The Mpumalanga Rugby Union will be hauled before Parliament’s portfolio committee on sports and recreation to explain why convicted murderer Gert van Schalkwyk was included in its team. Butana Komphela, chairperson of the committee, said on Tuesday that it was immoral of the Pumas rugby team to field a convicted killer.
Jeremy Cronin, the deputy general secretary of the South African Communist Party, suggested in Parliament on Tuesday that there should be a council of state, which would be a super-Cabinet with a strategic planning mandate. Croning was speaking during debate on the Appropriation Bill.
The Presidency has denied reports that it intends to declare May 2 a public holiday, saying the issue has not yet been finalised. Two union federations have called on the president to declare this Thursday a public holiday because Human Rights Day and Good Friday both fall on the same day, on Friday.
South African Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma called on Tuesday for eleventh-hour talks in Comoros as African Union troops prepared to support federal forces in a bid to take control of the rebel island of Anjouan. ”The federal government first wants the disputed elections dissolved,” she said.
Eskom has applied for a 53% hike in electricity tariffs, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa announced on Tuesday. It said it had received the application earlier in the day. Eskom is seeking this hike in place of the 14,2% increase it was granted in December last year.
The National Council of SPCAs (NSPCA) has condemned the Johannesburg Civic Theatre for using wild animals on stage in its production of Verdi’s Aida. NCSPCA spokesperson Christine Kuch said on Tuesday it was ”unethical and unacceptable” that two lions, a tiger and horses were being taken on stage.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has come out in support of a Johannesburg businessman’s attempt to seek an interdict from the Pretoria High Court to stop the disbanding of the Scorpions crime-fighting unit. ”Just call me a concerned citizen,” said businessman Hugh Glenister. ”I believe our constitutional rights are being violated.”
Ekurhuleni metro police chief Robert McBride was drunk on the night of his December 2006 accident, a second state witness told the Pretoria Regional Court on Tuesday. He said that the next day a press release was compiled stating that McBride had not been drunk on the night of the accident.
”Peak oil”, the point at which global petroleum production reaches its maximum, could come as early as 2011, a Cape Town conference on oil and gas heard on Tuesday. Chris Skrebowski, editor of the British Energy Institute’s magazine Petroleum Review, told the conference that the peak will come in 2011 or 2012.
Eastern Cape health minister Nomsa Jajula is in hot water after failing to appear on a radio show that cost the government almost R13 000 for the slot, the Dispatch Online reported on Tuesday. The week before, provincial social development minister Sam Kwelita also missed his appointment.
The business sector in South Africa must play an active role in poverty eradication, Business SA said on Tuesday. CEO Jerry Vilakazi said business should commit to working with other social partners to bring about social change. He was addressing the two-day Business, Development and Poverty conference in Sandton.
The South African government will spend ”upwards” of R30-billion on the 2010 Soccer World Cup, according to a report released on Tuesday. Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, who received the report, admitted that ”in some instance” initial budget estimations were conservative.
The Fifa Beach Soccer World Cup 2008 qualifier in Durban next week has a vastly different feel to the previous two qualifying tournaments, as the sport goes into its third year of organised competition in Africa. At the World Cup in Rio, Senegal and Nigeria shocked the world by topping their respective groups.
Sharks rugby coach Dick Muir has resolved the issues he had with timekeeper Gabriel Pappas following last Saturday’s Super 14 clash against the Lions at Ellis Park. Muir was involved in an altercation with Pappas after Sharks hooker Bismarck du Plessis was not allowed to return to the game following treatment for a cut to his eye.
Moroka Swallows coach Ian Gorowa says his team will not take their Nedbank Cup last-32 clash against National First Division side the African Warriors lightly. The two clubs meet on Wednesday after their game was postponed due to rain on Saturday. ”We’re definitely not going to take this game easy,” Gorowa said.
A win for the Black Leopards on Wednesday will not get them out of the relegation zone and victory for Mamelodi Sundowns will not take them in to the top half of the Absa Premiership table. That is what both teams want and obviously won’t get. However, victory will take them closer to their destinations.
Two Eskom electricity-generating units were restored on Tuesday and two more should be back on line in the evening, removing any immediate threat of power cuts to mines, Eskom said. In January, power shortages forced gold and platinum mines to shut down for five days.
At least three protesting students at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Pietermaritzburg campus were wounded by police firing rubber bullets on Tuesday, the students’ representative council said. Police spokesperson Inspector Joey Jeevan said officers used rubber bullets to disperse the crowd at 10am.
A Johannesburg businessman is seeking an interdict from the Pretoria High Court to stop the disbandment of the Scorpions elite crime-fighting unit. In a statement issued by Hugh Glenister, he argues that the disbanding of the unit would ”not be rationally connected to a legitimate governmental purpose”.
African National Congress president Jacob Zuma will on Tuesday lead the party’s delegation to Angola to mark the 20th anniversary of the battle of Cuito Cuanavale. The delegation is expected to return home on Monday. A parliamentary delegation left from Pretoria on Friday in a convoy to Cuito Cuanavale to commemorate the battle.
Willie Madisha plans to take legal action in both the high court and Equality Court over his dismissal as president of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, media reports said on Tuesday. Madisha, who was axed last month, wanted to be reinstated, according to the reports.
Imtiaz Patel’s appointment as the next chief executive of the International Cricket Council (ICC) is ”not a done deal” according to SuperSport, his current employer. ”Nothing has been formalised yet,” SuperSport spokesperson Guy Hawthorne said Tuesday.
The body of a miner who was crushed by rocks at the Beatrix gold mine at Welkom two weeks ago has not been exhumed, Gold Fields said on Tuesday. ”We temporarily suspended the removal of the rocks last week because it was becoming dangerous for the rescue team,” said spokesperson Andrew Davidson.
Power may have to be cut to South Africa’s vital gold and platinum mines if more generators fail because of bad weather, Eskom said on Tuesday, sending local mining shares tumbling. ”At the moment we are in a very tight situation,” said Eskom spokesperson Andrew Etzinger.
The JSE was little changed at its softer levels by midday on Tuesday as investors took to the sidelines ahead of the United States Federal Open Market Committee’s rates decision later in the day. By noon, the JSE’s broader all-share index was down 0,86%. Resources fell 2,26%, the gold mining index dropped 1,76% and the platinum mining index shed 0,76%.
According to the United States embassy, 14 Americans in the past 12 months have been robbed at gunpoint after landing at the OR Tambo international airport in Kempton Park, a media report said on Tuesday. The embassy said that gangs of robbers targeted people arriving at airport and robbed them either at their destinations or on the way to their destinations.
Poor, rural women bear the brunt of South Africa’s HIV pandemic as they face sexual abuse and discrimination, rights body Amnesty International said on Tuesday, urging government action. A new report said rural women were disproportionately affected by poverty and unemployment and continued to suffer subjugation at the hands of men.
The current global economic turmoil is unlikely to ”impoverish” South Africa and there is some good in the weaker rand, according to First National Bank chief economist Cees Bruggemans. Commenting on the falling rand on Monday, Bruggemans said the good news is that it is the shock absorber of the moment.
At least 20 houses were burnt down and two people shot in clashes between two northern KwaZulu-Natal communities, police said on Monday. Captain Charmaine Struwig said fighting broke out between groups from the Mhlwazini area and Magangangozi area at midday on Sunday.
Workers are entitled to be paid for only one of the public holidays that will be celebrated this Friday, not both, the director of a local law firm said. According to the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, they are only entitled to compensation for one day’s work, and not for both Human Rights Day and Good Friday.
Zimbabwe’s ambassador to South Africa on Monday criticised the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for claiming that President Thabo Mbeki had not been an ”honest broker”. He was briefing Parliament’s portfolio committee on foreign affairs ahead of his country’s ”harmonised” March 29 elections.
The state has called for a life sentence for an 18-year-old Eastern Cape youth convicted of raping a 14-year-old mentally ill girl and raping and murdering a girl of 10. Appearing in the Grahamstown High Court on Monday before Judge Cecil Somyalo was Lunga Tata, of Tyoksville, Bathurst.