The Johannesburg Metropolitan Bus Service Company has offered a R50 000 reward for information that will help track down those responsible for the killings of and attacks on bus drivers, said its chairperson, Vincent Mntambo, on Sunday.
The spokesperson for Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader was assaulted by security forces as he tried to leave the country on Sunday, a party official said. Nelson Chamisa, aide to Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai, was assaulted at Harare International airport as he was leaving for Belgium.
South Africa’s Sharks made it six wins out of six and top the table after a 27-14 victory over New Zealand’s Wellington Hurricanes in Durban on Saturday. It wasn’t pretty, but Dick Muir’s charges did the business to remain the only unbeaten side in this year’s Super 14 southern-hemisphere interprovincial competition.
There was confusion on Saturday over whether one of the alleged Equatorial Guinea coup plotters had died in jail, with the Department of Foreign Affairs saying it was unable to confirm a report of the death. ”We have no confirmation of that,” said departmental spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa.
Dreams of making a living off SA’s fertile Cape winelands are souring for many grape growers forced by dipping exports and stagnant domestic sales.
Silver Stars went into the quarterfinals of the Absa Cup when they narrowly beat Ajax Cape Town by a 1-0 score in the fifth minute. Supersport United beat Lamontville Golden Arrows 1-0 to qualify for the quarterfinals too, and Benoni Premier United qualified as well when they beat Mvela League Bay United 2-1.
The Cheetahs snapped their poor recent form to garner an incredible 38-20 victory over the fancied Brumbies in Bloemfontein on Saturday. The hosts led 14-0 at the break and never looked like losing the game. The Cheetahs were spectacular and ran the ball at every opportunity.
Sprinter Sherwin Vries pulled off an amazing sprint double at the South African Senior Track and Field Championships at King’s Park Athletics Stadium in Durban on Saturday, showing he is on track to go to the World Championships in Japan later this year. It was a fifth national title for Vries.
Former MP Tony Yengeni’s son Mandla was hijacked in Nyanga, outside Cape Town, on Friday night. A silver Mercedes Benz with four or five occupants stopped in front of Yengeni and his friends and approached the victims, pointing firearms at them. At gunpoint, they stole a black Volkswagen Golf and sped off.
The riddle confronting Bafana Bafana coach Carlos Alberto Parreira over which goalkeeper to field in next Saturday’s African Nations Cup qualifier against Chad was on Friday solved by an injury to Mamelodi Sundowns’ Calvin Marlin. Marlin has withdrawn because of a nagging wrist injury.
In an amazing finish, the Cape Cobras sneaked into the Pro20 final with a nail-biting, last-ball win against the Warriors. All had seemed lost after the home team faltered, chasing a moderate target, but some power hitting and brave running saw them home. The Cobras had the best of starts after Alan Dawson won the toss.
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African National Congress deputy president Jacob Zuma and the French arms company Thint on Friday opposed any attempt to obtain documents from Mauritius, media reports said. They filed their heads of arguments in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Friday.
Bus drivers are set to go on strike following the collapse of a three-month-long negotiation process, the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union said on Friday. ”Labour demands an across-the-board increase of 13%, while bus owners are prepared to give a 5% increment,” read a statement.
The body of an elderly woman was found on Friday and rescue workers were still searching for 10 more people who were washed away during floods in Inanda, north of Durban. Netcare 911 spokesperson Chris Botha the body was found in a small river in the area. The floods also caused disruptions in the Durban area.
The heads of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank urged developed countries on Friday to boost aid flows to Africa and to do so fairly and predictably. ”There is a need for more aid, but there is also a need for better aid,” IMF managing director Rodrigo de Rato told reporters in Cape Town.
As the Democratic Alliance welcomed a decision by the Public Protector, Auditor General and director of public prosecutions to separately investigate new areas of concern around the arms deal, the Independent Democrats said it meant ”absolutely nothing”. Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana, National Prosecuting Authority head Vusi Pikoli and Auditor General Terence Nombembe met on Thursday evening.
Three secret microphones and a hidden camera were discovered in Fidentia’s Cape Town boardroom in a sweep for electronic bugs after curators took over the business, the city’s magistrate’s court heard on Friday. This emerged during a bail application by Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown and fellow director and accountant Graham Maddock.
A court challenge to the incorporation of the Merafong municipality into the North West will be welcomed by Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi. ”We generally know that the Khutsong community wants to approach the Constitutional Court — and the minister welcomes that,” a spokesperson said this week.
Shopkeepers in Pretoria’s city centre barricaded their stores on Friday as a few thousand protesting students, demanding free education, marched to Pretoria Station after handing over a memorandum to education officials. The students belonged to the Congress of South African Students.
The fourth suspect in the murder of Anglo-Zulu War expert David Rattray has appeared in the Dundee Magistrate’s Court. Sabelo Xolani Mpanza (28) appeared in the northern KwaZulu-Natal court on Thursday. He was denied bail and the matter was postponed for a week to allow time for his legal-aid application to be processed.
International talk-show host and philanthropist Oprah Winfrey on Friday opened a R12-million school in Kokstad on Friday amid much fanfare and celebration. ”The journey began five years ago. We were so impressed with the teachers and the principal that we thought your school was not good enough for you,” said Winfrey at the opening.
Residents in Ramocha near Rustenburg assaulted a so-called prophet and burnt her house down on Thursday night after paying her to protect them from a tornado that never came, North West police said. More than 800 angry people had gathered at 43-year-old Dikeledi Njusa’s home, demanding she refund them their R2.
Africans should hang their heads in shame over what is happening in Zimbabwe, Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu said on Friday. ”What an awful blot on our copybook. Do we really care about human rights? Do we care that people of flesh and blood, fellow Africans, are being treated like rubbish, almost worse than they were ever treated by rabid racists?”
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is ”doing very well” after her liver transplant, her doctors said on Friday. ”She’s a strong lady and has recovered very well after surgery,” said Dr John Tilley. Infection will remain a concern over the next five days and Tshabalala-Msimang will be placed on immuno-suppressant medication for the rest of her life.
The challenge of racism still permeating South African society needs to be debated honestly and fearlessly, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday. Writing in his weekly newsletter on the African National Congress website, Mbeki said racism remains a ”daily feature of our lives, a demon that must be exorcised” to achieve national reconciliation.
The lack of progress in the Doha trade talks is a serious indictment of attempts by the developed world to increase market access for poor nations, South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Friday. The World Trade Organisation negotiations stumbled in 2006 on demands for rich nations to cut farm subsidies.
President Thabo Mbeki’s ”dithering, inaction and often tacit support” are largely to blame for the current bloody shambles in Zimbabwe, says Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon. ”Let me put this bluntly: much of the blame for the present lamentable condition of Zimbabwe must be laid at President Mbeki’s door,” he said in his weekly newsletter on Friday.
The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism has warned the public not to eat any shellfish or lobster liver found on the West Coast, following reports of three people becoming ill after eating shellfish collected in Lamberts Bay. The problem may be a result of a toxic red tide, said the department in a statement on Friday.
Disintegrating boxes of medical waste left out in the rain and rotting waste from abattoirs dumped in ditches in the veld were among the environmental hazards discovered by the ”Green Scorpions” during a nation-wide blitz this week. Inspectors from the environmental police force this week carried out a series of countrywide enforcement inspections.
A family of four were washed away during a rain storm at the Bhambayi informal settlement in Inanda, north of Durban in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), police said on Friday. Superintendent Vincent Mdunge said nobody knew exactly when the incident happened but it was during Thursday night.
Africa was catching up with the rest of the world — although it was still regarded as the poorest region — but it needed two to three decades of rapid growth to make a substantial dent in the level of poverty, South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said at Parliament on Friday.
The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) on Friday reaffirmed its call for an independent judicial inquiry into the escape last year of Annanias Mathe from Pretoria’s C-Max prison. This follows the African National Congress parliamentary caucus decision on Thursday to express its full confidence in the Department of Correctional Services and agencies that probed Mathe’s escape.