It probably cannot all be put down to Australian referee Paul Marks’s inept handling of the Super 14 match between the Hurricanes and the Sharks in Wellington on Saturday, but there are now thoughts of the International Rugby Board (IRB) appointing Super 14 referees rather than the three Sanzar unions.
The naked body of a prominent Limpopo magistrate was found lying next to a used condom in a bush near Giyani, the Sowetan reported on Wednesday. The body was identified as that of Giyani magistrate Nuel Maluleke (58), of Mphangane village near Giyani.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) plans to embark on mass action against rising food, electricity and transport costs, as well as interest rates, media reports said on Wednesday. This comes after the Competition Commission announced the formation of a crack team to investigate price-fixing in the food industry.
African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma on Tuesday criticised the delay in declaring the results of Zimbabwe’s presidential election. Zuma, the front-runner to become the next president of South Africa, indicated that ”keeping the nation in suspense … keeping the international community in suspense” was wrong.
A new World Bank and International Monetary Fund report warns that most countries in Africa will not meet most of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) due by 2015. While there has been strong growth in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the region is still likely to fall short of the first goal of halving extreme poverty by 2015.
There is an urgent need to double electricity prices over the next two years, Eskom tells the National Electricity Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) in its recent application for a tariff hike. Nersa made an edited version of Eskom’s application available on its website on Tuesday.
Several major companies in India looking to expand their global footprint have shown ”serious interest” in investing at Coega, the Coega Development Corporation (CDC) said on Tuesday. The CDC said it had recently met 22 companies in Thailand and India to discuss investment.
The City of Cape Town has launched a high court challenge to the legality of the Erasmus commission, city speaker Dirk Smit announced on Tuesday. The commission was set up by Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool last year to probe the city’s own investigation of renegade councillor Badih Chaaban.
The runway of the country’s most prominent air-force base has to be repaired ahead of next year’s election in South Africa to accommodate world leaders who will attend the inauguration of whomever is elected president. This was revealed at a visit on Tuesday of Public Works Minister Thoko Didiza to the Waterkloof Air Base in Pretoria.
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) have demanded that the Zimbabwean presidential election results be announced. The two trade-union federations met in Johannesburg on Tuesday.
One of the alleged masterminds in the Fidentia scandal was arrested by the FBI in the United States, the National Prosecuting Authority said on Tuesday. Spokesperson Tlali Tlali said Steven William Goodwin was arrested following a request by the Directorate of Special Operations, better known as the Scorpions.
The Democratic Alliance and trade union Solidarity want Eskom to release a full, unedited report of its application for a 53% tariff increase, they said on Tuesday. The application was due to have been published at noon on Tuesday on the website of the National Energy Regulator of South Africa.
West-coast shellfish, including mussels, oysters and perlemoen, should not be collected and eaten because they are toxic, the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism warned on Tuesday. Tests on perlemoen collected at Melkbosstrand had revealed low levels of a toxin that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning.
South African journalist Mark Klusener was ordered to pay 25 000 shekels (about R53 700) and placed under house arrest by a court in Jerusalem on Tuesday, said his wife, Peroshni Govender. Klusener and other staff members were arrested for operating a pirate radio station.
While emerging markets have been resilient so far to global market subprime turmoil, global spillovers could test their resilience, said the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) director of monetary and capital markets, Jaime Caruana, on Tuesday at the launch of the IMF’s latest <i>Global Financial Stability Report</i>.
At one stage they were Absa Premiership title contenders, but now all seventh-placed Wits are playing for is a place in the top half of the competition. And that will rest heavily on their minds when they take on sixth-placed Free State Stars at the Bidvest Stadium on Wednesday night.
South African journalist Mark Klusener was expected to appear in court in Jerusalem on Tuesday following his arrest, his wife Peroshni Govender said. She had been told that he and other staff members were arrested for operating a pirate radio station. Klusener is news director of 93.6 Ram FM, based in Jerusalem.
Consumer confidence in South Africa has fallen to a four-year low, according to the latest consumer confidence index by First National Bank and Stellenbosch University’s Bureau for Economic Research (FNB/BER), released on Tuesday. According to FNB/BER index, consumer confidence declined by 10 index points.
Abbey Makoe, chairperson of the Forum of Black Journalists (FBJ), has lashed out at a South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) finding regarding a controversial FBJ meeting where white journalists were barred based on the colour of their skin, calling it "nothing more than a judicial ambush" and a "banning order".
Eskom’s bid to have parts of its 53% tariff-increase application withheld from the public is to protect its position in ”hardcore” coal sales deals, the company said on Tuesday. Eskom spokesperson Andrew Etzinger said that without this stance, the company might have to pay more for coal, pushing the price of electricity up even more.
The three trade unions deadlocked in a wage dispute with Telkom have been invited to a meeting with the telecommunications company on Thursday in the hopes of avoiding a strike, the South African Communications Union (Sacu) said on Tuesday. ”Yesterday [Monday] the company said it would meet all the unions on Thursday to discuss the dispute,” said Sacu.
South African journalist Mark Klusener has been arrested in Jerusalem by Israeli police, the Foreign Affairs Department said on Monday. ”A South African journalist, Mark Klusener, was arrested along with seven other media workers, according to the South African embassy in Tel Aviv,” said department spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa.
The national congress of the African National Congress Youth League was indefinitely postponed on Monday evening after being unable to finish its work or confirm the results of its leadership election. Electoral commission member Malusi Gigaba told journalists in Bloemfontein that the League would ask the ANC to help solve its differences.
A man has been arrested for allegedly trying to set fire to the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) building in Auckland Park on Monday, the public broadcaster said. It is alleged that the suspect poured petrol around the entrance of the building and tried to set it alight. He was immediately arrested, the report said.
Eskom has been given permission to have ”commercially sensitive” information on its proposed 53% tariff increase withheld from publication, the National Electricity Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) said on Monday. ”It is information that Eskom feels is commercially sensitive — just a paragraph here and there,” said Nersa spokesperson Charles Hlebela.
Opposition parties on Monday criticised President Thabo Mbeki’s assessment of Zimbabwe’s elections. Mbeki’s remarks, made in Britain on Sunday, indicated he was either woefully out of touch with reality in Zimbabwe or he was attempting to ”deliberately mislead the world’s media”, the Democratic Alliance’s Dianne Kohler-Barnard said.
Eight ATMs have been bombed in South Africa in less than a week, an escalating trend that has become a nearly daily offence in the crime-ridden country, police said on Monday. Three police officers and two civilians appeared in court on Monday in connection with the bombing of a cash machine last week, said police spokesperson Louis Jacobs.
Seven Durban men who allegedly stabbed a 20-year-old petrol attendant to death were taking revenge and mistook their victim for a robber, police said on Monday The seven — aged between 17 and 20 — were due to face a murder charge in the Chatsworth Magistrate’s Court on Monday.
Weather-pattern changes are expected to have a negative effect on health and quality of life, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said on Monday. ”We need to take actions aimed at strengthening our infectious-diseases control, ensure safe use of water supplies and coordinate health actions in order to respond,” she said.
The trial of Najwa Petersen, accused of murdering her entertainer husband, Taliep, has been delayed yet again — this time by a clash over how much information she needs about the charges she faces. The case got under way in the Cape High Court on Monday, but Judge Siraj Desai sat for less than two hours before postponing it to Wednesday.
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Political leaders should never stay in power for over a decade, South Africa’s ruling party president Jacob Zuma has said, making clear his opposition to the path taken by some African rulers. Zuma spoke to the Wall Street Journal in an interview before neighbouring Zimbabwe held elections last month.
Eskom has signed a five-year agreement to import an additional 250MW of power from Mozambique’s Cahora Bassa hydroelectric dam, the company announced on Monday. ”We are trying to squeeze as much capacity out of every resource,” said Eskom spokesperson Andrew Etzinger. The agreement was signed on Thursday April 3.