The concept of opposition has yet to take root in South Africa 13 years after the birth of multiracial democracy, says the outgoing leader of the main opposition Democratic Alliance. Tony Leon’s main task in eight years as official opposition leader was ”to get the very concept itself accepted on the stony soil of South African ground”.
A 40-year-old angler drowned after he was washed off the rocks by a strong wave between Victoria Bay and Kaaimans River on the Garden Route in the Western Cape on Monday. National Sea Rescue Institute station commander Hennie Niehaus said a witness called the institute, informing it of the drowning at about 1.34pm.
The family of slain Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer met undertakers on Monday to discuss his funeral, but details of the ceremony are being kept under wraps. The family has decided to keep it a ”totally, totally private affair”, said Theo Rix, Western Cape manager for Doves funeral parlour.
The body of Bob Woolmer, the murdered coach of Pakistan’s cricket team, arrived in South Africa on Sunday morning, six weeks after his body was discovered in a Jamaican hotel room. A casket bearing Woolmer’s embalmed body arrived at Cape Town International Airport shortly before 10am on a South African Airways flight from London.
Top South African long-distance swimmer and Olympic Games hopeful Tyron Venter (21) beat his closest rival by 14 minutes to win the 7,5km Cadiz Vista Nova Freedom Swim from Robben Island to Big Bay, Bloubergstrand, on Saturday. Natalie du Toit came in fourth. She was the first woman home in 1:57.
Thousands of South Africans gathered in various locations across the country on Friday to celebrate the country’s 13th year of freedom from apartheid rule. In the Eastern Cape, President Thabo Mbeki addressed the packed Bisho Stadium and urged South Africans to join the fight against crime and corruption.
Cape Town’s disaster risk-management centre is on full alert following a severe weather warning from the South African Weather Service on Thursday. All city departments that may be required to respond to flooding, storm damage to infrastructure or disruption of services will maintain adequate standby levels during this period, the council said in a statement.
The South African Revenue Service (Sars) on Wednesday added more than 1 000 new applications to the small-business tax-amnesty process through an extensive registration campaign across the country. Several thousand Sars and police officials visited 4 160 small businesses in 30 towns and cities.
The late judge Wally van Deventer — who said life was too short for ”bad books and bad wine” — was remembered by his colleagues at the Cape High Court on Wednesday. Judge Deon van Zyl told the packed courtroom how Van Deventer’s interest had switched from law to business and then back to law.
Life-insurance companies have uncovered 20Â 000 fraudulent claims worth R1-billion over the past four years, the Life Offices’ Association (LOA) said on Wednesday. However, only 2Â 844 fraudulent claims were recorded last year, the lowest number since 2003.
The South African Weather Service has warned beach revellers to brace themselves for chilly conditions over the country’s coastal areas during this long weekend. Mark Todd, a forecaster from the National Forecast Centre, said on Wednesday that it was going to be cold and windy over the Southern parts [of the country].
About 30 fires were ignited in mountain ranges across the Western Cape by a lightning storm in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Spokesperson for Working on Fire, Val Charlton, said on Tuesday afternoon that the outbreak of these fires after lightning and thunder was ”a perfectly natural event”.
A Sunday tabloid aimed at the ”new, modern Afrikaner” is to be launched in May, its editor said on Tuesday. Sondag’s Mike Vink said it would offer less sleaze than weekly Afrikaans tabloid Son. This will entail, among others, a page three pin-up girl, who will not be topless. ”It’s not going to be sleazy, but a genuine Sunday newspaper with a sports, news and business section.”
Outgoing Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Tony Leon on Monday dismissed as ”distorted and inaccurate” media reports alleging a plot against Cape Town Mayor Helen Zille. Leon said he met on Monday morning with Zille and DA Western Cape leader Theuns Botha ”to discuss certain media reports …”.
The most dangerous places in South Africa are not big cities but scantly populated rural or border areas, a new crime-mapping tool showed on Sunday. Although Johannesburg is synonymous with crime in the minds of many overseas visitors, the new computerised map showed that the chances of being murdered or raped were higher in isolated rural areas.
Teachers and principals who fail to increase the matric pass rate in their schools will be dismissed, Gauteng provincial minister of education Angie Motshekga warned on Saturday. Motshekga was addressing teachers, principals, pupils and parents at an education conference at the Sebokeng College of Education.
A gripe over pension legislation favouring women appears to have led to Thursday’s hostage drama at the South African Human Rights Commission’s (SAHRC) Cape Town office. SAHRC chief executive Tseliso Thipanyane said the hostage-taker earlier lodged a complaint with the commission about the legislation.
Pay these public servants more The statement about not wanting to overburden taxpayers, in Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi advertisements in the media over the weekend, was really irksome. These public notices were placed in reaction to protracted negotiations with public service unions. As a taxpayer I have no issue in paying taxes […]
The official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) will on Friday finalise the order in which the names of candidates will appear on the ballot-papers that will be used during the election process at the party’s congress in Gauteng in May. This will be done by means of a draw.
A commission of inquiry will investigate racism at a Western Cape school after an assault on a coloured pupil was captured on a cellphone video, the provincial education department said on Monday. The cellphone clip shows a grade-nine pupil being assaulted by a fellow pupil while their teacher looks on and fails to intervene.
A commission of inquiry will investigate racism at a Western Cape school after an assault on a coloured pupil was captured on a cellphone, the provincial education department said on Monday. The video clip shows grade nine pupil Pequestro Dyssel being assaulted by a fellow pupil while their teacher looked on.
It appears there has been ”substantial maladministration” in the finances of the troubled United Independent Front (UIF), the Cape High Court has been told. The deputy leader of the party makes the claim in an affidavit submitted as part of a bid to block party disciplinary proceedings against him and a fellow party official.
A Western Cape African National Congress (ANC) councillor and South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) executive member was gunned down in Guguletu on Saturday night, South African Broadcasting Corporation radio news reported on Sunday.
No fewer than 210 cases of Klipdrift were sold at this year’s Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees (KKNK). And this was only at the Klipdrift tent and did not account for truckloads of Klippies that made their way to Oudtshoorn in cooler bags and methods of mass transportation. There is no denying that the arts festival is one of the country’s biggest bashes and kuiers.
Six people, including four foreign nationals, were arrested in Camperdown near Pietermaritzburg on Wednesday morning in what South African Revenue Service (Sars) officials claimed was the country’s second-largest seizure of perlemoen yet. Between five and six tonnes of perlemoen (abalone) were found.
A suspect in the axe murder of estate agent Andre Weitz was found on the roof of the Valkenberg Psychiatric Hospital trying to escape, the Cape High Court heard on Tuesday. Professor Sean Kaliski, specialist of forensic psychiatric services in the Western Cape, testified at the trial of Michael Bernard van Zyl, who is charged with Weitz’s murder.
Dear delegates to the 52nd national conference of the ANC, This December you will be discussing issues of paramount importance for all South Africans. Allow the Afrikanerbond to raise some issues that we believe are necessary to ensure that the miracle of Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s "rainbow nation" does not fade.
The lush vineyards, rare plant species and breathtaking scenery that have turned the Cape peninsula into a tourist magnet are in danger of withering away within decades if the doomsday predictions of a growing number of scientists — including a major new United Nations report released on Friday — come true.
More than 800 people were left homeless in four separate fires that gutted informal settlements around Cape Town since Friday night, Western Cape firefighters said. About 250 dwellings were destroyed in the fires in Khayelitsha, Fish Hoek and two settlements near Milnerton.
The African National Congress’s (ANC) Western Cape branch considers the matter of murdered businessman Brett Kebble’s donations closed, it said on Wednesday. ”We regard the donations taken in good faith. If a legal process decides otherwise, we’ll take it from there,” said spokesperson Garth Strachan.
Charges against alleged gang high-flyer Quinton Marinus — known on the Cape Flats as ”Mr Big” — were withdrawn on Wednesday when he and two co-accused appeared in the Bellville Magistrate’s Court. No reasons were given for the withdrawal. The arrest of the three was seen as a major breakthrough in the fight against organised crime.
Slain Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer was totally and utterly incorruptible, his friend and sports scientist Professor Tim Noakes told Woolmer’s memorial service in Cape Town on Wednesday. Addressing about 300 mourners in the Wynberg Boys’ High school hall, he said the match-fixing theory was completely and utterly without substance.