South Africa’s Absa Corporate and Business Bank (ACBB), a unit of retail lender Absa, has acquired a 10% stake in black-owned investment firm Sekunjalo, the companies said on Wednesday. Sekunjalo said ACBB had a further option to acquire up to 9,99% of the group’s share capital within 180 days.
Exchange controls are blocking South African investment in Africa’s mining boom while China extends its reach on the continent, a conference heard on Wednesday. Soaring commodity prices in recent years, largely fuelled by China’s insatiable appetite for resources, has spurred a rebound in exploration activity on the continent.
South Africa will beef up security for tourists for the 2010 Soccer World Cup to ensure visitors are shielded from the country’s notoriously high crime rates, the country’s tourism chief said on Wednesday. The continent’s economic powerhouse, which has among the world’s highest incidence of murder and rape, is battling perceptions that it is unsafe.
Widespread corruption continued to plague Africa in 2006, exacerbated by abject poverty that left a precarious human rights situation on the continent, Amnesty International said on Wednesday. A report noted that the presence of oil and vast mineral resources ”continued to blight rather than enhance people’s lives because of conflicts, corruption and power struggles”.
Schabir Shaik was mistried, his legal team told the Constitutional Court on Wednesday. ”The conviction and sentence were the culmination of a trial that, being unfair, was in breach of constitutional guarantees against punishment without due course of law,” the court was told.
The eThekwini municipality has backtracked on its plans to rename nearly 200 streets by extending the deadline for objections and inviting further submissions, the Mercury newspaper reported on Wednesday. The deadline for submissions of new names and objections to the existing proposals was extended to the end of June.
International Cricket Council head Percy Sonn was still in a critical condition at Durbanville Medi-Clinic in Cape Town, his personal assistant said on Wednesday. ”His condition is still unchanged. He is stable and his family is at his bedside. There is no change since yesterday [Tuesday],” said George Hector.
With a new plan to bury the nation in a few million books, a radio DJ is the latest to get on board to highlight the importance of reading for South Africa’s future. A book-distributing initiative has been launched by youth radio station 5fm’s Kevin Fine to deliver more than three million books to underprivileged schools and communities.
The Democratic Alliance parliamentary caucus will hold elections for a caucus leader on Thursday. ”This is an important position as the caucus leader will also be the leader of the official opposition in Parliament, who must represent over two million DA voters countrywide,” the party’s leader Helen Zille said in a statement on Wednesday
Even in the precarious business of soccer coaching, the PSL underwent a whirlwind of changes on Tuesday to match the gusty conditions blowing through much of South Africa. Foremost in causing a flurry was the departure of 42-year-old Gavin Hunt from Moroka Swallows after more than four reasonably successful seasons to replace Bafana Bafana-bound Pitso Mosimane at SuperSport United.
Passengers on the Blue Train shivered with the rest of the country this week, media reports said on Wednesday. The supply of diesel to one of the large generators that provides the luxury train with its power ran out on Monday night in the Karoo, just as the coldest weather this year moved into the area.
The government is hunting down the owners of thousands of derelict mines to mitigate a bill of close to R100-billion needed to rehabilitate the abandoned sites. If the government cannot find the owner of an unrehabilitated mine, then the state inherits the obligation to clean up that site.
Public-service unions have not given notice of their intention to strike indefinitely from June 1, the government said on Tuesday. ”We’re preparing for [demonstrations on] May 25, but we haven’t received any formal notice for June 1,” said chief negotiator Kenny Govender.
A merger of the Eastern and Western Cape could be good news for both provinces, Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool said on Tuesday. This would resolve the issues of shrinking allocations to the Western Cape and poor delivery in its neighbour, he told the provincial legislature.
Former president FW de Klerk on Tuesday invited President Thabo Mbeki to be a key speaker at an international conference on Unity in Diversity that he will be hosting later in the year. De Klerk extended the invitation during a visit to Mbeki’s official residence in Pretoria.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu is leading a full life with prostate cancer, his office said on Tuesday. ”Archbishop Tutu has got prostate cancer but his health is being monitored by his doctors and he’s leading a full life,” said an assistant. The cancer had resurfaced some time ago after it had been remission, the assistant said.
Ekurhuleni metro police chief Robert McBride will know by the end of this month if he will face a charge of drunken driving, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said on Tuesday. NPA spokesperson Panyaza Lesufi said police had been asked to finalise the case by May 25 when McBride’s dossier had to be back with the NPA for a decision on whether to prosecute him.
Marketing company Glomail has withdrawn a South African television advertisement for a supposed memory-training programme that has already run foul of United States regulators. The withdrawal follows a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority about an infomercial broadcast for American Kevin Trudeau’s ”Mega Memory System”.
The South African Weather Service recorded 54 weather records in the icy wet and snowy weather this week. On Monday, there were 34 new temperature records and on Tuesday another 20. At least 17 people were reported dead from exposure or in fires trying to keep warm in the icy wet weather gripping the country.
Schabir Shaik’s last bid for freedom will be heard in the Constitutional Court on Wednesday and Thursday. The former financial adviser of African National Congress deputy president Jacob Zuma is asking the court for leave to appeal his conviction on two counts of corruption and one of fraud, his 15-year jail term and the seizure of his assets.
The long-awaited Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Bill was finally adopted by the National Assembly on Tuesday, several months after it was debated in the House. The Bill’s primary purpose is to extend protection and treatment provision to victims of rape, MPs were told.
A power failure in Gauteng’s Midrand area on Tuesday disrupted the new electronic national traffic information system at some testing stations, the Transport Department said. Spokesperson Collen Msibi said generators kicked in immediately after the power failure in the morning.
International Cricket Council (ICC) president Percy Sonn was reported to be critically ill on Tuesday after complications from routine surgery. His personal assistant, George Hector, told Cape Town radio station Cape Talk that Sonn was sedated at the Durbanville Medi-Clinic after being admitted to intensive care there on Monday.
Two hungry and thirsty crocodiles are recovering in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) after a week-long ordeal with their snouts taped shut, the Witness reported on Tuesday. The metre-and-a-half-long crocs were rescued from the Umgeni River near Wartburg by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and animal rights organisation Justice for Animals.
At least eight people were reported dead in fires or from exposure on Tuesday as icy weather gripped the country. In Nancefield in Soweto, two babies died when the shack they were in caught fire. Johannesburg Emergency Services spokesperson Malcolm Midgley said one was about four weeks old and the other about a year old.
Interest shown by synthetic-fuel firm Sasol in the pebble-bed modular reactor is evidence of private-sector interest in nuclear power, Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin argued on Tuesday. He was speaking in his policy debate in the National Council of Provinces.
The City Press newspaper will not back down on a report exposing an alleged assassination plot against African National Congress (ANC) deputy president Jacob Zuma as an elaborate hoax. ”We stand by our story,” the newspaper’s deputy editor, Khathu Mamaila, said on Tuesday, in reaction to accusations that it made the whole thing up.
England coach Brian Ashton has included three new caps in what he described as an ”interesting mix” for the first Test against South Africa in Bloemfontein on Saturday. Fullback Mike Brown, loosehead prop Nick Wood and lock Dean Schofield received their first call-ups on Tuesday as England look to take on the Springboks with nearly 30 first-choice players left at home.
It was ”pretty certain” that a second person would join Hard Livings gang boss Rashied Staggie in the dock on a murder charge, the Cape High Court heard on Tuesday. Prosecutor Anthony Stephen made the announcement when he applied — successfully — for the case against Staggie to be postponed to August 27.
A court case against Annanias Mathe, the Mozambican national who made a daring escape from Pretoria’s top security C-Max prison last year, has been transferred provisionally to the Johannesburg High Court for trial. When his trial begins in the the court on November 12, he will be facing 76 charges.
A protracted legal battle in the Pretoria High Court was avoided on Tuesday when the police medical scheme, Polmed, indicated it would listen to thousands of former police officers on reasons why it should not cancel their membership of the fund.
The Department of Home Affairs has brought in experts to push the department’s turnaround strategy, Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said on Tuesday. Briefing the media, Mapisa-Nqakula said the task team, comprising experts from both the private and public sector, would bring radical changes to the department.