South Africa

East London schools are clamping down on the use of cellphones by pupils during school hours as a result of ”abuse” while attending classes, Dispatch Online reported on Wednesday. At least four of the city’s top schools this year have put a stop to both calling and SMSing on school grounds.

Hundreds of South African soldiers have been accused of killing, torturing and assaulting the very people they are supposed to protect — and taxpayers might have to fork out almost a billion rands in civil claims, a Johannesburg daily newspaper reported on Wednesday.

A 17-year-old stowaway found dead in the wheel well of a British Airways (BA) plane in Los Angeles is a South African citizen, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday. ”We have now confirmed that the stowaway who was found in possession of South African documentation was indeed a South African citizen,” said spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa.

South Africa’s Aids epidemic, often regarded by health workers as a disease of the poor, is in fact spreading quickly among the country’s richest and best-educated people, researchers said on Tuesday. A study shows a rapid increase in HIV infections in professional people and those with full-time employment — both key to South Africa’s hopes to spur economic development.

Reported attempts by police to prevent journalists from covering the court case of four police officers in Germiston are ”outrageous,” the South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef) said on Tuesday. ”It was interference bordering on the unlawful in the work of journalists carrying out their legitimate duties covering the proceedings at an open-court hearing,” said Raymond Louw, convenor of Sanef’s media freedom committee.

Champion United States female boxer Laila Ali said on Tuesday that 88-year-old anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela reminded her of her father Muhammad Ali, one of the greatest boxers of all time. ”He is a very humble man and there is a lot of energy in the room; I could feel his spirit,” Ali said in Johannesburg, where she is due to fight a title match next month.

The resignation of veteran journalist John Perlman was accepted ”with regret” by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) on Tuesday. Perlman was recognised as one of South Africa’s top current-affairs radio anchors, SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago said in a statement.

Growth in demand for credit by South Africa’s private sector slowed in the year to the end of December, boosting the view that the central bank need not hike interest rates next month to curb inflation. Data from the South African Reserve Bank on Tuesday showed that private-sector credit extension braked to 25,81% in December, compared with 26,77% in November.

It is still unclear whether a stowaway found dead on the wheel well of a British Airways plane in Los Angeles was a South African citizen, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday. ”We are awaiting the autopsy report, upon which we will take fingerprints for verification of the nationality of the man,” said spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa.

A television SMS poll on crime in South Africa drew a record response with about 400 000 people saying it is spiralling out of control, a newspaper report said on Tuesday. The poll was carried out by a popular television talk show after President Thabo Mbeki angered many by saying that most people in the country do not think that ”crime is spinning out of control.”

New Bafana Bafana coach Carlos Alberto Parreira was all pumped up and ready to start his R1,8-million-a-month job, only for his bosses to tell him not to bother due to a power cut, media reports said on Tuesday. A power failure around the Nasrec area on Monday meant Parreira couldn’t report for his first day on the job.

About 50 young children were stung by bees at a day-care centre in Pretoria on Monday, paramedics said. Neighbours who tried to help, as well as a paramedic and a police officer, were also stung at the Hansel and Gretel day-care centre shortly after 4pm, said Netcare 911 spokesperson Nick Dollman.

The University of Fort Hare said on Monday that it will not support the proposal by the Pan Africanist Congress to rename the university after the party’s founder, Robert Sobukwe. The university said its name is already significant as a place that produced progressive leaders who played a key role in the liberation struggle.