Butcheries and bottle stores across Durban did a roaring trade on Friday afternoon and expected a manic Saturday morning ahead of the Super 14 final clash between the Bulls and the Sharks. Beer and braai packs were most in demand. ”There are huge braai orders,” said Chris Giani, the manager of Dirk’s Meet Market in Davenport Square.
The inspecting judge of prisons is to probe claims that fraud convict Schabir Shaik has special privileges at Durban’s plush Albert Luthuli Hospital. The Daily News reported Judge Nathan Erasmus’s office on Friday as saying an inspectorate official would visit the hospital to investigate allegations of preferential treatment.
Gauteng’s planned monorail should be kept off taxi routes, the South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) said on Friday. Santaco secretary general Philip Taaibosch said there was no agreement between the taxi industry and the government on the planned monorail between Soweto and central Johannesburg.
South African business should do more to identify trade opportunities with China, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said on Friday. Speaking about the massive trade imbalance between South Africa and China, he said the Chinese were not the only ones to blame as they have often asked South Africa to look at what more could be done.
The Pan African Parliament (PAP) on Friday called on the South African government to improve the protection of its officials after an MP was robbed in Midrand on Wednesday. A new MP for Mauritania, Diye Ba, was held at gunpoint on arriving at the Town Lodge in Midrand, from the airport, PAP spokesperson Khalid Abdu Dahab said.
South Africa will make it easier for black people to buy predominantly white-owned farms under a controversial land-redistribution programme, Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Lulama Xingwana said on Friday. South Africa’s government has vowed to give its black majority a 30% slice of the country’s farmland by the end of 2014.
It was acceptable for a television documentary on the baby Jordan-Leigh Norton murder case to be broadcast without the director of public prosecutions viewing it in advance, the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled on Friday. The accused in the case, Dina Rodrigues, and her co-accused were convicted earlier this month.
Opposition parties on Friday demanded answers on the troubled electronic national traffic information system, following allegations the Auditor General had warned of problems before the system was introduced. The Inkatha Freedom Party said it has urgently tabled questions in Parliament to Transport Minister Jeff Radebe.
Businesswoman Danisa Baloyi has repaid an interest-free loan of just less than R8-million she received from financial services company Fidentia Holdings, her spokesperson Dominic Ntsele confirmed on Friday. He said the amount, of R7,95-million, was repaid to Fidentia’s curators on Wednesday, in the form of two bank cheques.
South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel has not been approached as a possible successor to outgoing World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, a spokesperson for Manuel said on Friday. Manuel, who has steered South Africa’s vibrant economy for the past 11 years, is among those touted as possible candidates to take over from Wolfowitz.
About 100 000 tonnes of coal has failed to reach the Richards Bay Coal Terminal, after a computer failure on Wednesday night that blocked trains from being loaded at mines. Spoornet spokesperson Mike Asefovitz said the glitch was fixed on Thursday afternoon but a backlog of undelivered coal has built up.
South Africa must do much more to train and create a public service that meets the highest professional standards and ”that is proud of the fact that it exists to serve the people”, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday. While he does not refer to the upcoming national strike, he clearly has this in mind when he refers to the need for public servants to be ”patriotic and selfless”.
Outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair will pay a farewell visit to South Africa at the end of the month, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said on Friday. Blair, who earlier this month announced he would leave office on June 27, will arrive in South Africa on May 31 for his last official visit to the country.
The rejection of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) report by South Africa has come as no surprise as it is consistent with the government’s "depressing habit" of shooting the bearer of bad news, says official opposition Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille.
The drunken-driving case against Pretoria High Court Judge Nkola Motata was set down for trial in July by the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court on Friday. Magistrate Desmond Nair postponed the matter for trial starting July 19. The matter was set down for two days, July 19 and 20, he said. Motata’s bail was extended to the court date.
A senior Pretoria government official who allegedly murdered his wife by beating her up in a jealous rage has been given time to raise money for his defence. Despite earlier warnings by Pretoria High Court judge Tholi Vilakazi that he would not allow murder accused David Linley Sonkosi (40) to ”play games” with the court, Sonkosi was nevertheless granted a postponement on Thursday.
Unions at Eskom on Thursday began drawing up an agreement that will give some workers the right to strike should wage talks fail. ”We’re not very optimistic [that we’ll get what we ask for] because the divide between what we’re demanding and their offer is very large,” said Solidarity spokesperson Jaco Kleynhans.
The Legal Resources Centre (LRC), which has been championing the Richtersvelders’ land claim for almost a decade, announced on Thursday it would no longer be acting for the community. The news follows last month’s decision by community leaders, acting against the LRC’s advice, to sign a settlement agreement with Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin.
Denel has landed the biggest contract in its 16-year history, to supply the South African National Defence Force with 264 infantry combat vehicles worth about R8-billion, Denel CEO Shaun Liebenberg announced on Thursday. The contract was about three years in the making, he told a media briefing.
Durban is generally touted as the country’s surf capital. But such is the hype surrounding the upcoming Super 14 clash between the Sharks and the Bulls that even the surfers are talking rugby. The city’s two English-language daily newspapers have devoted pages and pages to the upcoming clash.
The wage offer by the government to public-service unions does amount to 12%, Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi said on Thursday. ”Unpacking the government’s offer” for the media in Pretoria, Fraser-Moleketi said that while the government is offering a 6% wage increase, the total offer amounts to much more.
Cricketers are concerned that the amount of international cricket being played could be detrimental to the game. The chief executive of the South African Cricketers’ Association, Tony Irish, said on Thursday that the volume of cricket being played was one of the main concerns expressed by players in a recent World Cup 2007 survey.
State diamond-mining company Alexkor will have to mothball some of its activities if the Richtersveld land claim is not settled, Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin said on Thursday. He also hit out at the community’s legal firm over its opposition to a settlement agreement signed by himself and community leaders last month.
The communities of Khutsong and Moutse will contest the demarcation issue in the Constitutional Court, their attorneys said on Thursday. ”We are now in a process of compiling papers,” said Rudolph Jansen of Lawyers for Human Rights. Jansen said papers for Khutsong would be filed soon.
The massive influx of illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe is something South Africa is going to ”have to live with”, says President Thabo Mbeki. Responding to questions in the National Assembly on Thursday, he said it is not possible to put a ”Great Wall of China” along the South African-Zimbabwe border.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad on Thursday expressed concern over continuing violent clashes between armed Palestinian factions affiliated to Fatah and Hamas. Pahad said he regretted the ”deaths of more than 40 Palestinians over the last five days coming in the wake of efforts by the Arab League to boost the Arab peace initiative”.
The increase in the period of internship for doctors from one to two years in 2008 may cause a shortage of doctors, the Health Department said on Thursday. Spokesperson Sibani Mngadi said the department was making efforts to address the challenge. ”There is ongoing collaboration between relevant stakeholders,” he said.
The municipality of Matatiele seems likely to stay in the Eastern Cape, according to Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi. Briefing the media on Thursday following Cabinet’s fortnightly meeting the day before, he said new draft legislation would re-affirm the current cross-boundary arrangements as they are now.
Conditions in some Gauteng state hospitals pose a serious health risk to patients, Beeld newspaper reported on Thursday. It said this emerged from complaints by readers in the past week. They spoke of cockroaches in hospital kitchens, dirty toilets, faeces on the walls and of incompetent nurses who treated wounds without gloves.
The inefficient use of the internet by local tourism marketers will lead to business loss, researchers said on Thursday. Ian Kruger, director of BlueRiverStone, a company that recently completed a research into South African tourism websites, said the local market was not taking full advantage of the functions of internet marketing.
The South African Cabinet has dismissed as ”misleading” media reports that the government has rejected the African Peer Review Mechanism country review report on South Africa, government communications head Themba Maseko said on Thursday.
South African investment banking and asset management group Investec increased full-year operating profit by 20%, driven by private client activities and a solid performance from its capital markets unit, the company said on Thursday. Operating profit before goodwill, non-operating items and taxation for the year to end-March was £466,6-million.