All news items
17 July 2014
“First of all one has to ask the question: is he complicit? My answer [is stated] clearly in my book and in the statements that I have made subsequently, I would suggest yes.” – Andrew Feinstein.
It is probably not an unfair assumption that, in 1999 when the arms deal was signed under his watch, it would have been unthinkable to then-president Thabo Mbeki that he would be...
17 July 2014
Justice and Correctional Services Minister Mike Masutha wants to stop sending people convicted of petty crimes to jail in a bid to eliminate overcrowding.
Masutha said his newly merged department would encourage the courts to use the diversion of sentences programme instead of increasing the prison population.
In terms of the programme, a person found guilty of shoplifting would be sentenced to...
17 July 2014
Video conferencing will be used to connect victims of crime to all 53 Correctional Supervision and Parole offices in South Africa to allow them to become part of parole hearings.
Parole hearings hit the headlines last week when apartheid-era death squad commander Eugene de Kock was denied parole because families of victims had not been consulted.
Justice and Correctional Services Minister Michael...
15 July 2014
The controversial Red Ants Security Services will now have to give 48 hours notice before undertaking evictions, as well as check the validity of court orders authorising the removal of residents from informal settlements.
This is according to Gauteng Human Settlements MEC Jacob Mamabolo, who signed a memorandum of understanding with the private security services provider on Monday. The...
11 July 2014
Walk down most streets in Johannesburg and you will hear accents and languages from across this vast African continent.
Builders by the roadside waiting for work chatter away in the sweet sing-song rhythm of African Portuguese, waiters stand and gossip between orders employing the rolling Rs and whistles that mark out Shona, a language of Zimbabwe and southern Zambia.
Congolese, Somalis,...
11 July 2014
In South Africa, Eugene de Kock, an apartheid-era police colonel known as "Prime Evil", has been refused parole.
De Kock was the head of a police death squad targeting anti-apartheid activists.
Justice Minister Michael Masutha says a key reason why De Kock cannot be paroled is because the families of the victims were not consulted.
That may be the case, says Laywers for Human Rights, a...
10 July 2014
OPINION: On a warm summer’s morning in June 1961, a penniless odd-jobber by the name of Gideon Clarence was discovered in a seedy bar in Panama City, a town in the state of Florida, the US.
When the police tracked him down, he was described as drinking on the morning shift, his trousers “hanging low, weighted by exactly $25.28 in coins”. Clarence, with a history of theft,...
8 July 2014
Lawyers for Human Rights, on behalf of the Mokopane Interested and Affected Communities Committee (MIACC), has lodged an appeal against the Department of Mineral Resources’s decision to grant a mining right to Platreef Resources for their proposed platinum mine in Mokopane, Limpopo.
It will arguably be once of the world’s largest platinum mines that could extract for up to 100 years....
8 July 2014
After a six-year legal battle, a girl born in South Africa to Cuban parents has a country she can call home.
Yesterday, the girl's mother said she was able to sleep again after the Pretoria High Court last week ruled that her daughter was a South African citizen, and that the Department of Home Affairs had acted unlawfully by not registering her as such.
The Cape Town family - with the help...
7 July 2014
During phase two of the arms deal public hearings, who makes the allegations will prove to be just as important as the allegations themselves.
Intentionally or not, starting phase two of the Arms Procurement Commission’s inquiry on July 21 with evidence by the so-called “critics” of the arms deal will set them up as complainants in the matter.
Phase two will deal with...