The case of Annanias Mathe, the Mozambican national charged with escaping from Pretoria’s C-Max prison, was postponed yet again in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on Monday. The case was postponed to October 5 in order to centralise all the charges against Mathe.
The South African government has dismissed as untrue a weekend report on the collapse of Southern African Development Community-led talks on Zimbabwe. ”Nothing is further from the truth,” Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said in a statement issued from India.
The South African Communist Party (SACP) is to investigate a number of ways of ”contesting state power in elections” and will convene a policy conference next year to look at the various avenues open to it. A resolution on the ”SACP and state power” was adopted on the final day of the party’s 12th national congress.
The Sharks, with too much pace and abundant skill, earned a comfortable bonus point win over a plucky Griqualand West side in their Absa Currie Cup rugby match as they posted a 43-20 victory at the Absa Stadium in Durban on Saturday. The Sharks, who led 24-6 at half-time, scored six tries against two by Griqualand West.
In a game that promised to be the comeback of the Western Province rugby team, they managed to defeat the SWD Eagles 30-8 in front of about 2 000 spectators. The half-time score was 22-3. From the start, Province showed their intentions to run the ball when fullback Gio Aplon joined the back line and scored within seconds.
Free State were crowned the top team at the 2007 Coca-Cola Under-18 Craven Week after scoring a one-sided 52-3 win over hosts Western Province (WP) in the tournament’s final game at Paul Roos Gymnasium in Stellenbosch on Saturday. WP scored first, but from there on it was all one-way traffic.
Tazmin Brits, number one on the javelin world list and South Africa’s best candidate for a gold medal, qualified in style for Sunday’s final when the IAAF World Youth Athletics Championships continued in the Czech Republic on Saturday. Willem Voigt, of South Western Districts, was one of the sensations of the high-jump competition.
In a real thriller, the Border Bulldogs gave the Golden Lions a scare in their compulsory friendly rugby match at the Absa Stadium on Saturday before going down 35-31. By half-time, the Lions had built a handy 21-11 lead, scoring three converted tries to one, and after the break scored another two goals to extend the gap to 35-14.
South African politician-turned-tycoon Tokyo Sexwale said on Saturday the country’s president has a tough and thankless job, shying away from saying if he would make a run for the presidency. ”It’s not an easy job to do. Look at Thabo Mbeki. It’s a tough job … and a thankless job,” Sexwale said.
Nine young girls have been found dead around South Africa in the past seven months after they had been reported missing. The nine comprise the most widely publicised cases. The most recent find was the decomposed body of Elizabeth Martin (13), found in a water tank at a farm in Leeu-Gamka in the Western Cape.
Religious groups protested against late-night pornography screened on e.tv outside the broadcaster’s Cape Town offices on Saturday. ”We have had enough! Porn on free-to-air national television is outrageous,” said Taryn Hodgson, the international coordinator of the Christian Action Network.
Three Cabinet ministers and two deputies were nominated for the central committee of the South African Communist Party (SACP) at the party’s 12th national congress on Saturday. Meanwhile, ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma told the congress that the ”revolution is going through a test”.
The main beneficiaries of economic transformation are white capitalists who remain the ”induna [chief]” while the black middle class holds jobs in human resources, Congress of South African Trade Unions general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi told the national congress of the South African Communist Party on Saturday.
Police arrested seven protesters at Soweto’s Jabulani hostel alone on Saturday for public violence in a demonstration over housing. Arrests were also made elsewhere in Soweto and in Alexandra, but the exact numbers were not yet known. Metro police fired rubber bullets to disperse protesters from the Nancefield and Dobsonville hostels.
The town of Franschhoek, a tiny outpost of French Huguenot heritage near Africa’s southern tip, splashed out in blue, white and red on Saturday to mark Bastille Day. The normally sleepy settlement east of Cape Town came to life for a merry, two-day street festival, attracting hundreds of visitors with French-style wine, cheese and bread.
Anti-apartheid activist Nan Cross died peacefully at Nazareth House, in Yeoville, Johannesburg, in the early hours of July 14 at the age of 79. A founding member of the Conscientious Objector Support Group, Cross was active in the End Conscription Campaign and Conscription Advice Service.
Johannesburg metro police fired rubber bullets at Soweto hostel dwellers protesting on Saturday against a lack of service delivery. Protesting residents of the Dobsonville and Nancefield hostels took to the streets at 4.30am on Saturday along with Jabavu hostel dwellers, blockading roads with stones.
The Leopards pulled of a surprise 20-17 victory against the Blue Bulls in a compulsory friendly match played at Olënpark in Potchefstroom on Friday night. After trailing 14-0 at the break, the home team fought back to a 17-14 lead halfway through the second half.
South Africa’s brilliant 22-year-old 400m hurdler LJ van Zyl issued a gutsy warning when he defeated a world-class field at the IAAF Golden Gala meet in Rome’s Olympic Stadium on Friday night. His time of 48,24 seconds was a career best in a nail-biting finish against American Kerron Clement, 2007’s fastest runner.
Ben du Toit, a millionaire farmer jailed for 32 years for murdering his wife, wants to be released on parole and the chance to prove his innocence. This emerged in the Pretoria High Court this week when Du Toit sought an order to set aside a decision by the parole board at the Pretoria Central Prison, refusing to release him.
The mystery of the disappearance of millions of rands invested in manufacturing plants to produce biodiesel has deepened, despite a case in the Pretoria High Court this week. Three applicants on Friday sought a winding-up order against De Beers Fuel, the company that promised to produce biodiesel from algae.
The South African Communist Party (SACP) elected new office bearers at its national congress in Port Elizabeth on Friday, media reports said. The party re-elected Blade Nzimande as its general secretary, and Jeremy Cronin remains his deputy. Former National Union of Mineworkers boss Gwede Mantashe was elected national chairperson.
The body of a young girl, suspected to be that of a 13-year-old reported missing in Merweville, was found on Friday, Western Cape police said — the same day that a newly born baby was found dead in a dustbin in Mamelodi East, Pretoria. Spokesperson Ntobeko Mangqwengqwe said police found the girl’s decomposed body in a water tank at a farm outside Leeu-Gamka.
The man shot dead in a hijacking at Sinoville in Pretoria on Friday was identified as Khetang Eric Lerata (42), a manager at the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa. Lerata was shot dead in a hijacking outside his home on Friday morning. He was shot at close range after a scuffle with the hijackers. His driver was assaulted and was admitted to hospital.
The main beneficiaries of economic transformation have been white capitalists who remain the Induna (chief) while the black middle class are given jobs in areas such as human resources, Congress of South African Trade Unions general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said on Friday.
Allegations that German vitamin salesperson Matthias Rath is practising as a doctor in South Africa are a ”lie”, his lawyers said on Friday. A lawyer from the firm representing Rath, Zolile Gajana, said in a statement issued on Friday he wanted to respond to ”defamatory statements” made by the Democratic Alliance (DA) about Rath.
A pedestrian was cut in half when a car, allegedly travelling over 200km/h, hit him on the N8 near Kimberley in the Northern Cape, paramedics said on Friday. ”One half of the body was found inside the car that hit him, and the other half was lying in the bushes some distance away,” said ER24 spokesperson Ben Johnson.
Police on Friday defended the redeployment of officers dealing with crimes against women and children, saying the new system was proving to be effective. ”Rape cases have decreased significantly in Mpumalanga, while the conviction rate has increased substantially,” said spokesperson Director Selby Bokaba.
Danny Jordaan, CEO of the 2010 Soccer World Cup local organising committee, on Friday returned to his home town of Port Elizabeth to switch on the First National Bank (FNB) World Cup countdown clock. This demonstrates that things are really ”hotting up” in the friendly city as it prepares to host some of the games in three years’ time.
Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille has accused the government of again washing its hands of responsibility and abetting Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s ”survival programme”. Writing in her weekly newsletter on the DA website on Friday, Zille also urged increased international pressure on Mugabe.
Proposals have been put on the table to improve nurses’ salaries by between 20% and 23%, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang announced on Friday. ”Part of the proposal we have presented to the discussions with the health unions is that entry level salaries of nurses be increased by between 20% and 23% with effect from July 1 2007,” she said.
The leadership of South Africa’s communist party has signalled it wants to stay allied to the ruling African National Congress (ANC) rather than contest elections independently. A proposal to run a separate slate of candidates in the 2009 elections was put forth at the South African Communist Party national congress this week, but was quickly sidelined.