No image available
/ 27 October 2005
Aids activists on Thursday challenged Western Cape health MEC Pierre Uys to seek a court interdict against vitamin entrepreneur Matthias Rath, or even have him arrested. The call was made in a memorandum handed over at a demonstration by about 200 Treatment Action Campaign members outside Uys’s office in Cape Town.
No image available
/ 27 October 2005
Two people narrowly escaped death on a Stellenbosch golf course when a Harvard aircraft made an emergency landing on the greens, News24 reported on Thursday. The accident happened on Wednesday afternoon on the De Zalze wine-estate golf course, near Cape Town in the Western Cape.
No image available
/ 24 October 2005
Thousands of workers belonging to the country’s largest union federation, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), have embarked on strike action in the Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal provinces to protest against issues such as job losses, casualisation and racism in the workplace.
No image available
/ 22 October 2005
In just one week, police reported 15 murders in South Africa, with the most gruesome case being that of a North West father who wiped out his entire family. Inspector Thabo Makhafola said the man, from Madikwe’s Lethlakeng village in North West, had been a security guard at a mine in the area.
No image available
/ 20 October 2005
Only a small number of Gauteng motorists on Thursday appeared to have heeded the government’s call to participate in Car-Free Day. Minister of Transport Jeff Radebe was walking and taking taxis in the Pretoria city centre on Thursday, raising awareness of Car-Free Day.
No image available
/ 18 October 2005
Sixty-five government officials in the Western Cape will appear in court this week on charges relating to defrauding the social grant system. The Department of Social Development said it ”considers prosecuting these officials as a statement of determination to ensuring that only the legitimate and needy beneficiaries receive grants.”
No image available
/ 17 October 2005
One of 11 accused in a case possibly linked to the kidnapping of a young boy in Ennerdale, Johannesburg, was allegedly subjected to ”shock treatment” in prison near Cape Town at the weekend. Defence counsel Leigh Thompson, for accused Vernon Noel Victor, told the Cape High Court Victor needed urgent medical attention.
No image available
/ 14 October 2005
Western Cape African National Congress dissidents on Friday displayed soccer-style red cards to condemn the actions of provincial executive committee members during a protest at the ANC’s regional headquarters. The red and yellow cards targeted provincial secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha and others.
No image available
/ 14 October 2005
Mike van Graan asks if we can move on to real transformation, now that we have generally replaced white people with black people at the trough of public funds.
No image available
/ 14 October 2005
Serendipity, coincidence, synchronism, eureka moments — these have garnished my life-track beyond all expectation. The most striking serendipitous occurrence of my student years marked my first visit to the cave I was subsequently to name Mwulu’s Cave.
No image available
/ 13 October 2005
Thousands of children in Ravensmead in the Cape Town area are to be photographed and fingerprinted in a bid to curb child abductions, the Cape Argus website reported on Thursday. It said a campaign will begin soon at 17 schools and crèches in the area.
No image available
/ 13 October 2005
A charge relating to allegations of racism has been laid by the Cape Bar Council against Cape Judge President John Hlophe, Beeld newspaper reported on Thursday. Hlophe was recently accused of calling a Cape Town lawyer Joshua Greeff a ”piece of white shit” and telling him to go back to The Netherlands.
No image available
/ 13 October 2005
The Democratic Alliance has called on the Judicial Services Commission to intervene in the ongoing controversy over Cape Judge President John Hlophe. Hlophe was recently accused of calling a Cape Town lawyer a ”white shit” — a claim that he has denied.
No image available
/ 12 October 2005
Ten-year-old Liam Aspeling, who was kidnapped in Ennerdale, south of Johannesburg, on Tuesday, has been found, a friend of the family said on Wednesday. The multimillion-rand hijacking trial in which Aspeling’s father is to testify for the state is scheduled to start in the Cape High Court on Monday.
No image available
/ 12 October 2005
The chairperson of the General Council of the Bar, advocate Norman Arendse, on Wednesday denied being part of any conspiracy to discredit John Hlophe, Judge President of the Cape division. Media reports suggested Hlophe had deliberately tried to sabotage his fellow judge and colleague, Wilfred Thring.
No image available
/ 12 October 2005
The multimillion-rand hijacking trial in which kidnapped schoolboy Liam Aspeling’s father is to testify for the state is scheduled to start in the Cape High Court on Monday. This is according to advocate William Booth, defence counsel for two of the 11 accused, brothers Selwyn and Virgil de Vries, both from Ennerdale, where Liam was snatched on Tuesday.
No image available
/ 10 October 2005
Health officials are monitoring 151 people for symptoms of the deadly Congo fever virus, which claimed the life of an unnamed farm labourer at Groote Schuur hospital on Monday. Confident the disease will not spread, officials on Monday discharged seven people, including the dead man’s wife and son, from the Riversdale hospital.
No image available
/ 10 October 2005
Workers marching for an end to unemployment and job losses warned the ruling African National Congress on Monday to ignore them at its peril. ”We cannot simply be election fodder,” Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) president Willie Madisha told protesters who converged at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.
No image available
/ 10 October 2005
Workers in Gauteng and the North West stayed off work and held demonstrations on Monday to protest unemployment and job losses. Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) spokesperson Patrick Craven said demonstrations were being held in Pretoria, Rustenburg, Klerksdorp and Mafikeng.
No image available
/ 10 October 2005
The condition of a 46-year-old Southern Cape farm labourer hospitalised with Congo fever was deteriorating on Monday morning, said Western Cape health official Dr Keith Cloete. The unnamed man, a farm labourer from the Riversdale area, was admitted to Groote Schuur hospital on October 5.
Recently the Pension Funds Adjudicator (PFA), Vuyani Ngalwana issued rulings on a further 22 retirement annuities (RAs). Life companies have chosen to settle 15 of these rather than face the negative publicity. This brings to 54 the total number of RA rulings since March. The life companies are appealing seven of these in the High Court.
An immediate investigation by the Department of Health and the Medicines Control Council into the activities of anti-Aids-drug lobbyist Matthias Rath in the Western Cape township of Khayelitsha is needed, says the University of the Witwatersrand. "What he does is actually against the law," said a director at the university.
Cool and conditions moving over the northern parts of the country brought some relief on Wednesday for firefighters still battling veld fires in Mpumalanga. Earlier in the day, a fire that raged through the North West veld overnight was brought under control near the Vredefort Dome. However, the fire risk remains high in the northern parts of the country.
The grieving father of murdered mining magnate Brett Kebble told mourners at his son’s funeral service in Cape Town on Tuesday that he would do everything in his power to get to the bottom of his son’s murder. ”Of one thing I am sure, I will do all within my power to get to the bottom of Brett’s death,” vowed Roger Kebble.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) claimed to have shut down the clothing industry in the Western Cape on Monday during a one-day strike in the province and in the Eastern Cape. But a Western Cape clothing-industry spokesperson described the shutdown claim as ”a joke”.
Only a few thousand people turned up to march through central Cape Town on Monday as the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) called a one-day strike in protest against job losses. About 27 000 turned up for a similar march in June this year, but police said Monday’s total was only about 5 000.
About 50 Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) members on Sunday shackled themselves to railings at Parliament in Cape Town to highlight their jobs and poverty campaign. Cosatu’s Eastern Cape provincial secretary said marches would start at 10am on Monday in East London, Port Elizabeth, Mthatha and Queenstown.
Four people died when a Red Cross helicopter crashed near Uniondale in the Western Cape, the South African Red Cross Air Mercy Service said on Monday. The Eurocopter BO105 helicopter crashed on Sunday night with a patient and three crew members aboard. The wreckage was found at first light on Monday.
No image available
/ 30 September 2005
Without institutional autonomy and bold leadership, diversity of language in higher education in South Africa will not survive, says Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon. Furthermore, the autonomy of universities is in itself important, he said in his weekly newsletter on the DA’s website on Friday.
No image available
/ 28 September 2005
Financial website Moneyweb reported on Wednesday that murdered mining magnate Brett Kebble was in the wrong place at the wrong time and said it appeared that his death was the result of a failed car hijacking, and not an assassination. Earlier, reports quoted business partner Andile Nkuhlu as saying Kebble had been the victim of a callous, premeditated crime.
No image available
/ 28 September 2005
”There is a saying that goes ”pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will”. This might be a useful refrain when considering the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. A Palestinian state, it seems, is increasingly in the interest of the Zionist project,” writes Suren Pillay, a lecturer in the department of political studies at the University of the Western Cape.
No image available
/ 27 September 2005
Fires that have killed two people and ravaged large areas of land have largely been contained, but now the provinces are starting to count the costs. Crews from the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Gauteng, Free State, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo have been fighting fires since September 23.