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.
The City of Cape Town says it will fight a bid to block the proposed Green Point stadium and is going ahead with construction. The city’s 2010 spokesperson, Pieter Cronje, confirmed on Tuesday afternoon that its had been served with papers by a civic group seeking to halt the R2,9-billion project.
Western Cape speaker Shaun Byneveldt on Monday announced the names of members of a multiparty committee that will decide whether provincial Premier Ebrahim Rasool misled the legislature. The six-person committee will be chaired by his deputy, Yousuf Gabru. Byneveldt’s office said in a statement that the committee would begin work after the present two-week recess.
Alcohol abuse costs South Africa in the region of R10-billion a year, or 1% of GDP, but the excise tax on alcohol collects only about R7-billion. This leaves the country with a shortfall of about R4,5-billion in costs to health services, the criminal justice system, and, of course, human lives.
The view of most commentators is that the De la Rey song is a call to mobilise Afrikaners against black people in general and the government in particular. High-powered editors, columnists, radio and television hosts read the lyrics as ”right-wing exclusivity” and a ”whining for lost power”. A government minister yawned and warned.
Twelve people were killed when a minibus taxi overturned on a highway in the Western Cape, South African Broadcasting Corporation radio news reported on Saturday. Five people were seriously injured in the accident, which occurred as members of the same family were taking a corpse to the Eastern Cape province for burial.
Rather than scrapping provinces, South Africa should adopt a ”fully fledged federal system”, acting Democratic Alliance (DA) leader James Selfe said on Friday. In a weekly newsletter published on the DA’s SA Todaywebsite, he said a resurgence of regional identity was one notable feature of a globalising world.
This week saw the official launch and installation of Parliament’s new emblem, a design created by the people as a cornerstone for South Africa’s new democracy. ”A new emblem was an important step in establishing an identity for Parliament, one that represents its values, vision and mission,” Parliament said in a statement.
The South Africa Bus Employers’ Association (Sabea) said all staff reported for duty on Wednesday morning in accordance with a Labour Court ruling, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported. On Tuesday, the court granted an interim order in favour of Sabea preventing a strike planned for Wednesday. This means that any strike will now be unprotected and illegal.
The terms of a probe into whether Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool misled the provincial legislature were amended on Tuesday afternoon, in a motion supported by all parties in the house. An ad-hoc committee, to be named by speaker Shaun Byneveldt on Wednesday, will now inquire only into whether the legislature ”has been misled”.
The 2010 Soccer World Cup has become the benchmark against which everything in South Africa is measured, and this has forced the local organising committee to answer some difficult questions, its chief executive, Danny Jordaan, said on Tuesday. The reason is that 2010 is not just about 90 minutes of football, but is part of the transformation of the country, Jordaan said.
South African and foreign intelligence agencies have been monitoring an alleged training camp linked to Muslim fundamentalists at Greenbushes, Port Elizabeth, the Herald Online reported. According to an intelligence source, the camp is no longer operational because of possible botched surveillance activities.
An ad-hoc committee to inquire whether Premier Ebrahim Rasool misled the provincial legislature will be named by Wednesday, Western Cape speaker Shaun Byneveldt said. A March 13 call by the Democratic Alliance for an investigation into the matter was unexpectedly supported by Rasool’s African National Congress, and by other parties in the legislature.
The last two of the politicians allegedly involved in the ”Travelgate” travel-voucher scam made their first appearance in the Cape Town Regional Court on Monday. This follows a Cape High Court order last week that they go on trial in the regional court, rather than the high court.
New approaches and tools in dealing with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) must be sought, the South African branch of international medical humanitarian organisation Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) said on Friday. ”MDR and now [extensively-drug resistant] TB are the tip of an iceberg of failing strategies to control TB,” the organisation said.