Three men beat a 14-year-old Bloemfontein schoolboy to death and then robbed him of R300. The boy and two friends were selling sheep by the roadside in Heidedal when the attack occurred.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Archive for April, 2001
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports on the Tshepo Matloha killing by the Northern Rugby Club: “Seven years after the end of apartheid, South Africans of all races agree, the euphoria that greeted that event seems ever more dreamlike and distant. [..] The media are full of reports of racial violence – the almost casual murders of blacks, the killings of hundreds of white farmers since 1994 – and contain daily accounts of allegations of racism.” A united South Africa? Not yet, it seems.
Popularity: 6% [?]
The Daily Mail & Guardian reports that “Mpumalanga’s legislature has diverted funds from other departments to pay for its marble-floored R650m government complex, leading to doctors being forced to operate on critically injured patients by torchlight”. Nurses at Rob Ferreira hospital in Nelspruit are expected to keep intensive care patients alive by manually pumping air into their lungs during regular power blackouts. The crisis deepened even further this week when 15 of South Africa’s largest pharmaceutical companies froze deliveries of all chronic medicines to Mpumalanga because the province has repeatedly failed to pay a R25m overdue bill.
Popularity: 7% [?]
In an address to the Cape Town Press Club, Noseweek editor Martin Welz raised some interesting questions on the government’s arms deal, also comparing it the information scandal of the 1970s.
Popularity: 6% [?]
More ripples around the world on the alledged plot against President Mbeki as the New York Times pick up the thread.
Popularity: 6% [?]
A furore over censorship and allegations of intellectual book burning was sparked by the comments of teachers asked to submit recommendations to the education department on prescribed literary works in schools. Comments from the teachers included allegations that liberal author Nadine Gordimer’s novel “July’s People” was “deeply racist, superior and patronizing”, and that Shakespeare’s Hamlet was “too eurocentric”. South African author Njabulo Ndebele’s short story “Fools” was said to be “unsuitable and too complex”.
Popularity: 9% [?]
The Guardian reports Safety and Security Minister Steve Tshwete as saying:
As the state department charged with protecting the safety and security of this country, we have to ensure that these plots do not culminate into something ugly. As far back as last year, we picked up clandestine activities involving certain individuals and we are monitoring this on a day-to-day basis to ensure that the president is safe.
Surely one faction of a ruling political party spying and plotting against another part of the party can’t be an indication of a healthy political system?
Popularity: 7% [?]
Prominent ANC members Tokyo Sexwale, Cyril Ramaphosa and Matthews Phosa have been named as being part of the group of people currently under investigation for plotting against President Thabo Mbeki. Safety and Security Minister Steve Tshwete alledged that part of the plot is a whispering campaign claiming that Mbeki was responsible for the 1993 assassination of revered South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani.
Popularity: 7% [?]
President Thabo Mbeki is claimed to be in “physical danger” from prominent ANC members who want to oust him as leader of the party.
Popularity: 6% [?]
The home of South Africa’s longest surviving HIV-positive born child was robbed this morning. The mother of 12-year-old Nkosi Johnson told police that three armed men entered their house in Melville in the early hours of the morning, and held up Nkosi’s nurse at gunpoint. The robbers fled with television sets, a video machine, a sound system, a kettle, a remote opener for the gate, car keys and the nurse’s cellphone.
Popularity: 6% [?]
The Mail & Guardian reports that Armscor bosses are set to rake in a fortune by awarding contracts to and purchasing from companies in which they personally hold shares.
Popularity: 7% [?]
South African investigative magazine Noseweek reports that Nelson Mandela’s tailor, Yusuf Surtee, has been playing an important part behind the scenes in the snowballing arms scandal. In addition to being the supplier of Madiba’s fine silken shirts, Surtee appears to also be a very successful arms dealer, connecting major players in this scandal. Watch Noseweek and Shame of South Africa for more.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota has insisted that crime in South Africa is no higher than crime in the United Kingdom. In an interview on BBC World’s Hard Talk, Lekota stated that he did not accept the statistic of a rape every 26 seconds, and that farm murders were “not frightening” in the light of the violence of apartheid.
news.24.com
Popularity: 7% [?]
Jakes Gerwel has emphatically denied being involved in any irregularities surrounding the awarding of South Africa’s third cellular licence. Press reports have mentioned the former rector of the University of the Western Cape and Director-General in the Presidency under former President Nelson Mandela, together with ANC MP Mpho Scott and Lambert Moloi, son-in-law of Joe Modise, former defence minister, in regard with the newly awarded licence.
Popularity: 6% [?]
A newly discovered document reveals the further involvement of top-level government officials in the corruption surrounding a controversial R43 billion arms deal.
Popularity: 7% [?]
