South Africa

Pension pay process to be speeded up
PRETORIA -- No pensioner would have to travel more than 5km or wait for longer than two hours to receive a pension payout, in terms of a new strategy introduced yesterday, Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya said. Speaking in Centurion at t...

All car plants hit by strike ­ Ameo
JOHANNESBURG -- About 21000 National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) members began their strike action at the seven international car manufacturers with factories in the country yesterday after the union and the Automobile Manufacturing Employ...

Mbeki turnaround on Zim
By Angela Quintal JOHANNESBURG -- President Thabo Mbeki yesterday acknowledged his quiet diplomacy towards Zimbabwe had failed and said he believed that violence, not Aids, was the biggest killer in South Africa. In a wide ranging interview on t...

Boesak to raise funds for disadvantaged
WORCESTER -- Disgraced former cleric Allan Boesak was officially appointed chancellor yesterday of Rekenaarskool Boland -- a private computer school in Worcester. Addressing students shortly after the announcement, Boesak again used the opportuni...

Fakie seeks legal advice on Coega
PRETORIA -- The office of Auditor-General Shauket Fakie was awaiting legal advice yesterday on whether it had a mandate to investigate claims of impropriety involving the Coega Industrial Development Zone in the Eastern Cape. "We should know by t...

Govt asked to help protect farmers
PRETORIA -- Farmers should be subsidised to fit their vehicles with bullet-proof windows to protect them against rural attacks, the Afrikaner Eenheidsbeweging said yesterday. Party leader Cassie Aucamp said farmers increasingly had to fulfil the ...

Inquest into cricket player's death
DURBAN -- KwaZulu-Natal police on Monday opened an inquest into the death of former South African fast bowler Tertius Bosch, following allegations that he might have been poisoned. Bosch died in February last year after suffering from the rare Gu...

R10000 reward for info on 'K' culprits
CAPE TOWN -- Police have posted a reward of up to R10000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the two men who attacked George businesswoman and butchery owner Wanda Stoffberg, Western Cape provincial police commissioner Lennit M...

Couple held for murder of mutilated girl
POTCHEFSTROOM -- A couple in their 50s were arrested on Sunday night in connection with the murder of a teenage girl whose body was cut into six pieces, put into a garbage bag and dumped under a bridge near here last week, police said. Superinten...

Marais linked to street name fraud
By Ben Maclennan CAPE TOWN -- Controversial Cape Town mayor Peter Marais was for the first time yesterday directly linked to claims of fraud in the city's street names row. Unicity legal adviser Victoria Johnson told former judge Willem Heath's ...

Israeli raids a violation of laws ­ Pahad
PRETORIA -- Israel's strategy of attacking militants in Palestinian territory would only lead to more violence in the region, Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad said yesterday. "It will just create conditions for extremism, he told report...

ANC concentrating power in black elite ­ Leon
MIDRAND -- Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon yesterday accused the African National Congress-led government of using black economic empowerment as a guise for putting its own agents in top positions. The ANC wanted to concentrate all power in ...

SA army delegation on visit to Egypt
PRETORIA -- An 84-member SA Army delegation arrived in Cairo on Sunday for an eight-day visit to the Egyptian Armed Forces, the SA Army said yesterday. The group is headed by the commandant of the SA Army College, Brigadier-General Mxolisi Petane...

CGE to challenge sex laws
PRETORIA -- The Commission on Gender Equality (CGE) said yesterday it planned to challenge the constitutionality of all the laws relating to sex workers. It was reacting to last week's Pretoria High Court judgment in which a section of the Sexual...

Sex, sleep: 2 of SA's favourite pastimes
JOHANNESBURG -- South Africans spend most of their time having sex, sleeping, drinking, watching TV, going to church or preening themselves, a study by Statistics South Africa has found. The researchers found on average men spent 727 minutes and ...

Smoke breaks ­ a burning issue for SA firms
JOHANNESBURG -- Management across several industries face a burning issue that affects profits, productivity, staff morale and company image. According to Kelly, the country's leading staffing services company, the critical problem is the practic...

Son guilty of killing parents
JOHANNESBURG -- Twenty-one-year-old Kevin Ethan Pezarro was found guilty in the high court here yesterday of murdering his parents and their domestic helper. Pezarro, of Douglasdale, Randburg, was charged with the murders of his parents, Edward a...

Court rejects son's plea of guilty to murders
DURBAN -- The state yesterday rejected a guilty plea by 20-year-old Frederick 'Frits' Wolmarans, who confessed in the high court here to killing his adoptive parents. Wolmarans confessed in an affidavit to murdering Jacobus and Erna Wolmarans at ...