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/ 12 October 2007
Disgruntled University of Johannesburg (UJ) students on Friday decided not to attend a scheduled meeting with management to resolve campus issues. The university’s spokesperson, Sonia Cronjé, said the meeting between student representatives and management had been scheduled for 2pm.
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/ 12 October 2007
A meeting between disgruntled University of Johannesburg students and management is expected to be convened on Friday, university officials said. The students has complained that the Doornfontein, Soweto and Bunting Road campuses were being sidelined when compared with the Kingsway campus.
Heavy rains are set to continue over Gauteng for the next two days, clearing up on Friday and continuing at the weekend, the South African Weather Service said on Tuesday. ”There will be showers over the weekend, and I can’t rule out the possibility of heavy rains,” said forecaster Evert Scholtz.
Emails suggesting that a severe storm with a tornado was to hit Johannesburg and surrounds on Monday afternoon were "greatly exaggerated", the South African Weather Service said. One email on Monday read: "Please be careful as a tornado dropped in Randfontein on Saturday and is expected today."
President of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses Ernest Blom has withdrawn from the verification process of a ”7 000-carat diamond” found in the North West in August. ”I withdraw from the process completely and disassociate myself from any further press statements made by anyone but myself,” Blom said on Friday in a statement.
The Scorpions crime unit is in the political spotlight again amid reports it was preparing to arrest the nation’s police commissioner, the latest high-profile official targeted by the elite force. Unease over the unit has been building within the ruling African National Congress since President Thabo Mbeki announced the formation of the FBI-style crime unit in 1999.
South Africa’s first solar-powered traffic lights were switched on in Cape Town at noon on Monday. Located at the intersection of Edna Street and Montagu’s Gift Road, south of Ottery, the four pairs of lights draw their power, via batteries, from solar panels on top of poles.
At least 10Â 000 municipal workers are expected to converge at Johannesburg’s Beyers Naude Square on Monday to begin a three-day strike. Police say there may be traffic backlogs and disruptions and have urged motorists to avoid the vicinity near the square.
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/ 28 September 2007
A seaman aboard the SA Agulhas died on Friday morning in an incident involving other crew members. ”Following a non-work related incident … in the early hours of this morning, we regret to advise of the death of one of the crew members, 22-year-old Edward Robert Hulley,” a statement said.
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/ 27 September 2007
A warrant of arrest has been issued for police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) reported on Thursday. The state broadcaster said it had reliably learnt that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) obtained the warrant. NPA spokesperson Tlali Tlali would not comment on the report late on Thursday afternoon.
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/ 27 September 2007
Work resumed on Cape Town’s 2010 Soccer World Cup stadium in Green Point on Thursday after a week-long strike. ”Work resumed this morning. It’s been a normal working day and we are very pleased,” deputy project director Ray Gamble said. He declined to comment further on the stoppage that has cost contractors Murray & Roberts and WBHO five days’ work.
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/ 19 September 2007
South Africa’s advertising watchdog rejected complaints on Wednesday over a commercial showing a secretary spitting into her boss’s coffee, saying she cleared her throat too loudly for it to be taken seriously. The advert by a chain of florists for Secretaries Day earlier this month showed a woman noisily clearing phlegm from her throat before spitting it into a cup of coffee.
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/ 18 September 2007
There is a ”massive” service crisis within rail-passenger company Metrorail, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Tuesday. There are also concerns about the Transnet division’s readiness for the 2010 Soccer World Cup, DA MP Mpowele Swath said in a statement. Responding, Metrorail on Tuesday denied the claims that it was experiencing a service crisis.
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/ 16 September 2007
South African police traded gunfire with angry crowds on Sunday as they arrested 180 suspects in two operations in a crackdown on crime including murder and drug-trafficking, state-run media said. Police returned fire after they were shot at from a crowd of onlookers during an operation in which 25 people were arrested for public violence at Mankweng in Limpopo, it was reported.
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/ 14 September 2007
The Independent Democrats (ID) came out winners on Friday in a last-minute flurry of applications to the Cape High Court by ID defectors to retain their seats. The party said bids by four former ID local councillors in the Western Cape to keep their seats were rejected by the court with costs. Two of the four were members of the Cape Town city council.
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/ 13 September 2007
A fifth badly decomposed body of a woman has been found in a KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) sugar-cane field, police said on Thursday. ”We suspect the woman was about 18 to 35 years of age,” said police spokesperson Superintendent Zandra Hechter. The body was found on Thursday afternoon.
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/ 10 September 2007
Cape Town city councillor Badhi Chaaban said on Monday he is a member of both the African Muslim Party (AMP) and the newly formed National People’s Party (NPP), as both allow dual membership. But he has asked the AMP leadership for permission to formally cross to the NPP, taking his council seat with him.
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/ 7 September 2007
A 10-hour operation to separate conjoined twins Danielle and Danika Lowton is currently under way at the Arwyp Medical Centre Private Hospital in Kempton Park, spokesperson Henry du Plooy confirmed on Friday. Only four operations of this nature, namely the separation of conjoined twins, have ever been carried out in South Africa.
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/ 6 September 2007
Former leader of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Juan Uys has thrown his weight behind the newly created National People’s Party (NPP). He said on Thursday that he had also taken up a post as personal assistant to controversial Cape Town city councillor Badhi Chaaban. He said that the NPP appointed him as its media liaison officer this week.
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/ 6 September 2007
Elna Moolman of Barnard Jacobs Mellet was voted the Reuters Economist of the Year, it was announced on Thursday at a breakfast in Sandton. Governor of the South African Reserve Bank Tito Mboweni presented Moolman with her prize. Moolman said: ”It is a big surprise and it is a great honour.”
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/ 1 September 2007
After all the drama of the court cases that preceded it, the floor-crossing window got off to a low-key start on Saturday. The only excitement was provided by a senior African Christian Democratic Party politician in the Western Cape, Johan Kriel, who accompanied his move to the Democratic Alliance (DA) with a blistering attack on ACDP leader, Kenneth Meshoe.
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/ 1 September 2007
A number of local councillors and one member of a provincial legislature have crossed over to the Democratic Alliance (DA) since the floor-crossing window opened at midnight, DA federal chairperson James Selfe said on Saturday. ”There is a steady trickle of people to us, but it’s a trickle, not a flood, and that’s as we anticipated it,” he said.
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/ 1 September 2007
The first politician to publicly announce he was crossing the floor did so on Saturday with a blistering attack on his former leader, president of the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) Kenneth Meshoe. ”He thinks he is president for life, anointed and appointed, and that the only one who can unappoint him is God,” said a disillusioned Johan Kriel.
It is credible that Azanian People’s Organisation’s (Azapo) president Mosibudi Mangena is too busy to hand over his gun, despite leading a campaign against guns, said Azapo on Friday. ”As a president of the party … with such [a] busy schedule, not having had time to hand over his gun as yet is not [an] inconceivable and unreasonable excuse,” it said.
Controversial Cape Town councillor Badih Chaaban offered the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) Western Cape leader Theuns Botha R200 000 in cash and a woman in a floor-crossing bribe, Botha said on Wednesday. However, Chaaban has denied the claim, saying it was in fact Botha who proposed the payment.
The Johannesburg High Court granted an interdict to the Gauteng education department on Wednesday forbidding the Congress of South African Students (Cosas) from intimidating pupils, the department confirmed. Spokesperson Kate Bapela said that under the interdict the organisation may not threaten, disrupt or frustrate teaching or learning.