South Africa is an over-advantaged partner in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said on Monday. He was speaking in Sandton at a conference of business leaders from the SADC region, where a survey was also released on obstacles when doing business in the region.
Previously known as Silver Stars, Platinum Stars officially announced their new identity at a press conference at the Sandton Convention Centre on Monday. The management of the team, led by Larry Brookstone, sold 51% of the club to Royal Bafokeng Sports Holdings and this prompted a name change for the Stars.
Justice was not served during the 2005 murder trial of Mark Scott-Crossley, who is serving a life sentence for killing a farmworker he threw to lions, the Supreme Court of Appeal heard on Monday. Scott-Crossley’s counsel submitted that the court had entered the ”arena of guiding the state when examining witnesses in chief” during the trial.
The United States hopes to increase the money it spends to tackle HIV and Aids in South Africa, US Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt said on Monday. He met Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya at the Union Buildings in Pretoria as part of an official visit to South Africa.
Almost two years after arriving in Cape Town, nine containers of clothes donated by Taiwan are finally ready to be given to the needy, mayor Helen Zille said on Monday. The containers of new clothes arrived in Cape Town harbour in November 2005 and were held up by unfinished paperwork and customs processes.
The state was stalling on details of the travel-voucher fraud charges faced by a current and a former MP, their defence teams claimed in the Cape Town Regional Court on Monday. Lawyers acting for the two said they wanted the court to rule that prosecutors must provide full answers to their requests for further particulars.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) on Monday asked the Public Protector to investigate whether Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang benefited from the inappropriate influence of President Thabo Mbeki. It has been alleged that Mbeki called up surgeons at a medical centre to insist they approve a liver transplant for Tshabalala-Msimang, DA leader Helen Zille said.
Jazz guitarist Johnny Fourie (70) was a ”rare and dedicated” musician, friends said in a tribute following his death in Johannesburg on Sunday, just months after releasing his debut album, Once upon a Time. ”His family, students and fans will sorely miss him,” they said in a statement.
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) was on Monday trying to verify a weekend media report claiming that files on African National Congress (ANC) leaders who had been denied amnesty were languishing in a police safe. ”We’re still following up to check the source of the story,” said Scorpions spokesperson Panyaza Lesufi.
South Africa car manufacturers and trade unions have agreed a deal to avert a strike over wages, the country’s metalworkers’ union said on Sunday. ”We have withdrawn the notice to go on strike,” said Mziwakhe Hlangani, national spokesperson at the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa.
Sometimes referred to as the Sea Robbers, a discordant Orlando Pirates dutifully stole away with a 2-0 victory at Athlone Stadium on Sunday afternoon after being outplayed for most of the SAA Supa8 game by Ajax Cape Town. Late second-half goals against the run of play earned the Buccaneers a place in the semifinals alongside Mamelodi Sundowns, Jomo Cosmos and SuperSport United.
Jazz guitarist Johnny Fourie (70) was a ”rare and dedicated” musician, friends said in a tribute following his death in Johannesburg on August 19, just months after releasing his debut album, Once upon a Time. ”His family, students and fans will sorely miss him,” they said in a statement.
South African Communist Party (SACP) general secretary Blade Nzimande on Sunday said he never received an alleged R500 000 cash donation for the party, which is said to be missing. ”I wish to place it on record that I have never received the alleged R500 000 from any person, as is alleged,” Nzimande said in a statement.
Armed with pistols and hair-trigger tempers, South Africa’s minibus taxi drivers are the undisputed kings of road rage, swerving through traffic and ignoring red lights as nervous motorists get out of the way. In a country struggling to prove its crime-ridden streets are safe before the 2010 Soccer World Cup, drivers often get caught up in gangland-style turf battles.
![]()
African National Congress (ANC) members should not be misled into believing that the media would assist and find solutions for the many challenges facing the organisation, party deputy president Jacob Zuma said on Sunday. He said the media’s only objective was to sensationalise ANC problems.
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”.