South Africa

Gay and Lesbian life-partners are entitled to inherit from the intestate estates of their partners just as spouses do, the Constitutional Court ruled on Thursday. The court upheld an earlier ruling by the Pretoria High Court that section 1(1) of the Intestate Succession Act of 1987 was unconstitutional because it excluded homosexual couples.

South African Soccer World Cup organisers said on Thursday they had complained to Canberra over suggestions that preparations for the 2010 tournament are in trouble and Australia could fill the breach instead. Danny Jordaan, head of the local organising committee, said that a letter had been sent to the Australian Foreign Ministry over recent remarks by several officials.

Allegations of torture levelled against members of the South African Police Service by a cash-in-transit security guard are being investigated, police said on Thursday. ”Conduct of this nature — if [the] allegations are proved to be correct — is not only unacceptable, but also unconstitutional and criminal … Clearly, torture is out of question,” said Director Phuti Setati.

A group of students who protested at OR Tambo International airport on Wednesday are racist, the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) said on Thursday. ”These hooligans disguising [sic] to be concerned about South Africa are not only racists to the core, but are an example of the past that is refusing to acknowledge the birth of the new South Africa.”

Identity is still an important debate in South Africa, said political analyst Frederik van Zyl Slabbert on Wednesday. ”There is no legal definition of a black [person], there is no legal definition of an African,” said Van Zyl Slabbert. He said he was an African ”because my president told me I’m an African”.

It was the police themselves who handed Brett Kebble’s blood-spattered car to the mining magnate’s security company shortly after his murder, the Star reported on Thursday. The paper quoted private investigator Andre Burger as saying the Mercedes-Benz S600 was handed to him by investigating officer Captain Johan Diedericks.

Hundreds of elderly Mercedes-Benzes and Toyotas jostled for parking last week when more than 1 000 drivers of metered taxis gathered in Johannesburg to discuss the state of the industry. Metered-taxi drivers would like the government to get involved with the development of their industry too, as it did with minibus taxis.

What do a transsexual, a 12-year-old prostitute and a teenage kugel from Johannesburg’s well-off northern suburbs have in common? They are all customers of Tony Marks, a taxi driver who has been crawling the streets of Sandton for a decade, 40 to 50 hours a week.

A delegation of Fifa officials expressed satisfaction on Wednesday with South Africa’s preparations for the 2010 World Cup, declaring they had made more rapid progress than their German predecessors. ”Fifa is very happy and satisfied with the progress made,” said Horst Schmidt, who is to take up a new post as Fifa’s coordinator in South Africa.

Conflict between law-enforcement agencies is ”not such a big thing”, Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula told the South African Broadcasting Corporation on Wednesday. ”Now and then conflict that arises is as a result … of professional jealousy between such organisations … and it is not such a big thing.”

South Africa’s 4x100m relay team at the 2001 world championships has been belatedly awarded the gold medal after initial winners the United States were disqualified, Athletics South Africa said on Wednesday. South Africa’s quartet of Morne Nagel, Corne du Plessis, Lee-Roy Newton and Mathew Quinn were surprise silver medallists in Edmonton, Canada

Africa’s infant mortality rate of 1,16-million per year placed it on a par with England’s figures in the early 20th century, according to a study released on Wednesday. The report said that half of these deaths occurred in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda.