The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) has urged National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli to urgently investigate the unprecedented upsurge in public complaints about reckless behaviour by ministerial-vehicle convoys on the country’s roads. ”These complaints centre on the excessive speeds at which these convoys travel …,” the IFP said on Wednesday.
Zimbabwe’s 27th anniversary of independence on Wednesday should be marked with a plan clearly setting out successive steps to restore democracy and good governance to that country, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said. ”The 27th anniversary of Zimbabwean independence … is the most dismal in that country’s history,” DA spokesperson Douglas Gibson said in a statement.
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South African skipper Graeme Smith and his ”merry men” were toasted by his country’s media on Wednesday after a blitz on the England team saw them burst into the cricket World Cup semifinals. A day after being lambasted for partying into the wee hours of the morning following a woeful loss to New Zealand on Saturday, South Africa’s press said the Proteas deserved a few drinks.
South African retail sales growth slowed to 8% year-on-year in February at constant prices, Statistics South Africa said on Wednesday. In the three months to the end of February, sales also rose by 8% compared to the same period the previous year. The annual increase for January was revised to 9,9% from 9,4%.
New Zealand will face South Africa on Saturday the IRB under-19 rugby World Championship final. New Zealand scored three tries in a powerful first-half performance against Wales at Ravenhill, Belfast, to go into the break 23-9 ahead. Despite a much-improved performance in the second half, Wales were unable to breach the New Zealand try line.
All vehicle testing stations in Johannesburg and Pretoria were open on Wednesday, but glitches with the new traffic information system continued. The new service is electronic which means traffic-related transactions may be completed using automated teller machines and the internet.
An attempt by First National Bank (FNB) to appeal a December court order forbidding it to continue with its Million-a-Month competition was dismissed on Tuesday, the National Lotteries Board said. FNB filed an application to appeal after a judge restrained them from conducting the competition on December 15 last year.
President Thabo Mbeki on Tuesday launched the first of South Africa’s six new Nepad e-schools, Hewlett Packard (HP) said. The first school to be equipped with an HP computer lab, complete with servers, personal computers, printers, faxes, scanners, copiers and wireless connectivity, was the Maripe Secondary School at Bushbuckridge in Limpopo.
A Pakistani man whose family says was abducted as part of the United States-led war on terror is in custody in Pakistan after 18 months of secret detention, human rights group Amnesty International said. Khalid Rashid, who vanished after being arrested in South Africa as an illegal alien in 2005, appeared before a federal review board in the Supreme Court building in Islamabad on April 12.
The severed head of a chihuahua dog was discovered inside a parcel at the Kwaggasrand Postnet, west of Pretoria, on Tuesday afternoon, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said. The parcel containing the head of the six-year-old dog was addressed to somebody in Springs.
Africa should act fast in finding ways to deal with the effects of climate change, a panel of experts said on Tuesday in Johannesburg. Methods to preserve water should top the list, panel member Pauline Dube said. ”If we don’t take steps fast to preserve water, we are headed for a crisis.”
The United States’s principal deputy undersecretary for defence, Ryan Henry, met South African government officials on Tuesday to inform them of plans for the US military’s new Africa command. Henry is on an African tour to convince governments on the continent that there is nothing sinister about the proposed command.
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Addressing the Cape Town Press Club on Tuesday, former deputy president Jacob Zuma pledged not to withdraw legal action he has instituted against members of the media. He also said he would accept nomination for a leadership position at the ANC’s national conference near the end of this year.
International security giant Group 4 Securicor (G4S) must respect its workers’ basic rights or forget about 2010 World Cup contracts, said unionists on Tuesday. ”If they continue their abuses … we will make sure they do not see a god-darned contract in 2010,” said South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union general secretary Randall Howard.
Hours after Transport Minister Jeff Radebe gave the upgraded transport information system the ”all clear” on Tuesday, vehicle testing and licensing stations in Johannesburg and Pretoria were still not up and running on Tuesday. Tshwane metro spokesperson Alta Fourie said the system was going on and off.
Both the number of malaria cases and deaths caused by it have decreased in Mpumalanga over the past seven years, the provincial health department said on Tuesday. There has been a steady drop in cases and a ”pleasing decline” in deaths since 2000/01, according to statistics released by the department.
It was all about Paul Canning on the morning of day two of the Quiksilver Pro Africa at Durban’s New Pier on Tuesday. Surfing in the last heat of the round of 192, ”PC” went ballistic in his heat to win convincingly against Australian Paul Parkes in a high-scoring heat. The Durban goofy-footer found form and won convincingly.
A Port Elizabeth housewife who was arrested for ”loitering with the intent to commit prostitution” is to seek compensation in the city’s high court next week. Media reports on Tuesday said that the claim of Luarika Louise Vermeulen (23) against Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula could amount to R600 000.
A threat of High Court action has brought details of the release conditions of Tony Yengeni in the open, the Cape Argus reported on Tuesday. The conditions include a liquor and drugs ban — but the former African National Congress chief whip shrugged off questions when asked to comment on Tuesday morning.
Hannah Botha, one of South Africa’s veteran actors and a star of M-Net’s soap opera Egoli, has died at the age of 84. Botha died in Johannesburg on the morning of April 16, Beeld newspaper reported. She was admitted to hospital at the weekend as she was not feeling well.
The difference in asking and selling prices in the property market is back to normal levels, said the MD of Homenet, David Rogers, on Tuesday. ”Clear evidence that the property market has settled … is the fact that the difference between asking and selling prices has dropped back to normal levels of between 5% and 10% in most areas,” Rogers said.
The Cape Town Environmental Protection Association (Cepa) is to drop its court case seeking to stop the demolition of the Green Point Stadium, South African Broadcasting Corporation radio news reported on Tuesday. The Cape Town unicity’s legal team said Cepa’s lawyers had conceded that the demolition could not be stopped.
South Africa was shocked by the shooting rampage at the United States’s Virginia Tech University, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said on Tuesday. The event also triggered shock and sympathy in the rest of the world, along with questions over gun culture in the US.
I can’t get no satisfaction, complained rock legend Mick Jagger back in the swinging Sixties. Maybe the pair should have moved to Africa. According to the Durex Global Sex Survey, South Africans and Nigerians are among the most satisfied people in the world when it comes to sex, or having the most orgasms.
The family of Michaela Garoenisha Ganchi was ”very angry” following the postponement on Tuesday of the sentencing of the little girl’s killer. ”We are very angry. This guy is buying time. This [postponement] is unnecessary because he has already been found guilty,” said Ganchi’s uncle Bernard Lee.
Pretoria High Court Judge Essop Patel, who was presiding over the criminal trial of alleged child molester Cezanne Visser, alias ”Advocate Barbie”, has died. Patel died of cancer after a long sickness, media reports said on Tuesday. He will be buried according to Muslim rites on Tuesday morning at Johannesburg’s Newclare cemetery.
Vodacom Bulls flank forward Danie Rossouw was suspended for one week on Monday, after a Sanzar judicial hearing found him guilty of committing a dangerous tackle in the Vodacom Super 14 match against the Vodacom Stormers at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday.
With the Premier Soccer League (PSL) title already in the bag and an Absa Cup semifinal berth indicating bright prospects of a PSL ”double”, Mamelodi Sundowns left South Africa for their most imposing and difficult challenge of all against Egypt’s Al-Ahly in the CAF second-leg Champions League clash.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has called for the resignation of World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz "not just because of his abuse of his office to promote, and give a huge pay rise to, his girlfriend, but because of his consistently anti-working class and anti-poor policies", it said on Tuesday.
Six warders from Krugersdorp Prison appeared in the town’s magistrate’s court on Monday in connection with the deaths of three inmates over the weekend. The men are alleged to have seriously assaulted the prisoners on Saturday night after an apparent gang fight. The prisoners were taken to hospital, but died shortly afterwards.
A commission of inquiry will investigate racism at a Western Cape school after an assault on a coloured pupil was captured on a cellphone video, the provincial education department said on Monday. The cellphone clip shows a grade-nine pupil being assaulted by a fellow pupil while their teacher looks on and fails to intervene.
The finances of the United Independent Front (UIF) came under scrutiny in an application heard in the Cape High Court on Monday. The application was brought by Neville Hendricks and Mzwandile Manjiya, who say they are the UIF’s deputy president and secretary general respectively.