Furniture shops cannot keep silent about hidden costs when advertising bargains, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said on Wednesday. The authority has ruled against a Furniture City advertisement that did not reflect hidden costs — such as insurance and delivery charges — in its advertised prices.
Though manufacturers are still looking on the bright side, overall business confidence in South Africa is at its lowest in two years, according to the latest Rand Merchant Bank/Bureau for Economic Research index. The index, released on Wednesday, showed a decline from 83 points late last year to 81 in the first quarter of 2007.
The national strategic plan to combat Aids to 2011 met with business, government and civil society approval in Johannesburg on Wednesday. ”I regard [it] as a major landmark in our efforts as the people of South Africa to respond to HIV and Aids,” acting Health Minister Jeff Radebe told a conference on the presentation of the plan.
As the African National Congress (ANC) and General Council of the Bar in South Africa expressed concern at the situation in Zimbabwe on Wednesday, the Democratic Alliance said the government’s response to the situation is shameful. ”The ANC is concerned about the current situation in Zimbabwe,” party spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama said.
Muslims in South Africa could be incorrectly suspected of being involved terrorism due to comments by intelligence officials that the country has become a haven for terrorists, Muslim organisations warned on Wednesday.
A Pietermaritzburg family has been forced to vacate its home in Azalea township after it was invaded by snakes, the Witness reported on Wednesday. The newspaper’s website quoted Bongekile Ndlela (42), a mother of five, as saying she first discovered the reptiles on Sunday inside her bedroom. Since then she has killed five of them with the help of a neighbour.
The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP expressed concern on Wednesday about reports that international terrorists might be in South Africa. ”The IFP is alarmed at reports that suggest we might be harbouring international terror suspects, with links to Afghanistan, Iraq and al-Qaeda, without our knowledge,” the IFP’s John Bhengu said.
South Africa has become one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a police officer, the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) said on Wednesday. Party spokesperson Velaphi Ndlovu said the emotional damage the job causes was shown in the increased number of police-officer suicides in the second half of last year, he said in a statement.
South Africa launched a revamped national Aids plan on Wednesday as new research showed the high cost of government inaction on the epidemic — 1Â 500 South Africans are infected with HIV every day. South Africa’s national strategic plan aims to cut new HIV infections by 50% and bring treatment and support to at least 80% of HIV-positive people by 2011.
Moments of wayward brilliance and woeful finishing were the overriding features of Bafana Bafana’s 1-1 draw with Swaziland’s minnows at Ellis Park on Tuesday in a nightmarish performance that will probably leave new Brazil-born coach Carlos Alberto Parreira waking up at nights in sweaty disbelief.
South Africa’s relatively small space programme can still play a significant role in skills development, Professor Sias Mostert of SunSpace and Information Systems in Stellenbosch said on Wednesday. It was a myth that satellite programmes belonged only to larger nations, he said.
South African life insurer Metropolitan Holdings increased annual headline earnings per share by 28% and said on Wednesday the outlook for its target markets remained positive. Shares in Metropolitan outperformed rivals as South Africa’s bourse fell 3% in a fresh sell-off sparked by emerging market worries.
A fourth man linked to the murder of KwaZulu-Natal historian David Rattray has been arrested, local police said on Wednesday. Superintendent Phindile Radebe said the 27-year-old suspect was arrested on Tuesday night at Helpemekaar, near Rattray’s home.
Underdevelopment, poverty and the low status of women remained the main ”drivers” of HIV/Aids in South Africa, the Health Department said on Wednesday. An estimated 55% of those living with HIV in South Africa were women, according to the draft National Strategic Plan on HIV/Aids and Sexually Transmitted Infections.
A misunderstanding led to media reports that five professors from the University of Pretoria were being held hostage at a bio-diesel plant in a village outside Mafikeng, police said on Tuesday. The professors had apparently gone to the plant in Tontonyane village to fetch trees for their research project when confusion ensued.
A R2,1-billion contract for the construction of Cape Town’s 2010 Soccer World Cup stadium was on Tuesday awarded to a joint venture between Murray & Roberts and WBHO. The award, made by the city council’s bid adjudication committee, clears the way for the contractors to move on site.
A two-week strike that crippled operations at a major bus company was called off on Tuesday following a settlement agreement between the company and the South African Transport and Allied Workers’ Union. ”In terms of the agreement, all employees will resume their normal duties tomorrow [Wednesday],” Autopax spokesperson Trechia Arlow said on Tuesday.
Negotiations between the Richtersveld community and the government on an out-of-court land-claim settlement are back on track, according to community leader Willem Diergaardt. He was speaking after a 45-minute meeting on Tuesday morning with Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin, in the minister’s Cape Town office.
There is R600-million for apartheid victims who appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that has not been paid out as reparations, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Tuesday. DA justice spokesperson Sheila Camerer said it was unacceptable for the Department of Justice and Constitutional Communication to turn a blind eye to people’s suffering.
Eight babies removed from a filthy cellar in Orange Grove in Johannesburg — where they had allegedly been abandoned by their teenage mothers — are back with their mothers. Johannesburg General Hospital spokesperson Lungi Mvumvu said on Tuesday that the babies had not been admitted but examined as outpatients.
A police sergeant inexperienced in murder scenes told the Cape High Court on Tuesday of his shock at finding the corpse of estate agent Andre Weitz bludgeoned to death in a duplex in Cape Town. Bernard van Zyl (28), Weitz’s former romantic partner, is alleged to have attacked Weitz with an axe in June 2004.
An assault case against the kwaito star known to his fans as Mandoza was postponed in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday, police said. Glen Nonkonyana (30) laid a charge at the Kliptown police station on Monday, alleging that Mandoza had assaulted him at a flat in Ferndale in Randburg late on Saturday, police said.
The Labour Ministry on Tuesday accused the Democratic Alliance (DA) of purposely misrepresenting the facts about Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana’s availability to answer questions in Parliament. A DA statement on Monday listed Mdladlana as being among ministers who evaded parliamentary questions.
Royalty payments are tax deductible under the Income Tax Act, the Supreme Court of Appeal held on Tuesday, upholding an appeal by BP Southern Africa against a judgement of the Cape Town Income-Tax Special Court. The case was about the BP trademarks, colour schemes, designs and symbols that BP Southern Africa has used since 1959.
A South African business group called on government on Tuesday to adopt new strategies to combat rampant crime and make the police force and Department of Justice and Constitutional Development more efficient. ”The previous solutions weren’t going to achieve results,” Siphiwe Nzimande, CEO of Business against Crime, told a forum.
South African intelligence agencies are concerned that people involved in international terrorism are spending time in the country, an intelligence official said on Tuesday. Barry Gilder, coordinator of the National Intelligence Coordinating Committee, said that agents are watching certain individuals and organisations who might be involved in international terrorism.
South Africa’s manufacturing output rose by an unadjusted 6,2% in volume terms year-on-year in January, compared with 5% in December, official data showed on Tuesday. Compared with December, manufacturing production in volume terms decreased by a seasonally adjusted 0,5%, Statistics South Africa said.
Murdered seven-year-old Sheldean Human should not be forgotten, and her death should be used as an instrument for ”change in our communities”, mourners said at a memorial service in Pretoria on Tuesday. Sheldean, a grade two pupil at Laerskool Tuinrand, was found murdered on March 5 after she went missing from her Pretoria Gardens home on February 18.
Violence erupted outside the Protea Magistrate’s Court in Soweto when hundreds of pupils threw stones at police transporting five men accused of murdering 14-year-old Thato Radebe to the Johannesburg prison, police said on Tuesday. ”They climbed over the Nyala [armoured police van], hit it with spades and threw stones at it,” said Constable Sefako Xaba.
Zimbabwe’s problems should be solved by the people of that country, the South African Foreign Affairs Department said on Tuesday. ”We have constantly maintained that the solutions to the problems of Zimbabwe will be resolved by the people of Zimbabwe,” spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said.
Eight Cape Town traffic officials face criminal charges over what the city said on Tuesday are 229 ”potentially fraudulent” learner’s licences and roadworthy certificates. The irregularities, all committed during the last three months of 2006, were uncovered by the city’s internal investigators and the police.
The child-sex trial of Cezanne Visser, alias advocate Barbie, was postponed on Tuesday because the judge is ill. Judge Essop Patel was recently released from hospital where he was treated for cancer. He started presiding over the case in the Pretoria High Court about two years ago.