Labour offices in Nelspruit in Mpumalanga were shut down by their own inspectors after being found to pose a serious health hazard to workers, the Department of Labour said on Thursday. A notice halting all the activities was issued on Tuesday. A department spokesperson said inspectors found that the building had a water leak in the ceiling.
Police have confirmed that a senior Human Rights Commission official was held hostage at the organisation’s offices in the Absa Bank building in Cape Town on Thursday. Captain Elliot Sinyangana said police were still investigating the cause of the incident. ”It was a Human Rights Commission official who was held hostage. It seems as if there was a dispute about pension,” he said.
The official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) will on Friday finalise the order in which the names of candidates will appear on the ballot-papers that will be used during the election process at the party’s congress in Gauteng in May. This will be done by means of a draw.
South Africa’s government has no plans to interfere in monetary policy in order to influence the exchange rate and promote vital exports, an economic adviser to President Thabo Mbeki said on Wednesday. Mbeki rattled investors in February when he said raising interest rates was not the only tool to tame consumer spending.
The long-term insurance industry attracted R50,2-billion in new individual life business last year. According to the Life Offices’ Association (LOA), this translated into a 14% increase over the R44,2-billion received in 2005. LOA chief executive Gerhard Joubert said the increase in new business was heartening.
The Bolivia bungle, during which Bafana Bafana became the first team to lose a home game against South America’s most unfashionable soccer nation in more than 10 years, has cost South Africa a place among the top 60 in Fifa’s monthly rankings.
The South African Army band, a guard of honour and a red carpet were in place at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on Thursday when President Thabo Mbeki officially welcomed his Singaporean counterpart President Sellapan Ramanathan. Mbeki and Ramanathan went straight into talks after the official welcoming ceremony.
A group of Pretoria commuters set two train carriages alight on Thursday after impatiently waiting for a delayed train to get moving, said Metrorail. Metrorail spokesperson Thokozani Zitha said the carriages were set on fire near Mamelodi, east of Pretoria, shortly after 6am on Thursday.
A Durban policeman was shot dead on Thursday morning, apparently accidentally, by a man seeking revenge against two suspects the policeman had arrested. Zakhele Nxumalo of the organised crime unit was shot as he was driving away from the house of the two suspects in Dube Village.
Santos joined Mamelodi Sundowns, Silver Stars and Ajax Cape Town in the lucrative Absa Cup semifinals when they beat Benoni Premier United 1-0 at Athlone Stadium on Wednesday night. The goal was scored in the 68th minute by Eleazar Rogers. Santos can thank long-time stalwarts Musa Otiena, Edries Burton and Sebastian Bax, who chased everything and did not give the visitors space.
At least 400 youths blockaded roads, stoned passing vehicles and robbed motorists in Khutsong township on Wednesday night, police said. The youths had just returned from a mass meeting called by the Anti-North West Forum to discuss Merafong municipality’s incorporation into the North West from Gauteng.
Thieves broke into a South African air base and stole at least R1,3-million earmarked for presidential flights abroad, a newspaper reported on Thursday. The thieves used crowbars to open two security doors and cut open safes on Tuesday night at the Waterkloof Air Base outside the capital Pretoria.
Spoornet’s difficulties operating the railway line dedicated to supplying the Richards Bay coal terminal had doomed the export terminal to operating under capacity, the competition tribunal heard on Wednesday, media reports said on Thursday.
Six matric boys chased and caught four youths after a fellow-pupil was stabbed outside Greenside High School on Wednesday. Deputy principal Nicola Whyte said the school was very proud of the six matric boys who chased after the attackers who stabbed 17-year-old Moeketsi Motlhakoana.
The son of a Johannesburg metro police officer was stabbed outside Greenside High School on Wednesday after four boys robbed his 14-year-old cousin, the boy’s father said. Senior metro officer Simon Motlhakoana said his 17-year-old son, Moeketsi, was stabbed with a knife above the right ear by a 20-year-old youth from Malvern High School in Kensington.
President Thabo Mbeki will host talks with his Singaporean counterpart, President Sellapan Ramanathan, in Pretoria on Thursday. Ramanathan, who is the first Singaporean president to visit South Africa, arrived in the country on Wednesday. High on their agenda are trade and economic relations between the two countries, said the Foreign Affairs Department in a statement.
The Johannesburg home of Gauteng’s provincial minister of health Brian Hlongwa was robbed and four family members held up on Tuesday night, police said. ”I can confirm that yesterday [Tuesday] evening about 8.30pm in the Sandton area four family members were held up and household items were taken,” police said.
A strike by public servants came a step closer on Wednesday when the biggest public sector union rejected the state’s offer of a 5,3% wage increase. The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) said in a statement it rejected the proposal ”with the contempt it deserves”.
Slain South African swimmer Kenneth Smith was a well-mannered, humble and courageous person. This was the opinion of most of the people who spoke about Smith during his memorial service in Johannesburg on Wednesday. He just touched lives,” said Easlyn Young, manager of the Learn to Swim programme in South Africa.
The office of the ombudsman for long-term insurance has begun a form of naming and shaming of companies slow to respond to complaints logged with it. Deputy ombudsman Jennifer Preiss told reporters in Cape Town on Wednesday that the office felt it was sending out too many reminders to insurance companies not responding to complaints.
An 18-year-old youth was arrested on Wednesday for sending a package containing the severed head of a Chihuahua dog through the post, Pretoria police said.”It was apparently related to satanic belief,” said Inspector Paul Ramaloko. The Pretoria resident was handed to police by his parents on Wednesday afternoon.
At least 600Â 000 people had accessed services on the upgraded transport information system by 1pm on Wednesday, the Department of Transport said. ”That is phenomenal,” the department’s safety promotions manager, Ntau Letebele, said. Letebele acknowledged that the system was still shaky in some areas like Johannesburg and Pretoria.
The Afrikanerbond on Wednesday welcomed the National African National Congress’s (ANC) stance against the damage to the Great Trek memorial in Standerton, Mpumalanga. ”The Afrikanerbond is heartened by ANC national spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama’s unequivocal message …,” said Afrikanerbond spokesperson Jan Bosman in a statement.
Residents of two buildings in Johannesburg’s inner city are taking an eviction order against them to the Constitutional Court, their lawyers said on Wednesday. About 300 residents have lodged an application for leave to appeal a Supreme Court of Appeal decision that opened the way for city officials to evict them.
Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk has rejected a claim he is doing nothing concrete about climate change, saying plans by the government to deal with the threat of global warming are well in hand. Earlier on Wednesday, the Democratic Alliance claimed the minister was not doing his job in this regard.
Former LeisureNet joint chief executives Peter Gardener and Rod Mitchell should not be sacrificed on ”the altar of deterrence”, their advocate, Francois van Zyl, told the Cape High Court on Wednesday. He was responding to a comment by acting Judge Dirk Uijs, who last month found them guilty of fraud involving a total of R12-million.
South Africa’s companies will soon be able to have a stake in Niger’s meat and diary industries, Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said on Wednesday. She met her Niger counterpart, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and African Integration Aichatou Mindaoudou, in Pretoria.
Award-winning Tsotsi actor Presley Chweneyagae pleaded guilty to a charge of fraud when he appeared in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday. He was given a fine of R5 000 or six months’ imprisonment. The star was accused of driving with a fake Ivorian driver’s licence doctored to look like an international licence.
Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk has been challenged by the Democratic Alliance (DA) to do something concrete about climate change. ”As the lead minister on climate change, Van Schalkwyk spends a lot of time talking at international conferences on the need for ‘serious and immediate’ action. But he has yet to actually produce anything concrete,” the DA said on Wednesday.
South Africa’s Kumba Iron Ore has started legal action against Senegal after the government ordered it to stop exploration at a key mine into which Arcelor-Mittal wants to invest ,2-billion. Kumba, Africa’s biggest iron ore producer, exercised an option to acquire a controlling stake in the Faleme project some time ago, but Senegal put this interest in dispute in 2005.
During apartheid rule in South Africa, the country’s liberation movement used the United Nations as a key battleground to win support for its struggle for democracy and human rights. But these days, South Africa’s UN diplomats find the issues are rarely so clear cut.
”Alarmingly low” levels of rivers in the Kruger National Park will from Monday result in drastic cuts in water usage, the park’s management said. ”We realise that the restrictions will have a noticeable effect on tourist facilities as the lawns will not be as lush and green as they have been for the last few years …,” head of the park’s conservation services, Dr Freek Venter, said on Wednesday.