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/ 29 February 2008
France will renegotiate all its defence accords with African countries, President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Thursday in a move that could scale back France’s military support for some of its closest allies. France has defence cooperation agreements with several former colonies under which its forces provide varying degrees of military assistance.
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/ 29 February 2008
The worst Premier Soccer League side will, at the end of this season, have made at least R12,7-million in revenue. And if one club were to be dominant and win all the trophies on offer, it would bank at least R32-million — and that is excluding revenue from sponsors and gate takings.
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/ 28 February 2008
Summer grain crops have been badly affected by the limited rainfall and hot weather during February, said Grain SA on Thursday. Moisture deficiency would have an ”immensely negative effect” on a crop initially regarded as ”above average,” said Grain SA chairperson Neels Ferreira.
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/ 28 February 2008
Hospitals will not be protected from power cuts in the new load-shedding plan, contrary to an assurance given to the Johannesburg Hospital by City Power. Hospital chief executive Saggie Pillay said he was ”surprised” by the information that his hospital would not be excluded from the load-shedding.
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/ 28 February 2008
Two University of the Free State students apologised on Thursday for their involvement in a racist video which has sparked a national outcry. RC Malherbe and Schalk van der Merwe said they acted without malicious intent, and expressed sorrow for the embarrassment they might have caused any individual or group.
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/ 28 February 2008
France will invest about R114-billion (€10-billion) in sub-Saharan Africa over the next five years, creating about 300 000 jobs, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told Parliament on Thursday. He said there is a need for renewed African-French relations based on transparency and contemporary realities.
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/ 28 February 2008
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is to seek changes to legislation in a bid to contain spiralling private healthcare costs. She made the announcement at a meeting in Cape Town on Thursday with representatives of the country’s leading private hospital groups. She also held a separate meeting with medical-aid industry representatives.
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/ 28 February 2008
The row between Cricket South Africa president Norman Arendse and chief executive Gerald Majola is likely to be a major item on the agenda at the meeting of the CSA general council on Friday. Senior members of the council are believed to be planning to introduce a motion of no confidence in Arendse.
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/ 28 February 2008
The Johannesburg city council’s new provisional general valuation roll is now up for formal objections, executive mayor Amos Masondo said in his State of the City address in Braamfontein on Thursday. He also detailed plans to save electricity in the city, address inner-city crime and boost housing provision.
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/ 28 February 2008
The Cape High Court on Thursday rejected the alibis of two young men who last year gunned down Woodstock police detective Inspector Lourens le Roux, who had been investigating them for another murder. The men were both found guilty on two counts of murder each.
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/ 28 February 2008
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is taking her department’s healthy lifestyle campaign seriously, according to her spokesperson. The campaign encourages at least 30 minutes of physical activity five times a week, whether it be jogging or merely household chores such as sweeping the yard or gardening.
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/ 28 February 2008
South Africa’s high crime rate and prevalence of firearms were dissuading some people from visiting the country, a Pietermaritzburg High Court judge said on Thursday before passing sentence on two armed robbers. Acting Judge Sipho Nxumalo sent Sipho Zitha of Durban and Sydney Yende of Soweto to jail for 20 years.
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/ 28 February 2008
Four young men in the Free State could hardly have known that their video of a demeaning mock initiation of black university employees would be flashed on the world’s TV screens.
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/ 28 February 2008
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Mauritian Attorney General Rama Valayden has formally objected to a request by African National Congress president Jacob Zuma to withhold information from investigators in South Africa, a media report said. The evidence relates to his impending fraud, corruption and money-laundering trial.
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/ 28 February 2008
France is giving a R15,5-billion (â,¬1,4-billion) coal-fired power station to South Africa as a gesture of friendship. The agreement was signed on Thursday between Buyelwa Sonjica, the Minister of Minerals and Energy Affairs, and Jean-Marie Bockel, the French Deputy Minister for North-South cooperation.
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/ 28 February 2008
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) on Thursday said it will no longer take a ”triumphalist” approach to the outcomes of the African National Congress (ANC) Polokwane conference. ”The campaign to save the ANC from the clutches of the technocrats who sought to bureaucratise the liberation movement is far from being over, ” he said.
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/ 28 February 2008
South Africa said on Thursday that a report by the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency showed ”increasing confidence” that Iran did not intend to use its nuclear programme for military purposes. But it added that further oversight was needed to verify that Tehran was not building atomic weapons.
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/ 28 February 2008
Minister of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin should refrain from making unsubstantiated comments on the job-loss threats faced by thousands of mineworkers, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Thursday. On Wednesday Erwin said that it was unclear whether proposed job cuts in the industry were caused by power cuts and electricity rationing.
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/ 28 February 2008
A video made by white students that shows them humiliating black university employees on Thursday continued to draw angry protests as well as criticism that racism remains entrenched in South Africa 14 years after the end of apartheid, with the Democratic Alliance questioning the role of the Freedom Front Plus in the matter.
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/ 28 February 2008
The total number of travellers who visited South Africa through all its ports of entry during December was up 3% year-on-year (y/y) to 2,757-million, from the 5,7% y/y growth recorded in November 2007, according to Statistics South Africa data released on Thursday.
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/ 28 February 2008
French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in Cape Town on Thursday morning for a two-day state visit, which will include discussions with President Thabo Mbeki and top business leaders. Sarkozy was welcomed by Mbeki at Tuynhuys, where a 21-gun salute was fired in his honour while a military band played the French and South African national anthems.
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/ 28 February 2008
The gold mining index and industrials helped perk up the JSE by noon on Thursday, helping it to reverse its losses from the morning session. By noon, the JSE’s broader all share index added 0,62%. The gold mining index collected 1,86%, resources gained 0,35% but the platinum mining index pulled 0,96%.
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/ 28 February 2008
A charge of insurance fraud against Clinton Nassif, former security head for slain mining magnate Brett Kebble, was withdrawn in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court on Thursday. ”The accused is a witness in other matters we are pursuing,” prosecutor Patrick Nkuna told the court in withdrawing the charge.
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/ 28 February 2008
Four Harmony Gold mine employees died in separate incidents at the Bambanani and Elandsrand mines this week, Solidarity said on Thursday. ”Solidarity erroneously reported that another Bambanani worker, who had been admitted to the intensive care ward of the Ernst Oppenheimer Hospital in Welkom, had died. The person is recuperating,” said Solidarity.
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/ 28 February 2008
Herschelle Gibbs, who has been going through a lean period in recent weeks, bounced back on Wednesday, making an unbeaten 74 to take the Cape Cobras to a massive seven-wicket victory over the Lions in their MTN Domestic Championship match at the Wanderers.
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/ 28 February 2008
Wednesday night was former Bafana Bafana coach Trott Moloto’s baptism as the caretaker coach of Mamelodi Sundowns following the premature, much-publicised departure of Gordon Igesund earlier in the week. But it was the same old Sundowns who slumped to a 3-1 Premier Soccer League defeat against Moroka Swallows at Loftus.
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/ 28 February 2008
Legsaan Levember can only pray for better days as he huddles with 12 family members in a roadside tent, another victim of South Africa’s spiralling housing backlog. The family uses a plastic sheet to extend their tiny tent, which perches precariously on the slope of a small dune and is regularly blown away by Cape Town’s relentless south-easterly winds.
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/ 28 February 2008
Cricket South Africa CEO Gerald Majola on Thursday congratulated Mark Boucher on reclaiming his world record as the most successful Test wicketkeeper of all time. Boucher contributed five dismissals to the Proteas’ victory in the first Test against Bangladesh, which finished in Dhaka on Monday, and has thus set a new mark of 418 dismissals.
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/ 28 February 2008
South Africa’s consumer inflation, which jumped unexpectedly in January, raised the risk of further monetary tightening despite worries over slowing economic growth. Statistics South Africa said on Wednesday that targeted CPIX (consumer inflation less mortgage costs) stood at 8,8% year-on-year in January compared with 8,6% in December.
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/ 27 February 2008
South Africa’s early democracy after 1994 reached out too far with a policy of reconciliation at the expense of transformation, the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) said on Wednesday. ”We focused too much on reconciliation in the first years of our democracy,” said SAHRC chairperson Jody Kollapen.
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/ 27 February 2008
The loudest cheers in a goalless Premier Soccer League match between Platinum Stars and Jomo Cosmos came when Stars communication manager Putco Mafan danced during a water break at a stifling hot Olympia Stadium in Rustenburg on Wednesday. The match was a tedious affair and the 500-strong crowd had little to cheer about.
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/ 27 February 2008
Custom and ethnicity allow young women to wear miniskirts, the National House of Traditional Leaders said on Wednesday in reaction to a recent attack on a woman wearing a short skirt at a Johannesburg taxi rank. The traditional leaders said the actions of the woman’s attackers were not only ”barbaric”, but also unconstitutional.