Kimberley – The Department of Nature Conservation’s Special Investigation Unit has positively identified the homemade spears, used to kill Abraham the Camel, as typical of the traditional weapons used in hunting by the San community in Platfontein.

News of the death of the pet camel led to a public outcry and authorities are now suspecting members of the nearby Platfontein community to be responsible for the brutal killing.
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Johannesburg – The absence of a Tlokwe municipal manager must be resolved quickly because this is affecting services, the standing committee on provincial public accounts said on Thursday.

“If there is no municipal manager there can be no accountability,” committee chairman Hlomane Chauke said in a statement.

“Officials can take the law into their own hands and loot state resources.”

On July 2, a letter was sent to the mayor’s office from local government MEC Manketsi Tlhape about the removal of Gladstone Moumakwe as acting municipal manager. According to the letter Moumakwe should not continue with any duties relating to the municipal manager’s office.

Chauke also said the dispute over who Tlokwe’s mayor is needed to be resolved. This followed the unseating, for a second time, of Tlokwe mayor Maphetle Maphetle earlier this month.

African National Congress councillors voted with the Democratic Alliance to unseat Maphetle. On July 2, DA councillor Annette Combrink was voted in as the new mayor, for the second time since November.

The ANC lodged an application in the High Court in Pretoria to have Maphetle’s ousting declared invalid. – Sapa

Johannesburg – By-elections will be held in Ward Nine in Tlokwe, North West, on August 7, the Independent Electoral Commission said on Thursday.

The African National Congress councillor in the ward had resigned.

The IEC said the ward would be contested by the ANC, the Democratic Alliance, the Congress of the People, the African People’s Convention and an independent candidate.

Earlier this month, the ANC North West provincial disciplinary committee expelled 14 of its councillors after they voted with opposition parties to unseat Tlokwe mayor Maphetle Maphetle.

On July 2, DA councillor Annette Combrink was voted in as the new mayor, for the second time since November.

The IEC said another eight by-elections would be held in the North West on the same day. These would be in Ward 19 in Rustenburg, Ward 14 in Ratlou, Wards four and 12 in Mafikeng, Ward 20 in Ditsobotla (Lichtenburg), Ward 12 and 14 in Ramotshere Moiloa (Zeerust), and Ward four in NW397-NW397 (Ganyesa/Pomfret).

The IEC said all the wards became vacant when the ANC councillors resigned. – Sapa

Johannesburg – Rescue workers continued searching on Friday for a fisherman who went missing near George, the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) said.

The man, who went missing on Thursday, was presumed to have drowned, said Hennie Niehaus of the NSRI.

“On arrival on scene [on Thursday], an extensive sea, shore, and air search commenced and despite [this there was] no sign of the missing fisherman, in his 50s, from Thembalethu,” said Niehaus.

The man had been fishing with his son when he was swept off the rocks into the sea.

“It is believed that it took the son almost an hour to reach the police station to raise the alarm. There is also no cellphone signal in the area where they were fishing,” Niehaus said.

– SAPA

Pretoria – The area outside the Pretoria hospital where former president Nelson Mandela is spending his 48th day was quiet on Friday morning.

Residents in the surrounding area went about their daily business. Broadcast equipment stood idle on the pavement outside the Medi-Clinic Heart Hospital’s Celliers Street entrance, with foreign journalists absent. A few cameras were trained on the Park Street entrance.

A woman had set up a stall selling T-shirts with Mandela’s face on them, while the hospital wall behind her, from the street corner to the end of the hospital premises, was covered with banners, pictures, and messages of support for Mandela.

Metro police were at both ends of Celliers Street, keeping watch, while police checked cars entering and leaving the hospital’s two entrances.

Mandela was admitted to hospital on 8 June with a recurring lung infection. According to the last update on his health from the presidency Mandela’s condition had improved, though he was still in a critical condition.

– SAPA

Durban – Two nursing sisters at a rural health clinic in KwaZulu-Natal allegedly referred a sick 5-month-old baby to a sangoma, a health official said on Friday.

The two nurses at the clinic near Dundee were being investigated, said Dundee provincial hospital spokespersonn Mbali Ntshingila.

She confirmed that a complaint had been received from a local commercial farmer, but declined to elaborate.

“We are still investigating and cannot disclose anything. The investigation is at an early stage.”

The two sisters were still working, and it was not standard procedure to refer patients to sangomas, she said.

It was not known whether both nursing sisters had been involved in the referral.

The farmer, Paul Theunissen, said one of his employees last week told him of the baby being referred to a sangoma.

He said he had been told that the woman was informed by one of the nursing sisters that she had to take the baby to a sangoma because “the ancestors were cross with her”.

“We went out to collect the baby – who was covered in some kind of muti and was sicker than before – but the sangoma was reluctant to let her go,” he said.

“Eventually we managed to take the baby to a private doctor, who diagnosed bronchitis,” said Theunissen.

Theunissen said he lodged a complaint with the hospital.

– SAPA

Cape Town – South Africa should reject discrimination against sexual orientation as it has done with racism, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu said on Friday.

“Can you imagine me having said it’s unjust to penalise something they cannot do anything about, their race or gender, and then to keep quiet when people are hounded, people are killed, because of their sexual orientation?” he asked.

“I think it’s as utterly unjust as racism ever was.”

He was speaking at the launch of the United Nations “Free & Equal” global campaign for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender equality in Cape Town.

Tutu said he would do “almost anything” in support of the campaign, which aimed to raise awareness of homophobic violence and discrimination.

He said this discrimination was based on something people were born with and could do nothing about, just as with race.

“We speak of them and say: No, they are a peculiar breed. They are not a peculiar breed. That is precisely what we are saying, that they are human beings.

“I don’t know why we are so surprised. They have gifts, they can become judges. They can become all sorts of wonderful things.”

Tutu said religious leaders had an important role to play in changing people’s ideas about homosexuality and gender.

– SAPA