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/ 1 September 2007
South African unions have wrested hefty wage increases from employers, wielding strikes as weapons at a time of high inflation and strong performance in the key mining sector and government surpluses. The strength of unions, traditionally allied with the left wing of the African National Congress (ANC), could become critical with a looming showdown over who will succeed President Thabo Mbeki as president of the ANC.
A Cape High Court judge on Friday reserved judgement in Najwa Petersen’s appeal against a magistrate’s refusal to grant her bail. Petersen, who was not in court, is appealing last month’s decision by Wynberg regional magistrate Robert Henney. She and three alleged hired hit men are charged with the murder of her husband, entertainer Taliep Petersen, in December last year.
The Independent Democrats (ID) were riding high on the eve of the floor-crossing window on Friday after Cape High Court judges rejected bids by four would-be deserters to hang on to their seats until midnight. Judge Dennis Davis turned down an application by former ID general secretary Avril Harding to have his summary expulsion from the party reversed.
The onus is now on Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang to ”cleanse” her name and counter allegations levelled against her by the Sunday Times, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa-SA) said on Friday. ”Misa-SA believes that it is within the minister’s moral obligation to publicly nullify the allegations and set the record straight,” it said.
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is a South African heroine and a true and devoted servant of the masses, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday. The recent sustained and merciless propaganda assault against her was frightening, and ”belongs to wild animals”, he said in his weekly online newsletter, ANC Today.
Parallel trials for Aids vaccines in South Africa look promising in their long road to conclusion, a press conference in Sandton heard on Friday. Indications are that vaccine trials tailored for global strains had an effect against the strain of the virus most prevalent in South Africa.
It is credible that Azanian People’s Organisation’s (Azapo) president Mosibudi Mangena is too busy to hand over his gun, despite leading a campaign against guns, said Azapo on Friday. ”As a president of the party … with such [a] busy schedule, not having had time to hand over his gun as yet is not [an] inconceivable and unreasonable excuse,” it said.
The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) said on Friday it was ”angered” by Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula saying the integration of metro police forces into the South African Police Service (SAPS) was inevitable. On Thursday, Nqakula told a media briefing at Parliament that no one could stop the incorporation of metro police into the SAPS.
Piet Bothma, the suspended chief executive of the Transport Education Training Authority, appeared in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court in connection with the Fidentia saga. It was Bothma’s second court appearance. He was recently arrested as a third suspect in the affair.
South Africa has denied it blamed Britain for Zimbabwe’s isolation in a report prepared for a regional summit earlier this month. The office of President Thabo Mbeki denied that the government produced a report on Zimbabwe critical of Britain before Mbeki briefed leaders of the Southern African Development Community on his mediation efforts in mid-August.
A Cape High Court judge on Friday criticised what he called ”unseemly political horse-trading” ahead of the floor-crossing window, and said it resembled transfer season in the English Premiership. Dennis Davis made the remarks before rejecting an application by the former general secretary of the Independent Democrats to overturn his expulsion from the party.
A magistrate had misdirected himself in finding that the ”exceptional circumstances” needed for Najwa Petersen to get bail did not exist, the Cape High Court was told on Friday. Petersen, who was not in court, is appealing against last month’s decision by Wynberg regional magistrate Robert Henney to refuse her bail.
Small business owners have until 1pm on Saturday to submit their 2006 tax return and financial statements in support of their applications for the small business tax amnesty. ”The South African Revenue Service [Sars] is encouraged by the number of queries and visits to our offices in the past week,” it said on Friday.
President Thabo Mbeki should accept that Afrikaans place names are also African, civil rights initiative AfriForum said on Friday. Speaking in Parliament on Thursday, Mbeki had implied that Afrikaners and Afrikaans-speaking people were not Africans, but Europeans, according to AfriForum chief executive Kallie Kriel.
The South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) is auditing its condom department after a manager at the bureau was accused of certifying defective condoms in exchange for cash. ”On the basis of the allegations, we did an immediate check and we are covering the other companies,” the bureau’s general manager for food and health, Mike McNerney, said on Friday.
A major IT company employed the Gauteng finance minister’s daughter as it awaited the outcome of two tenders from an agency answerable to him.
The African National Congress MPs who had pleaded guilty to Travelgate crimes should be dismissed, not demoted, says Democratic Alliance (DA) parliamentary leader Sandra Botha. ”They should not be allowed to remain in those positions of responsibility and trust at all,” she said on Friday.
The Nelson Mandela Bay metropolitan area is grappling with an increasing number of tuberculosis (TB) cases, with about 250 new patients being admitted to the Livingstone and Dora Nginza hospitals each month. In addition to this, over 200 new multidrug-resistant TB patients are transported from throughout the province to the Jose Pearson Hospital in Bethelsdorp each month.
The retail price of all grades of petrol will fall by 10 cents per litre from Wednesday September 1, the Department of Minerals and Energy announced on Friday. This follows a 15 cents fall on August 1 and an eight cents decrease on July 4.
With a script as strange and uncanny as that penned by a fiction writer, Orlando Pirates secured a frenzied 2-1 extra-time victory over SuperSport United in the SAA Supa8 semifinal at Durban’s King’s Park Stadium on Thursday night, with much-maligned coach Bibey Mutombo emerging the unlikely hero.
A villager from Songeni near Thulamahashe in Mpumalanga is recovering in hospital after he was kicked and dragged by a cow he was tied to, losing most of his teeth in the process. A media report said on Friday that the man had been accused by his employer of spreading a rumour about him.
"This year’s fashion week will be different," says Luke Radlott, an assistant designer for Black Coffee, talking about the 11th annual Sanlam South African Fashion Week that started on Wednesday. The yearly fashion spectacular runs until Saturday at Johannesburg’s Sandton Convention Centre.
Sunday Times editor Mondli Makhanya hailed the Johannesburg High Court ruling in the newspaper’s case against Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang as ”an important victory for press freedom”. He said the newspaper had already voluntarily handed over a copy of Tshabalala-Msimang’s medical files pertaining to her 2005 stay in Cape Town Medi-Clinic to the hospital.
Crispin Mutamba fled exhausting bread and fuel queues in Zimbabwe for wealthy South Africa, only to find himself stuck in another one for three months outside Home Affairs in Pretoria hoping to get permission to stay. The chances are slim. Mutamba can’t find a job or a home, and, like many Zimbabweans, he feels like a pariah.
After meting out a severe tongue-lashing over the behaviour of the state attorney and director general of justice’s offices on Thursday, the Constitutional Court said it wanted to issue an order making them accountable for their work. ”I have a deep intolerance for state officials who are paid to do their work and don’t do it,” said Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke.
Johannesburg Hospital closed seven theatres in July but is treating the same number of cases with a focus on complex medical care, the hospital’s CEO said on Thursday. ”The allegations that cases are being cancelled are not true for the tertiary cases. What is true is that those cases which are inappropriate are being referred elsewhere,” said Sagie Pillay.
The Chamber of Mines signed an agreement on Thursday with three unions over wages in the coal-mining sector. The chamber’s negotiator in the coal sector, Eric Nwedo, said the agreement would increase wages of higher-paid workers by between 7,5% and 8,5%. Lower-paid employees would get a 10% increase.
The Independent Democrats (ID) won another round in the floor-crossing battle on Thursday when the Cape High Court refused to overturn the expulsion from the party of Cape Town city councillor Achmat Williams. Deputy Judge President Jeanette Traverso also rejected Williams’s bid to delay his appeal hearing against the expulsion.
Despite persistent incredulous questioning by opposition parties, President Thabo Mbeki insisted on Thursday that the Zimbabwean government, the two factions of the Movement for Democratic Change and representatives of civil society are engaged in talks that will produce conditions for holding free and fair elections next March in an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity.
Claims of huge bribes, fevered meetings between leaders of political parties, angry letters to newspapers: yes, it’s floor-crossing season once more.
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s medical records, obtained unlawfully from the Cape Town Medi-Clinic, must be returned to the institution ”forthwith”, the Johannesburg High Court ordered on Thursday. Delivering the order in the case between the minister and the Sunday Times, the judge also said that all the minister’s medical records on journalists’ laptops be deleted.
A Western Cape headmaster, charged with three counts of indecently assaulting young girls, was found not guilty in the Parow Sexual Offences Court on Thursday. Christiaan Abrahams (56), principal of The Hague Primary School in Delft on the Cape Flats, was also acquitted on three charges of possession of child pornography.