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| Suspect deals rife but I'm innocent: Cele |
 | Police top brass abused a 2006 decision to let the force manage its own properties as carte blanche to award irregular contracts that wasted millions and enriched outsiders, Parliament heard on Friday. Police commissioner Bheki Cele told MPs he was asked to rubberstamp suspect deals from the day he took office in July 2009, suggesting that the practice was common and had carried on for years.
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| Car prices rise due to emissions tax |
The increase in car prices resulting from the emissions tax, which came into effect on September 1, will average between 2.0 percent and 3.0 percent, Absa Vehicle and Asset Finance said on Thursday. Earlier, the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of SA (Naamsa) released data for August 2010, showing that new car sales were at the higher end of expectations, assisted by a substantial buy ahead by consumers to avoid the new car emissions tax.
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| Unions reject government's wage offer |
 | Striking public service unions have rejected the government's latest wage offer without knowing its details, an official said on Wednesday. "[Minister of Public Service and Administration Richard Baloyi] started communicating the offer to public before we even went to our members," National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union (Nehawu) spokesman Sizwe Phamla told Sapa.
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| Public sector unions to decide on offer on Wednesday |
Public service trade unions were expected to accept or reject government's latest wage offer on Wednesday, two weeks into a nation-wide strike. Public Service and Administration Minister Richard Baloyi reportedly told Business Day the government would have to borrow the money to pay for the increase which would add an extra R7 billion to the current R297 billion public service wage bill.
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| Government makes new offer to striking workers |
 | A new wage offer was tabled to 1.3 million public servants on Tuesday, which the government hoped would bring an end to their crippling two-week strike. "A negotiated draft settlement offer stands as follows -- a 7.5 percent salary increment and R800 monthly housing allowance," Dumisani Nkwamba, spokesman for Public Service and Administration Minister Richard Baloyi, said in a statement.
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| Blue Bulls player accused of cop murder gets bail |
A South African Blue Bulls rugby player accused of the murder of a Pretoria police officer was released on bail on Monday, media and officials said. Jacobus Stephanus "Bees" Roux was released on a 100,000 rands bail (10,700 euros, 13,600 dollars) after he appeared at a magistrate's court in Pretoria and will appear again in court on October 15.
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| Teacher in trouble for promoting sex gel to students |
 | A high school teacher in Malaysia is in trouble for allegedly trying to promote a gel prevent premature ejaculation, the Malay-language daily Harian Metro reported Monday. His side business was discovered by a shocked parent who found several pamphlets promoting the product in his son's school bag.
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| Zuma orders ministers to return to negotiation table |
President Jacob Zuma has instructed all the ministers in the public service sector to return to the negotiating table in an attempt to end a 13-day national strike, his spokesman said on Monday. "The president gave a mandate to the ministers to immediately go back to the negotiating table," said Zizi Kodwa.
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| Boy held for parents murder |
 | An 18-year-old boy was arrested on Sunday after he allegedly hired two men to kill his parents at Standerton, Mpumalanga police said. The man, 43, and his 37-year-old wife were found dead at their home with several stab wounds in their bodies, said Captain Leonard Hlathi.
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| Zimbabwe's central bank to lay off 85 per cent of staff |
Zimbabwe's bankrupt central bank is to retrench 85 per cent of its bloated staff complement to help it move back into the black and function as a reliable national bank, according to Finance Minister Tendai Biti. The layoffs will mark the end of what analysts say was the use of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) to prop up President Robert Mugabe's party after years of misrule exhausted the country's finances and led to economic collapse in 2008.
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| Woman helps husband rape sister |
 | A woman allegedly assisted her husband while raping her 20-year-old sister at their house in Willowmore, Eastern Cape police said on Saturday. "The young woman had visited her sister who asked her to sleep over at her house," said Captain Sandisile Nelani. The woman's brother-in-law allegedly went into the visitor's bedroom while she was sleeping at around midnight and tried to rape her.
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| SA aims to up growth: Zuma |
President Jacob Zuma continued his push for South Africa's acceptance into the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) group of developing countries on Thursday, saying the country aimed to up its growth rate by focusing on key sectors in its economy. "Our industrial policy action plan has identified targeted sectors that government will focus on in encouraging competitiveness to ensure that the economy continues to grow in a diversified manner," Zuma told Chinese business leaders in Shanghai.
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| Cosatu warns of secondary strike |
 | Union federation Cosatu repeated its threat of a secondary strike by all its members during a public servants' march in Johannesburg on Thursday. "Today, on August the 26th, all Cosatu unions will be organising all their workers to issue notices to employers that they will be joining the public sector strike," Congress of SA Trade Unions general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi told cheering protesters in the city centre.
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| ANCYL must assess ANC leaders: Malema |
The ANCYL must examine whether the current ANC leadership is willing to use its power to change the economic conditions of South Africans, league president Julius Malema said on Wednesday. "As the ANCYL we are worried about the re-emergence of the tendency to please the Queen in Britain," he said to muffled giggles from delegates at the league's first national general council, held in Midrand.
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| Eight in court after R200 million fraud raids |
 | Eight people appeared in court in two provinces on Wednesday following a R200 million tender fraud crackdown by the Hawks and the Asset Forfeiture Unit. The operation was accompanied by the seizure of assets including a Lear jet, worth in total roughly the same amount. The crimes relate to alleged attempts to defraud the provincial health department by inflating the prices of water purification equipment for hospitals. One purification plant valued at R420,000 was allegedly sold to the department for R4 million.
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| Be 'scientific' on ANC officials: Mbete |
ANC chairwoman Baleka Mbete on Wednesday urged the movement's youth wing to be "scientific" when taking positions for or against party members deployed in government. "In taking positions against ANC deployees in government, please ensure you do it on a scientific basis. Please ensure that you are not being confused by the media... do your homework as you take positions against ANC deployees in government," Mbete told thousands of delegates attending the ANCYL's first national general council in Midrand.
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| Cosatu threatens total shutdown of economy |
 | Cosatu has threatened a total shutdown of the economy with a secondary strike if government fails to settle its dispute with public service workers by next Thursday. "We call on all workers to intensify their action. Every Cosatu affiliated union must on August 26 submit notice to their employers to embark on a secondary strike," general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said on Tuesday.
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| Elin divorces Tiger Woods after sex scandal |
Tiger Woods and Swedish model wife Elin Nordegren divorced Monday, their marriage "irretrievably broken" by a blistering sex scandal that has left the world number one golfer's life in disarray. Woods, 34, and Nordegren, 30, issued a joint statement saying they were sad to be ending their six-year marriage, wishing each other the best and promising to work together for their children's happiness.
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| Government offers 8.5 percent to public workers |
 | There is only one tenth of a percent difference between what striking public servants are demanding and what the state is offering, government spokesman Themba Maseko said on Monday. In a move that appears designed to bring unions back to the negotiating table, he told a media briefing in Pretoria that in "real terms" government was offering an 8.5 percent increase to public servants.
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| ANCYL defies ANC on leadership question |
The ANC Youth League in the Eastern Cape has taken a resolution to lobby for former league president Fikile Mbalula to replace Gwede Mantashe as ANC secretary general. Newly-elected ANCYL Eastern Cape chairman Ayanda Matiti said the province would drum up support for Mbalula at the league's national general council (NGC) in Midrand this week.
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| New party in Western Cape to challenge DA/ID |
 | A new political party which aimed at contesting the 2011 local elections, will be launched in the Western Cape over the weekend. Spokesman for the new Universal Civics Organisation of SA, Shamiel Abbas, said on Monday the party has drawn a number of members from across the political spectrum, with many from the Independent Democrats shortly before and after it announced its political union with the Democratic Alliance.
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| Wyclef Jean to appeal Haiti Election candidacy ruling |
Hip-hop star Wyclef Jean refused Sunday to abandon his bid to become president of quake-hit Haiti as his lawyers prepared to appeal the Electoral Commission's decision to reject his candidacy. "Tomorrow our Lawyers are appealing the decision of the CEP," Jean said in a message on the micro-blogging site Twitter. "We have met all the requirements set by the laws. And the law must be respected."
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| Public workers to stay at home on Monday: PSA |
 | Striking workers are to stay at home on Monday, the Public Servants Association (PSA) said on Sunday. "The strike will continue but it will be different this week because strikers are to stay at home," spokesman Manie de Clercq said. "There is nothing spectacular tomorrow, no protesting as such, but a mass action is planned for Thursday."
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| Mandela's house was bugged prior 2007 ANC conference |
Former president Nelson Mandela’s Houghton house was bugged ahead the African National Congress’s 2007 national conference, the Sunday Times reported on Saturday. "A bug was found at Mandela’s home. I had discussions with Mandela and he told me about the bug himself," Congress of SA Trade Union secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi said.
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| Hospitals turn away man with chopped off hand |
 | A 21-year-old man, who needed emergency surgery after his hand had been chopped off, was turned away by two state hospitals due to a public service strike, paramedics said on Friday. "In a case such as this, time is of the essence as the tissue can die," said ER24 spokesman Werner Vermaak.
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| Violence flares in public servants strike |
Violence and intimidation flared in the nationwide public Servants’ strike on Thursday, as government gave notice that it would unilaterally implement a seven percent pay hike. Strikers in Gauteng prevented patients -- and at least one ambulance --from entering hospitals, and threw stones at police.
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| Government reserves right to fire striking workers: Zuma |
 | President Jacob Zuma said the government reserved the right to fire striking employees, the SABC reported on Thursday. He said that although workers had a right to strike, the government was expected to deliver services to the people. Speaking in the Western Cape during the ANC’s membership recruitment campaign
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| Wyclef Jean says his Haiti candidacy a 'wild card' |
Wyclef Jean’s glamorous hip hop lifestyle seems far away as he sits in hiding in a white stucco building on a rutted, dirt road where chickens scurry and Haitian women carry sacks of laundry atop their heads. The former Fugees frontman, multimillionaire philanthropist and Haitian presidential hopeful tells The Associated Press he is confident that election officials will accept his candidacy despite doubts as to whether he meets the five-year residency requirement needed to run for office.
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| 'Vuvuzela' earns a place in English Dictionary |
 | Vuvuzelas, the plastic horns that provided the soundtrack for the World Cup in South Africa, have blared their way into a dictionary containing the latest in the English language, published Thursday. The deafening trumpets are one new entry in the latest edition of the Oxford Dictionary of English, which is based on how language is really used.
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