Yearly Archives: 2012

‘Bitch’ complaint dismissed

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Johannesburg – The Broadcasting Complaints Commission of SA has dismissed a complaint against controversial 5FM presenter Gareth Cliff for calling a woman a “bitch”.

The word was used in a “playful and melodramatic manner”, the BCCSA said in a ruling released on Tuesday.

Cliff, who hosts 5FM’s Breakfast Show, addressed a female caller as “Dear Bitch” on June 6, in an attempt to get her to call the station back. However, the woman, who was never named on the show, took offence and lodged a complaint with the commission.

She had called two days earlier to express her opinion about M-Net’s Idols programme.

A 5FM representative argued that the woman’s dignity had not been impaired as she was not identified.

He told a BCCSA tribunal the incident needed to be seen in the context of broadcasts over three days.

The woman’s “aggressive and confrontational style” had resulted in Cliff referring to her as “Dear Bitch” in the same way one would refer to a person being “bitchy”.

The woman said: “My complaint is against Gareth Cliff using such profane and unnecessary language, even not knowing the individual.”

She argued that children listened to the morning show, and should not be exposed to such language.

While the complaint was not upheld, 5FM was cautioned that repetitive use of the word should be discouraged. – Sapa

Le Clos bags SA’s second Olympic gold

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South African swimming sensation Chad le Clos scooped the country’s second gold medal of the London Olympic Games, edging American legend Michael Phelps in the men’s 200 metres butterfly final on Tuesday evening.

Le Clos, 20, touched the wall in one minute, 52.96 seconds (1:52.96) to smash his own national record by well over a second.

Phelps, a 14-time Olympic gold medallist and the defending champion in this event, finished second in 1:53.01.

Le Clos’s medal added to the gold won by Cameron van der Burgh in the men’s 100m breaststroke final on Sunday. – Sapa

 

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electricity iol pic jan10

Pic: Reuter

SA companies have been called upon to introduce flexitime, but Cape businesses believe it simply won’t work.

Eskom chief executive Brian Dames reported on Monday it was considering offering special rates to companies operating between 10pm and 4am.

 

“Between five o’clock and around 7.30 in the evening every night we use as much electricity as most of our neighbouring countries combined just in those few hours. In some cases it’s in excess of 3 000MW,” Dames said.

“We think as a country we should consider changing our working hours. We may offer companies special fees and rates to use electricity from about 10 at night to four o’clock in the morning.”

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Discharged patient’s intestines pop out

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Hazel Vilakazi

Hazel Vilakazi, whose husband, Paulos Vilakazi, died. Picture: Phill Magakoe

A Soshanguve family is still reeling in shock, anger and frustration after the death of 70-year-old Paulos Vilakazi. He died a few days after being discharged from Kalafong Hospital and being rushed back the following day with a gaping wound and intestines which had fallen out on to his bed.

Doctors at the hospital have refused to explain why the old man was discharged from the hospital with a septic wound, and they dismissed the family when they asked for an explanation, Vilakazi’s brother-in-law, Tony Baloyi, said on Monday.

“When we told them of our decision to get an independent pathologist to conduct a post-mortem they told us to take the corpse from the hospital morgue and fill the death certificate in ourselves,” Baloyi said.

For more details go to http://www.iol.co.za

Dewani still a suicide risk, UK court told

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(File picture) Shrien Dewani

The judge presiding over the case of Shrien Dewani in a UK court has adjourned the case to 18 September to consider psychiatric reports from experts, according to reports.

 Defence lawyer Clare Montgomery QC asked the Westminster Magistrates Court for the case to be put on hold for a year to enable her client to recover from depression, the BBC reported.

But the case was only adjourned until September, to allow for updated medical evidence to be put before the court.

Chief magistrate Howard Riddle said he wanted to see updated evidence before considering a longer adjournment.

 Tuesday’s hearing was supposed to determine whether Dewani, who is accused of masterminding the murder of his wife Anni while on honeymoon in Cape Town in November 2010, was healthy enough to be extradited to South Africa.

According to an ITV news report, Dewani’s defence quoted his psychiatrist as saying that he had made some progress with his mental health, remains on drug treatment and is in compulsory detention in a psychiatric unit until May 2013.

For more details go to http://www.iol.co.za/

SA unemployment rate eases to under 25%

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Pretoria – South Africa’s official jobless rate slowed to 24.9% of the labour force in the second quarter of 2012 from 25.2% in the first quarter, a survey showed on Tuesday. 

In its latest quarterly Labour Force Survey, Statistics South Africa said the total number of unemployed people stood at 4.47 million in the three months to June from 4.5 million in the first quarter. 

The expanded definition of unemployment, which includes people who have stopped looking for work, was at 36.2% from 36.6%.

For more details go to http://www.fin24.com

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‘Motlanthe will be president’: Lamola

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Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe will be ANC president, ANCYL deputy president Ronald Lamola said in Johannesburg on Monday.

“It is given comrades that the current deputy president of the ANC, comrade Kgalema, will one day become the president of the ANC,” Lamola said.

“It will be a generational error if he does not become the president. We will be rewriting the history of the African National Congress.”

Lamola was addressing the ANC Youth League’s Dr Mxolisi Majombozi branch at the University of the Witwatersrand.

He was reporting back on the league’s policy conference held in June, the league’s role, and reflecting on former president Nelson Mandela’s contribution to the struggle.

For more details go to http://www.timeslive.co.za

I’m back in ANC when Zuma is ousted at Mangaung: Malema

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Julius Malema. File photo.
Image by: JAMES OATWAY © Sunday Times

Former ANCYL president Julius Malema says his expulsion from the ANC will be automatically overturned when President Jacob Zuma is voted out of office in December, it was reported on Tuesday.

Malema, who was being interviewed on the BBC’s World Service in London on Monday evening, said his expulsion was being contested by structures of the African National Congress, Independent Online reported.

He said the ANC’s elective conference in Mangaung in December would be used to overturn it.

“When we remove President [Jacob] Zuma in December, it will be an automatic overturning of that decision,” he was quoted as saying.

Malema said people were still committed to him even though he had been expelled by the ANC, because he was “leading a revolution in South Africa for economic emancipation”.

This was “close to the hearts of the people” of both South Africa and Africa, according to the report.

He said his relationship with ANC veteran Winnie Madikizela-Mandela worried the ANC.

“I am still very close to her, which worries some in the ANC who thought that by expelling us they would succeed in isolating us, and they have not succeeded.”

According to the report, Malema said former president Nelson Mandela would be “very happy” with him as, while still young, Mandela had changed an ANC “of gentlemen” into a “fighting force”.

For more details go to http://www.timeslive.co.za/

R600m on catering, entertainment

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DA chief whip Watty Watson has accused the government of ‘riding on a new kind of gravy train’. Photo: Matthew Jordaan

The government has been accused of living large at the expense of the poor after it emerged that 21 departments had spent R600 million on catering and entertainment over the past four years.

“The government would rather splash cash on cocktails and canapés than fund the delivery of basic services to South Africans living in poverty,” DA chief whip Watty Watson said on Monday.

He accused the government of “riding a new kind of gravy train”.

A series of written parliamentary replies has shown the No 1 spender was the Department of International Relations and Co-operation. It has forked out more than R216m on entertainment and catering since 2007/8. The Police Department came in second, with over R113m, while Justice and Constitutional Development was third with more than R48m.

For more details go to http://www.iol.co.za/

Chilling details emerge in murder, rape trial

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Bloody Knife jan 19

Durban – Chilling details of two Shongweni families’ night of terror at the hands of an armed gang who killed, raped and robbed, have emerged in the Durban High Court.

On trial is Sihle Sandile Ndlovu, 25, alleged to be the sole remaining member of the gang.

He pleaded not guilty on Monday to six counts of murder, rape, attempted murder and two counts of housebreaking.

All the crimes took place on the night of October 25, 2010 and early the following morning.

Ndlovu’s alleged accomplices, brothers Philani and Bhejane Nxele, were killed when police officers tried to arrest them in November 2010.

For more details go to http://www.iol.co.za