South Africa’s trade balance shifted further into deficit in June, recording a shortfall of R5,31-billion and keeping pressure on South Africa’s current account, official data showed on Tuesday. The data follows May’s smaller R2,67-billion shortfall and compares with expectations of a R3,5-billion gap.
About 70% of South Africans believe the country will be ready to host the 2010 Soccer World Cup, a survey by African Response has found. Jo’burgers were slightly more optimistic, with 76% of them believing that the country would be ready. Only 60% of Capetonians agreed.
The trial of the four travel agents still standing in the parliamentary travel-voucher fraud case will only start next year, it emerged on Tuesday. The four, Soraya Beukes, Mpho Lebelo, Graham Geduldt and Estelle Aggujaro, made a brief appearance in the Cape High Court for yet another postponement.
Lesotho needs ,9-million to help feed more than a third of its population after the country’s crop was destroyed by a prolonged dry spell during the 2006/07 cropping season, the United Nations said on Tuesday. About 550 000 people out of 1,8-million in Lesotho will need food aid between now and the next harvest in May next year, the UN said.
A policy review process, which includes questions on whether provincial government should even exist, was launched by Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi in Pretoria on Tuesday. ”We have to have a re-look at the way powers and functions have been distributed across the three spheres of government,” Mufamadi said.
AngloGold Ashanti posted a worse-than-expected 17% fall in second-quarter adjusted profit, hit by stronger currencies and more exploration costs, and said its chief executive Bobby Godsell would retire. AngloGold, the world’s third biggest gold producer, said on Tuesday Mark Cutifani from Brazil’s CVRD Inco would become new chief executive.
A South African union said it had launched a strike over wages at Chevron’s 100 000-barrel-per-day refinery in Cape Town and PetroSA’s 36 000 bpd Mossel Bay gas-to-liquid plant. Welile Nolingo, secretary general of the Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers’ Union, said the strike would continue until the union’s demands are met.
Growth in demand for credit by South Africa’s private sector quickened to 24,92% year-on-year in June, data showed on Tuesday, hardening the case for another interest rate increase next month. Analysts had expected a new law clamping down on credit lending that came into force in June to have bolstered the central bank’s monetary tightening efforts.
The father of two boys who were killed in the 1993 Mthatha raid ordered by FW de Klerk wants the former president to be prosecuted. The twin boys of Sigqibo Mpendulo were shot in their sleep at their home which De Klerk said had been confirmed a Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) safe house.
A picture of death and destruction emerged on Monday as officials counted the cost of veld fires that ravaged several provinces. By late afternoon, nine fires were still burning in Mpumalanga and Swaziland. More runaway fires were also reported in KwaZulu-Natal.
The South African emerging players cricket squad that participated in the 2007 Emerging Players Tournament in Brisbane, Australia, over the past two weeks landed back home with the trophy in hand after beating strong teams from Australia, New Zealand and India. On Saturday South Africa beat New Zealand in the final of the tournament by 82 runs.
Opposition parties in the Johannesburg city council are furious at the ruling African National Congress (ANC) limiting their speaking time to four seconds per councillor. The parties quoted the ANC’s chief whip in the council as saying: ”If a party cannot say what they want to say in eight seconds, it is not worth saying.”
The possibility of declaring fire-ravaged parts of Mpumalanga disaster zones could not be precluded, Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi said on Monday. Earlier in the day, Mufamadi and Water Affairs and Forestry Minister Lindiwe Hendricks conducted a helicopter surveillance of sites destroyed by fires in the province.
Theunis Olivier was of a sober and sane mind when he sodomised and later strangled six-year-old Steven Siebert in Plettenberg Bay, the Cape High Court heard on Monday. In his statement submitted to the court, Olivier said he was normal when he committed the crime.
South Africans are increasingly being targeted by international crime syndicates to be ”money mules”, the South African Banking Risk Information Centre said on Monday. A money mule or e-mule is someone who is tricked into using his or her bank account to launder money.
Former president FW de Klerk is not being investigated for crimes committed during the apartheid era, National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson Panyaza Lesufi said. ”There is no formal investigation of Mr De Klerk,” Lesufi said. De Klerk last week denied that he had ever condoned apartheid-era murders or other gross violations of human rights.
Another 33 shop managers were arrested in Zimbabwe over the weekend for overcharging or failing to display prices, Harare’s Herald newspaper reported on Monday. Its website said the managers were expected to appear in court on Monday. A price-monitoring team put the shops under surveillance on Friday.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) on Monday dismissed a special task team’s report on conditions at East London’s Frere Hospital as a ”whitewash”. ”There are several problems with the methodology of the task team that make the conclusions entirely superficial and very difficult to take seriously,” DA spokesperson Mike Waters said in a statement.
A dispute with the Legal Aid Board (LAB) has once again delayed the Boeremag treason trial. Provisionally postponing the trial to Thursday this week, trial Judge Eben Jordaan said it was alarming that the LAB had, more than five weeks on, still not provided some of the defence advocates with an answer to their request for funding.
Fuel supplies may come under pressure because of a strike in the petroleum, glass and pharmaceutical sector, the Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood, and Allied Workers’ Union (Ceppwawu) said on Monday. About 280 workers affiliated to Ceppwawu downed tools on Monday after a wage dispute was declared against their employer, said the union’s deputy general secretary.
Angloplat, the world’s biggest platinum producer, posted an expected 47% jump in interim profit on Monday, but higher costs and a cut in forecast output due to labour and safety issues cast a shadow. Angloplat shares rose 1,1% to R1 011 by 8.25am GMT, underperforming a 2,64% gain in rival Implats.
The South African government has tabled six new pieces of legislation to greet MPs as they return from their month-long winter break to start the new term on Tuesday. The Bills, with one exception, are all amendment Bills tidying up earlier legislation or making arrangements to deal with problems that have arisen since the original laws were passed.
An alleged Cape Town burglar, using a stolen police uniform, apparently worked in a police station for seven months, a media report said on Tuesday. Ricardo Voight (24) arrived at the Ocean View police station in November last year, dressed in a full police uniform allegedly stolen a few days before.
Only the over-zealous supporters of Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates will say that their teams can challenge for the league, or anything else, after their disappointing displays in the Vodacom Challenge in which both Soweto clubs lost to English Premiership club Tottenham Hotspur.
Six firemen died on Sunday while trying to bring raging fires in Mpumalanga under control, the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry said on Monday. The department’s commercial manager Kim Weir said five firefighters died after they could not get their vehicle away from the front of the fire.
South African President Thabo Mbeki said on Sunday his government may cut tariffs on some imported equipment and goods in a bid to boost the manufacturing sector. Mbeki said a healthier manufacturing sector was critical to the government’s efforts to narrow the country’s trade deficit.
Nkosi Johnson, the South African child who melted the hearts of millions when he spelt out the reality of living with Aids, is to be immortalised in a movie that producers hope will help once again raise awareness about the syndrome. The film is to be shot in South Africa at a date still to be set.
His name is ”Average” and the story of his desperate flight from the wreckage of President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe is an increasingly common one. The tall 34-year-old, slouching exhausted in a Johannesburg church that has become a de facto transit camp, is one man in a tide of migrants washing up in South Africa.
Former president FW de Klerk on Sunday defended his decision to authorise a raid in Mthatha in 1993 in which five teenagers were killed. ”Although the operation was tragically botched, Mr De Klerk himself acted in his capacity as head of government with due deliberation and care and in complete compliance with national and international law,” said a statement from his foundation.
The Gauteng provincial housing department has pledged R85-million towards the development of four hostels in the province. Provincial housing minister Nomvula Mokonyane held talks with African National Congress and Inkatha Freedom Party supporters who lived in hostels where a number of protests took place earlier this month.
Zimbabwe’s elections must be free and fair next year and economic recovery in the troubled country will only be achieved by a government viewed as legitimate by all its citizens, South Africa’s president said on Sunday. Thabo Mbeki heads the regional mediation process between Zimbabwe’s government and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
South African publishers have placed restrictions on the comic book Tintin in the Congo following complaints of racism in Britain. The illustrated work by Belgian author-cartoonist Georges Remi, who wrote under a pen name, is the second in a series of 23 tracing the adventures of Tintin and his dog, Snowy.