Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s office on Sunday described a media report that she was an alcoholic and convicted thief as ”false, speculative and bizarre allegations”. ”As it did last week, the Sunday Times has yet again made false, speculative and bizarre allegations designed to demean the minister,” said Sibani Mngadi in a brief statement.
President Thabo Mbeki will require evidence before considering media reports that Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang was an alcoholic and had been convicted of theft, his office said on Sunday. The Sunday Times reported that chronic alcoholism was the real reason the minister had a liver transplant.
Twenty-two people have been killed in a smash involving a truck and a minibus taxi on the N4 near Komatipoort in Mpumalanga, radio news reported on Sunday. The minibus taxi apparently hit a truck from behind and caught fire. The passengers were trapped inside and burned to death.
A Benoni woman, abandoned on the Bapsfontein Road by her drunk husband following an argument about speeding, hitched a lift only to find to herself passing the wreckage of his bakkie with their seriously injured toddler son inside, Ekurhuleni metro police said early on Sunday.
SuperSport United winger Daine Klate scored twice to secure a semifinal berth in the SAA Supa8 tournament for his team as they beat Moroka Swallows 2-1 at the Olympia Stadium in Rustenburg on Saturday. Klate netted either side of the break after Swallows striker Alton Meiring scored in the ninth minute.
Mamelodi Sundowns’ topsy-turvy start to the season looked like taking another downward slide when they went down to a 31st-minute goal in the CAF Confederation Cup game against Cameroon’s Astres de Douala on Saturday night — but the Brazilians hit back and eventually edged home by a 2-1 margin.
Nine people died in a collision between a minibus taxi and a bakkie on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast late on Saturday afternoon, police and paramedics said. Initial reports from the accident scene indicated that the driver of the north-bound bakkie had lost control after a tyre apparently burst.
The war between the Sunday Times and Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang continued in this weekend’s edition of the newspaper. It alleged that she had required her liver transplant this year because she was an alcoholic, and that she had been convicted of theft while working in Botswana in 1976.
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said on Saturday she does not know who her new deputy will be. She was touring Durban’s Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Hospital to see what improvements had taken place at the hospital’s maternity and neonatal wards where a klebsiella outbreak claimed the lives of 22 babies in 2005.
Cricket South Africa is mourning the loss of Cecil Abrahams, who played with Basil D’Oliveira’s famous South African non-racial team against Kenya in home-and-away tours in the 1950s, and who has passed away in the United Kingdom. Abrahams died in Manchester on August 15 aged 75.
It was a meeting that threatened to tear the Premier Soccer League (PSL) apart as the two factions of South Africa’s professional league squared up over what one delegate called ”a legal, but immoral” bonus of R150-million that is due to be shared by five officials. The issue, however, was seemingly too hot to handle.
Demoted Mvela League club PJ Stars lost an urgent high court action in Johannesburg on Friday seeking to restrain the Premier Soccer League from continuing with games in what is effectively the second division. But, if Stars’ intention had been to win the war, not the battle, it had the desired effect.
Adriaan Vlok and Frank Chikane shook hands in the Pretoria High Court on Friday, but later differed on how apartheid-era crimes should be put to rest. After the brief court proceedings, there were separate news conferences: one for Chikane, and one for Vlok and his four co-accused.
A strike at South African Airways (SAA) has been called off, the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union (Satawu) said on Friday. General secretary Randall Howard said the 350 Satawu members who work at the technical division of SAA called off the strike after the company and union reached an agreement.
African National Congress (ANC) presidential contender Tokyo Sexwale criticised the current state of the ANC on Friday at an ANC Youth League fund-raising dinner, saying it is marked by ”character assassinations, smear campaigns, mudslinging, whispering campaigns and rumour-mongering”.
The Eastern Cape government has rejected a claim by a suspended hospital official that 200 babies have been dying every month at East London’s two largest hospitals. The former deputy manager of the East London Hospital Complex, Dr Nokuzola Ntshona, made the claim in an interview published in the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>.
Black-owned investment company Shanduka broke its silence on Friday over the appointment of Bruce Campbell as executive chairperson at Alexander Forbes. The Black Management Forum on Wednesday condemned Campbell’s being appointed to oversee a ”competent black CEO”.
President Thabo Mbeki and the opposition leader, Helen Zille of the Democratic Alliance, crossed swords on Friday in the internet letters they send each week to their supporters. Both were talking about sacked deputy minister of health Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge.
Fires that engulfed five Mpumalanga municipalities, killing an old man and injuring a number of others, have been extinguished, the Department of Local Government and Housing said on Friday. Mopping-up operations were under way at the Mbombela, Albert Luthuli, Emakhazeni, Umjindi and Bushbuckridge municipalities.
Fervent efforts are being made by Nkosinathi Joyi’s camp to prevent the International Boxing Organisation (IBO) from stripping him of his mini-flyweight title — this after reports emerged that the IBO was on the verge of relieving the unbeaten East London fighter of the title for failing to defend it since winning it in November last year.
The JSE recorded the highest number of trades and highest value of trades in its 120-year existence this week, the company said on Friday. The latest records came after strong revenue growth recorded for the JSE for the interim six months to June 30 this year, in which record volumes were recorded in the exchange’s main three markets.
The fear of communism coming to South Africa justified committing acts during the apartheid era, which he has subsequently admitted were wrong, former police minister Adriaan Vlok said in Pretoria on Friday. ”We believed we were fighting a very, very bad enemy,” he said at a press conference at the end of the court case against him and four others.
Despite Airports Company South Africa’s excellent annual results, airline passengers are still going to be hit with increased fees, the Board of Airline Representatives of South Africa said on Friday. Airlines have no choice but to incorporate increased airport tariffs into the price of their tickets.
The Sunday Times is to return all of Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s medical records with the exception of one copy, the Johannesburg High Court ordered on Friday. The newspaper must also refrain from reporting or commenting on any of the minister’s medical reports pending the outcome of the rest of the application.
The African National Congress (ANC) is not a party for the independent-minded, says Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Helen Zille. The recent sacking by President Thabo Mbeki of his deputy health minister, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, illustrated what the ANC had become, she said on Friday in her weekly online newsletter, DA Today.
The treatment of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe at the Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit has shown that there is no real political will to hold the Zimbabwean leadership accountable for their actions, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Friday.
South African hard-line apartheid-era minister of law and order Adriaan Vlok and four co-accused received suspended sentences on Friday after pleading guilty to attempting to murder a leading black activist cleric in 1989.
President Thabo Mbeki has taken issue with those elevating sacked deputy health minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge to ”heroine” status. ”Ordinarily, I would not make any further comment on this matter,” Mbeki said in his online newsletter on Friday, ANC Today. However, an ill-founded hue and cry about the dismissal had been raised.
Najwa Petersen was not mentally ill when she allegedly killed her husband, Taliep, and is fit to stand trial, a Cape Town regional magistrate ruled on Friday. The finding, based on the unanimous reports of three psychiatrists, cleared the way for Petersen and her three co-accused to go on trial in the Cape High Court in February next year.
South Africa’s apartheid-era minister of law and order Adriaan Vlok and four co-accused pleaded guilty on Friday to charges of attempting to murder Frank Chikane, a leading black activist cleric, in 1989 by poisoning his underwear. They confirmed in the Pretoria High Court that there had been an agreement between the state and themselves over the charges.
South Africa’s rand weakened sharply against the dollar on Friday, just off a nine-and-a-half month low, as volatility prevailed on international markets, and traders said on Friday there was probably no respite for the unit on the horizon. The local currency was trading at 7,58 versus the dollar at 07h10 GMT, about 1,9% weaker than its New York close.
South Africa’s blue chip Top-40 index turned positive after opening over 1% weaker on Friday, following a rebound in European shares. At 07h41 GMT, the Top-40 index was 0,67% stronger at 23Â 577,36, with the broader all-share index 0,54 percent firmer at 26Â 130,95 points.