Thirteen people were arrested overnight in the troubled Khutsong township and more police are being deployed in the area, North West police said on Thursday morning. Superintendent Louis Jacobs said the arrests came after a supermarket was broken into and looted at about 10pm and a spaza shop was burnt down.
An interim Labour Court order forced a halt to a security guard strike at Magnum Shield Security late on Wednesday, the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union said. The strike was over the selling of work contracts, which would require some Magnum Shield guards to work for Springbok Fidelity.
Jomo Cosmos held Mamelodi Sundowns to a 0-0 draw at a vibrant match at Loftus in a Castle Premiership clash on Wednesday evening. The 2006/07 league champions rested Calvin Marlin, Godfrey Sapula and Josta Dladla for a game which was meaningless to the Tshwane team.
A row over selection for the national training squad has overshadowed what should be South Africa’s biggest week of celebration since the Springboks won the World Cup on home soil in 1995. Durban’s Sharks and the Bulls from Pretoria contest the first all-South African Super 14 final on Saturday before a 54Â 000-strong sell-out crowd in Durban.
Frustration continued to reign at Johannesburg’s Langlaagte testing and licensing station on Wednesday as the new transport electronic system (eNaTIS) kept on crashing. Some motorists queuing since dawn said they had been coming to the station since last month.
Five people had a close encounter with a great white shark while surfing at Robberg beach in Plettenberg Bay on Wednesday, the National Sea Rescue Institute said. The 3,5m shark was spotted by a local resident, Glen Brown, who had been flying a honeymoon couple and another passenger over the beach in his Robertson 44 helicopter.
A senior Pretoria government official was ”wild, like a tiger” after allegedly beating up his wife in a jealous rage, a witness testified in the Pretoria High Court on Wednesday. Schoolteacher Pumla Mkatali died in her house in Centurion in May 2005 of injuries allegedly sustained in an assault by her husband.
Suburbs in the Ekurhuleni municipality experience at least one power failure a day, a Democratic Alliance spokesperson said on Wednesday. He made the comment after constant contact with councillors and listening to a radio broadcast on which Jacob Marogo, Eskom chief executive, was ”evasive” and non-committal about plans to curb the problem.
A Pietermaritzburg man (34) who raped his eight-year-old daughter was told by a judge on Wednesday that he failed to understand what possessed the man to commit such a callous act. Judge Herbert Msimang imposed a 20-year jail sentence on the man.
Thousands of African National Congress (ANC) demonstrators gathered at the civic centre in Cape Town on Wednesday to protest against the Democratic Alliance-led (DA) city council. ”March against DA council’s high rates, service cut-offs, pink letters and evictions,” read a pamphlet distributed to the protesters.
A long-awaited report into an incident where President Thabo Mbeki was heckled, allegedly by Jacob Zuma supporters, at last year’s reburial of former African National Congress (ANC) stalwart Moses Mabhida has been sent to the party’s secretary general, Kgalema Motlanthe.
African and European continental parliamentarians said on Wednesday they hope their differences over Zimbabwe’s attending the European Union-Africa Summit in December will blow over. The EU has imposed ”targeted sanctions” against Zimbabwe, including a ban on Cabinet ministers travelling from that country to Europe.
MPs serving on the National Assembly public enterprises portfolio committee have been told that the establishment of a new state-owned company, Infraco, would allow for massively reduced costs of access to broadband in future. If the Infraco model were adopted, it could cut prices immediately by 65%.
The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) has averted a national strike that could have affected about 25Â 000 bus drivers in the private bus sector. The three unions that had planned the action signed an agreement with the employers on Tuesday, said spokesperson Lusanda Myoli.
A newborn baby suffocated in its mother’s amniotic sac after she waited five hours for an ambulance to arrive, the Herald Online reported on Wednesday. Thobeka Makanjwa was admitted to hospital after her baby died on Monday morning. The ambulance’s late arrival has outraged the community.
Minister of Sport and Recreation Makhenkesi Stofile has warned against complacency in the Rugby World Cup in France in September after South Africa’s success in the Super 14 competition. Meanwhile, the official World Cup trophy stimulated nostalgia in South Africa where it arrived on Wednesday for a two-day visit.
One of the Boeremag treason accused, Herman Scheepers, has died after a long battle against a brain virus he contracted in jail. Scheepers (52) has been absent from the trial since last year because of his ill health. He was granted bail in July 2006 after four years in custody, following an urgent application by his attorney, Paul Kruger.
A Johannesburg man who joked on board a kulula.com aircraft about hijacking the plane is to go on trial in the Bellville Regional Court in October. The case was on Wednesday transferred from the Bellville Magistrate’s Court to the regional court, when Mncedisi Eric Maluleka (32) made his fourth appearance since his arrest in October last year.
Eight trade unions belonging to the Independent Labour Caucus (ILC) and representing almost 40% of public-service employees will know by next Friday if their members will strike. Speaking in Pretoria, Manie de Clercq, chairperson of the ILC, said the eight unions are ”balloting their members” and will have the results of that on May 25.
A man with a stolen gun was disarmed by a Tembisa high school principal on Tuesday, Tembisa police said. Captain Manyadza Ralidzhivha said three pupils ran to the principal’s office to tell him that an armed man was in one of the classes. The 47-year-old Bokamoso High School principal informed the police and went to investigate.
South African retail-sales growth jumped to 10,1% year-on-year in March, official data showed on Wednesday, pointing to persistently high consumer spending and supporting the case for higher interest rates. A robust consumer appetite has been the main driver of faster growth in Africa’s biggest economy in recent years, but has added to inflationary pressures.
A petrol-bombed truck burned out and three petrol bombs were thrown at police vehicles in Khutsong on Wednesday, North West police said. Superintendent Louis Jacobs said residents had started throwing stones and burning tyres in the morning. Three petrol bombs were thrown at police Nyala armoured vehicles but did not cause major damage, he said.
A R12-billion monorail will be built between Johannesburg and Soweto in the next two years, it was announced on Wednesday. "By 2009, no one from Soweto should have to wait more than 15 minutes for transport," Gauteng finance and economic affairs minister Paul Mashatile said at the launch of the project in Sandton.
The JSE was a touch higher at noon on Wednesday with further gains capped by a weaker tone in gold-mining stocks, while grocer retailer Shoprite fell on news that takeover talks have been terminated. At 12pm, the all-share index was up 0,18%. Resources gained 0,28%, the platinum-mining index was up 0,44%, but the gold-mining index gave up 0,73%.
The Bedfordview power failure was caused by an oil leakage in an oil-filled cable, Eskom said on Wednesday. ”The problem initially arose in February this year when the Bedfordview/Croydon 132kV oil-filled cable tripped due to oil leakage,” Eskom said in a statement.
SA Rugby has gagged Springbok coach Jake White, who will not be allowed to grant media interviews until next Monday. ”This is an instruction from SA Rugby,” the organisation’s media manager, Vusi Kama, told Johannesburg morning newspaper Beeld.
South African supermarket group Shoprite said on Wednesday it had ended talks on a proposed ,14-billion buyout from private equity firm Brait, which sent its shares up as much as 5%. Brait’s bid for Shoprite late last year has been mired in controversy, with minority shareholders unhappy about the price.
Petsana at Reitz in the Free State was quiet on Wednesday morning after protests and a stayaway from work the day before, police said. Sergeant Mmako Mophiring said that according to police on the scene, schooling was going on as usual in Petsana, and workers had returned to work.
Luke Watson’s father, Dan ”Cheeky” Watson, believes that a sinister ”third force” holds power in South African rugby, according to the Star newspaper. In a report on Wednesday, the paper stated that Cheeky felt that his son was paying for his own political activism. Cheeky, who played rugby in the townships in the 1970s, turned his back on Springbok rugby due to political beliefs.
Residents of an East London suburb are objecting to a Buffalo City plan to build ”temporary houses” on their doorstep, the Dispatch Online reported on Wednesday. Despite furious objections from Braelynn residents, Buffalo City municipality chief planner Craig Sam has thrown his weight behind the plan, saying the objections are ”invalid”.
Mittal Steel South Africa reported a 19% increase in headline earnings for the March quarter to R1,5-billion from the previous quarter, the company said on Wednesday. This was driven by higher domestic sales, higher international sales prices, an improved sales mix and a weaker rand/United States dollar exchange rate.
Taxi commuters in the Khutsong area were likely to be stranded on Wednesday after local taxi operators suspended services at midnight, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported. The suspension came in support of the community’s objection to the incorporation of Khutsong into the North West province, the report said.