in Groenkloof with the woman who was handling his file.
The new Social Security Agency, which the government hopes will improve delivery of social grants, will cost R300-million to set up. Briefing the media in Cape Town on Thursday, Minister of Social Development Zola Skweyiya said although his department has improved access to grants, there are weaknesses in administration and delivery.
The Constitutional Court has dismissed an application for leave to appeal directly to it made by a coloured woman who was overlooked for a top job in favour of a white man. It said on Thursday that disputes over the Employment Equity Act should be settled by the specialist Labour Appeal Court.