South Africa

Sharks and South Africa under-21 fullback JP Pietersen was on Wednesday announced in the Springbok starting XV to face Australia in their Tri-Nations encounter at Ellis Park on Saturday. Pietersen replaces Jaque Fourie at fullback, with Fourie moving back to centre to reunite his partnership with Jean de Villiers.

Murdered United States rap artist and actor Tupac Shakur is to find a final resting place in the South African township of Soweto, where his ashes are to be buried as part of a memorial project planned by local authorities and his relatives, it was reported on Wednesday.

Police fired rubber bullets and stun grenades at residents barricading part of the Golden Highway near Orange Farm during a protest over municipal services on Wednesday morning. ”It seems that they [the residents] are upset with the municipality over water and electricity services,” said Superintendent Nthabiseng Mazibuko.

More than 60 HIV scientists, including a Nobel Peace Prize winner and leading academics, have called for the immediate removal of Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the Treatment Action Campaign said on Wednesday. In a letter to President Thabo Mbeki, a total of 81 signatories said the minister’s health policies were ineffective and immoral.

The police unveiled a R75-million robotics system at a brand new forensic-science laboratory in Pretoria on Tuesday, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported. The police have been strongly criticised recently for the delays in forensic analysis for court cases and the police commissioner in charge of the forensic unit, Piet du Toit, said the new facilities will soon reduce this.

Students at the University of Limpopo went on strike on Tuesday following deadlocked negotiations with campus management, the Pan Africanist Student Movement of Azania said. Spokesperson Mametlwe Sebei said in a statement that black students were ”unjustly treated” by university management.

The right to peaceful protest and demonstration is widely suppressed in South Africa, a report by the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) said on Tuesday. ”There is a widespread violation of the right to demonstrate in South Africa. Demonstrators are denied their constitutional rights to freedom of expression and assembly,” the FXI said.

The provincial chairperson of the Friends of Jacob Zuma Trust was shot outside his Meadowlands home on Monday and died on Tuesday, the head of communications for the trust, Kaizer Mohau, said. ”Seven bullets were pumped into Zodathi Sithole’s body,” said Mohau. ”He died in hospital this [Tuesday] morning.”

The African National Congress (ANC) on Tuesday rejected as false media reports that its deputy president Jacob Zuma was ”gagged” from addressing the recent national congress of the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union. ”The ANC does not understand why some sections of the media … should continue to publish reports that are wholly false,” said ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama.

One of South Africa’s foremost young jazz musicians, saxophonist Moses Khumalo (27), was found dead in his house in Honeydew, west of Johannesburg, on Monday evening, West Rand police said. Khumalo’s girlfriend, who last saw the musician on Friday, went to check on him and found his body hanging in the house, police said.

All possible assistance was being given to six South African exchange pupils injured in an Argentinian bus crash, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday. The South African ambassador to Argentina, Piet Goosen, had been in touch with the injured after the accident in which 10 people died and 20 were injured.