Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi says there is not a ”shred of evidence” to support the contention he gave instructions to members of his party to commit ”murder and destruction” in KwaZulu-Natal during the late 1980s. Responding to a Sunday Times column, he said on Friday he could not ignore certain ”serious charges” made against him.
The Zimbabwean embassy in South Africa on Friday denied a looming ban on food imports into Zimbabwe, but said permits will be required to import bulk foodstuffs for resale. ”There are no new regulations coming into effect on August 1 pertaining to this subject as has been pronounced by various media. It’s business as usual,” said ambassador Simon Khaya Moyo.
Trade union Solidarity on Friday accepted a wage offer from employers in the chemical industry after the employer increased its offer from 7,5% to 8%. Solidarity spokesperson Marius Croucamp said his union, along with the South African Chemical Workers’ Union, accepted the 8% wage increase.
A 33-year-old man who stabbed a Pretoria prosecutor 14 times in her office while stealing her cellphone was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment in the Pretoria High Court on Friday. Sipho Mnisi grabbed prosecutor Marisa Booyse’s cellphone in her office at the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court in September last year and, when she tried to stop him, he attacked and stabbed.
At first glance, Tottenham Hotspur manager Martin Jol conjures up a picture of an imposing Rottweiler. And on Saturday, when Spurs take on Orlando Pirates in the finale to the Vodacom Challenge series of pre-season friendlies at Loftus, there can be little doubt about the ferocity of purpose with which the Netherlands-born manager will be barking orders.
Baby-killer Dina Rodrigues and her four co-accused were on Friday granted permission to appeal against their sentences. Cape High Court Judge Basheer Waglay, however, rejected applications by Rodrigues and three of the men to appeal against their convictions.
Athletics South Africa (ASA) has denied that athletes Louis van Zyl and Alwyn Myburgh absconded from Team SA at the All Africa Games in Algiers last week. ”We knew they were going to compete in Monaco but there is no question of them absconding from the South African team,” said ASA president Leonard Chuene on Friday.
Cape Town mayoral committee member Simon Grindrod plans to sue alleged ”sex blogger” Juan Uys, he said on Friday. Uys, arrested in Kroonstad last week, is to appear in the Cape Town magistrate’s court on Monday on a charge of theft dating back to 2004.
Plans to incorporate municipalities’ metro police units into the South African Police Service (SAPS) could not have come at a worse time, Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille said on Friday. Zille, who is also mayor of Cape Town, said she was informed by ministerial letter on June 25 of the planned ”integration of municipality police into the SAPS”.
At midday, the JSE was still hanging below the negative 2% mark as it continued to follow world markets which were still stumbling from the Dow’s losses on Thursday night. At 12.01pm, the all-share index was 1,86% lower. Resources fell 2,47%, the gold mining index lost 2,10% and the platinum mining index was off 2,62%.
Rescue services are using boats to evacuate residents of a flooded settlement near Philippi outside Cape Town in the wake of a massive cold front that has brought heavy rain to the Western Cape. ”Metro [rescue services] and the police are using rescue boats to evacuate people,” Disaster Risk Management Centre manager Walter Solomons said.
Sales at diamond-mining giant De Beers fell 7% in the first half of 2007 on the back of reduced supply of gems to its trading arm while underlying earnings rose 5%, the group announced on Friday. Its total sales fell to ,4 billion from ,66-billion in the first six months of the year over the same period in 2006, interim results showed.
Fraud convict Schabir Shaik has sold shares he held in French arms manufacturer Thint for R41-million. Shaik, who is serving a 15-year sentence for fraud and corruption relating to his relationship with African National Congress Deputy President Jacob Zuma, will not be able to access the money.
A sensational 57th-minute goal from busy Benett Chenene gave Orlando Pirates a 1-0 win over arch-rivals Kaizer Chiefs at the Eastern Province Rugby Stadium on Thursday night and the right to oppose England’s Tottenham Hotspur for a second time at Loftus on Saturday in the pre-season Vodacom Challenge series of matches.
The retail price of all grades of petrol will fall by 15c per litre (c/l) on Wednesday August 1, the Department of Minerals and Energy announced on Friday. This follows an 8c/l fall on July 4 and a 23c/l rise that took effect on June 6. The latest changes bring the retail price of a litre of 95 octane unleaded petrol in Gauteng to 701c/l and to 677c/l at the coast.
President Thabo Mbeki seized the occasion of his speech to the African region conference of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association on Friday to tick off a number of countries present who have not yet passed anti-terrorism laws. "All of us are obliged to take action to implement the provisions of the African Convention on Terrorism," said.
Riaz Kadwa, charged with murdering his parents at their Crown North home in October 2005, was found guilty at the Johannesburg High Court on Thursday. Judge Fritz van Oosten described Kadwa as a ”self-confessed master of deceit” and rejected his version of the events.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) will on Friday lay criminal charges against vitamin salesperson Matthias Rath, the party said on Thursday. Mike Waters, the DA health spokesperson, said Rath had contravened the law by masquerading as a medical doctor.
While the government of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is taking steps to protect women from domestic violence, its security forces are raining down baton blows on women activists, one female victim said this week. Grace Kwinjeh was one of four women in a group of opposition supporters who were badly beaten by Zimbabwean police on March 11.
Former South African president FW de Klerk on Thursday denied that he had ever condoned apartheid-era murders or other gross violations of human rights. ”I have not only a clear conscience, I am not guilty of any crime whatsoever,” he said. He was responding to newspaper reports that former law and order minister Adriaan Vlok, who faces prosecution, intends to spill the beans on him.
After being pulled off shelves early on Friday last week following a temporary court interdict, the Mail & Guardian is still unable to report on an explosive final draft of an internal audit report of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC). On Thursday, Judge Justice Poswa granted the applicant, a senior SABC executive, a further postponement of the matter.
The embattled chief of the Ekurhuleni metro police should be suspended, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Thursday. The DA’s Eddie Taylor said Ekurhuleni mayor Duma Nkosi should have suspended McBride, instead of giving him a ”paid holiday”.
The Health Department has rejected claims by the Democratic Alliance (DA) that it was not doing anything to stop the influx of unregulated alternative medicines into the country. Department spokesperson Sibani Mngadi on Thursday said a lot was being done to prevent the distribution of bogus medicines in the country.
Over half the dams owned and managed by the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry do not comply with modern safety standards, but are not necessarily unsafe, said Water Affairs and Forestry Minister Lindiwe Hendricks. ”At present, 160 of the 294 dams owned by my department do not comply with current-day dam safety standards,” she said on Thursday.
The battle over soccer television rights was settled on Thursday in an agreement in which the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) will screen 143 Premier Soccer League (PSL) matches. The agreement between the PSL, pay channel SuperSport and the public broadcaster gives the SABC exclusive screening rights to 110 matches.
Rain driven by strong wind lashed the Cape Peninsula on Thursday, flooding more informal settlements on the Cape Flats. Cape Town disaster management spokesperson Johan Minnie said that on Thursday afternoon the city was providing shelter, food and blankets to about 1 200 people.
The state opposed bail for the alleged hijacker of Judy Sexwale during his appearance in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court on Thursday. Mbuso Simelana (27) of Thembisa was arrested on Monday in connection with the hijacking of Judy, wife of presidential hopeful Tokyo Sexwale.
Several alternative medicines that have been banned in other countries have easily found their way into the South African market, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Thursday. Briefing the media in Cape Town, DA spokesperson on health Mike Waters said the South African government was doing nothing to stop these dangerous products from being sold to people.
South African shopkeepers are benefiting from a flood of people crossing the border to stock up on goods no longer available in crisis-hit Zimbabwe, but there could be trouble in store on the inflation front. ”We’ve seen a huge escalation in the number of Zimbabweans,” said Pieter Koekemoer, manager of a shop on the Zimbabwe-South Africa border town of Musina.
Although service-delivery protests are understandable, the violence that goes along with some of the demonstrations is concerning, Tshwane executive mayor Gwen Ramokgopa said on Thursday. She released the city’s annual service-delivery figures, showing that the metro council has had success in meeting and even succeeding many of its targets.
South Africa’s producer price inflation slowed to 10,4% year-on-year in June, official data showed on Thursday, but a jump in the monthly rate continued to stoke expectations of higher interest rates. Statistics South Africa said June producer price inflation slowed from an annual 11,3% in May but increased by 2,1%.
Mbulaeni Mulaudzi, the 26-year-old world number one 800m runner, returned to his brilliant best at the Herculis Monaco Super Grand Prix on Wednesday when he won his event in a blistering one minute 43,74 seconds. It was the fastest time of the year and the first below 1:44. The gritty South African ran an outstanding race and issued a stern warning to the world elite.