South African Airways (SAA) said on Friday it was on track to meet the June 1 deadline for e-ticketing compliance. SAA said its issuing rate for e-tickets exceeded 96,5% which is the current industry average according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
New details have emerged concerning documents that allegedly link Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi to fugitive Belgian fraudster Jean Claude Lacote.
The South African Communist Party (SACP) has on several occasions taken large donations in cash in order to foil its creditors, according to former Congress of South African Trade Unions president Willie Madisha. He made the claim in an article in the Cape Times on Friday, in which he sought to ”set the record straight” on events surrounding his axing.
The retail price of petrol will increase by 50 cents a litre (c/l) on Wednesday next week, according to a statement from the Department of Minerals and Energy on Friday. This follows the 55c/l increase last month. The price of unleaded petrol in Gauteng thereby increases to R9,96 a litre, and to R9,72 at the coast.
South African society has yet to rid itself of the anguish, pain and degradation of the past, Arts and Culture Minister Pallo Jordan said on Friday. Speaking at the launch of a ”social cohesion” campaign, Jordan said the recent xenophobia attacks should not be downplayed.
A South African-designed, battery-operated passenger car is to be unveiled early next year, Deputy Science and Technology Minister Derek Hanekom announced on Friday. The development of the vehicle could not have come at a better time, he told MPs during debate in Parliament on the science and technology budget vote.
German artist Hans Winkler has brought his site-specific interventions to the Jo’burg streets, writes Anthea Buys.
President Thabo Mbeki must release the letter he allegedly wrote to George Bush asking the American president to ”butt out” of Zimbabwe, the Democratic Alliance said on Thursday. Mbeki’s four-page letter to Bush apparently criticised the United States for taking sides against Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe.
President Thabo Mbeki called on G8 countries on Friday to follow through on promises of support for Africa’s socio-economic rescue plan Nepad. ”The other G8 members have got to respond in the manner that Japan has,” Mbeki said at the end of a three-day development conference in Yokohama, Japan.
Forty-seven people were arrested for public violence on Thursday after a protest against Anglo Platinum’s relocation of bodies from a cemetery in Sekuruwe near Makopane turned violent. Limpopo police spokesperson Captain Sebotsaro Motadi said the protest started on Wednesday but only became violent at 6am on Thursday.
In a series of three ATM bombings in less than half a day in Gauteng, gangs of robbers on Friday morning made off with undisclosed sums of cash. In Strijdompark in Randburg, a Standard Bank ATM was blown up at the Motor City Centre, Gauteng police said. ATMs in Atteridgeville and Orange Farm were also targeted.
A complaint against the Daily Sun‘s reporting on the recent xenophobic attacks in Gauteng was submitted to the press ombudsman and the South African Human Rights Commission on Thursday. One of the major issues was the use of the term ”aliens” for immigrants by the newspaper.
North West agriculture minister Jan Serfontein and interest groups are to try to develop a standardised programme for working with predators. This follows a lion attack on Tuesday on the farm Uitspan, near Mafikeng. David Moloana (50), of Mareetsane village, was killed while cleaning a drinking pen situated in a lion cage.
Itumeleng Khune and not Teko Modise should have been named the Premier Soccer League’s (PSL) best footballer this season if coaches had voted along the lines they suggested to the Mail & Guardian this week. The credibility of the selection is being compared to that of the Zimbabwean election.
South African stocks remained lower at noon on Friday as the mining sector continued to take a pounding on weaker commodity prices. At 12.02pm, the all-share index was down 1,03%. Resources fell 2,15%, while the gold and platinum mining indices lost 1,37% and 0,65% respectively.
Football statistics are weighted in Nigeria’s favour at this weekend’s clash between the Super Eagles and Bafana Bafana. Nigeria may be in a renewal process of their own, but one cannot see how a Bafana side with a new coach, with no proven strikers and playing in front of a hostile crowd, will defeat them, writes Percy Zvomuya.
Africa’s top footballers head wearily back from a demanding club season in Europe for an intensive month of World Cup qualifiers starting this weekend. Players like Michael Essien, Samuel Eto’o, Frederic Kanoute, Nwankwo Kanu and Emmanuel Adebayor go from the cauldron of top club competition into an equally demanding round of qualifiers for the 2010 finals in South Africa.
Mining magnate Brett Kebble gave about R260 000 to the former African National Congress chief whip Tony Yengeni, according to the trustees of Kebble’s bankrupt estate, a media report said on Friday. This allegation was contained in affidavits in an application for a summary judgement that would force Yengeni to pay this amount back to the estate.
The National Energy Regulator of South Africa has quietly postponed its final decision on Eskom’s application for a 53% tariff hike to June 18. By Thursday the regulator had not yet posted notice of the change in its decision date on its website, despite the conclusion of this week’s public hearings into the proposed tariff increases.
It is all a bit unseemly; rather like the bill arriving after a meal at a restaurant and no one offering to pay it. In Eskom’s case, the matter is complicated by the fact that outsiders do not have enough information to work out how the bill is made up so that costs can be apportioned fairly.
How do you hide a R1-billion fortune from the taxman? With bespoke help from offshore bankers desperate to get their hands on your portfolio, documents emerging from the long-running battle between the South African Revenue Service and its number one target, Dave King, suggest.
The Department of Foreign Affairs on Friday confirmed that three South Africans have been arrested in Zimbabwe. In a statement, the department said the men were due to appear in court and it would render assistance to the detainees as required. On Tuesday Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported that three people, two of them South Africans, had been arrested in Zimbabwe.
South Africa has experienced the highest rate of food-price inflation since January 2003, the National Agricultural Marketing Council said in its quarterly food price monitor on Thursday. From April 2007 to April 2008 the increase in the Consumer Food Price, as reported by Stats SA, was 15,7%.
President Thabo Mbeki has brushed off criticism that he failed to show compassion by not visiting areas affected by violent attacks against foreigners around the country, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported on Thursday.
Sasol on Wednesday announced the 50 black groups which will share in its R28-billion black economic empowerment (BEE) Inzalo transaction. They included energy and mining women’s groups, Sasol business suppliers, customers, franchisees and trade union investment companies, groups conducting skills and community upliftment projects, and professional associations.
India’s Reliance Communications is prepared to pay a significant premium for control of South African mobile phone group MTN, the FT Alphaville website said on Thursday. MTN and Reliance said on Monday they were in exclusive talks after India’s biggest mobile phone operator Bharti Airtel broke off talks.
An investment of R42-million was placed into a project for a medical aid for ex-miners on Thursday. The agreement aims to improve public health facilities that will be largely utilised by ex-miners in South Africa and neighbouring countries, for the benefit of medical examinations.
The disbanding of the Scorpions will protect corrupt and criminal politicians from prosecution, the deputy director of Public Prosecutions warned on Thursday. The Directorate of Special Operations, also known as the Scorpions, would lose its ability to independently investigate government officials if it was incorporated into the police, said Billy Downer, SC.
Drought in the central Karoo has reached critical proportions, Agri Wes-Cape said on Thursday. ”Large numbers of game and livestock are dying each day from the drought, and lambs perish at birth because the ewes simply do not produce milk,” the farmers’ organisation said in a statement.
The government has now back-pedalled on its initial claim that a "third force" was behind the recent wave of attacks on foreigners.
South Africa’s producer price inflation (PPI) accelerated unexpectedly to 12,4% year-on-year in April, increasing the possibility of a bigger than previously expected interest-rate hike in June. Statistics South Africa said on Thursday headline PPI — which represents domestic output — accelerated from an upwardly revised 11,9% in March.
After almost 40 institutions had denounced Eskom’s proposed 53% tariff increase, it was up to the power utility’s CEO on Thursday to convince the regulator why the massive hike was necessary. Eskom chief executive Jacob Maroga was due to be the last speaker after three days of public hearings in Pretoria on the proposed tariff increase.