Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs could meet in the final of the Telkom Knockout after missing one another in the semi-finals.

It will be far from easy for the Soweto giants though, as Kaizer Chiefs will host Platinum Stars in the second semi-final while Orlando Pirates will travel to SuperSport United in the other.

The draw for the last four took place just after Pirates’ convincing 4-0 win over Golden Arrows at the Orlando Stadium on Wednesday. Pirates’ semi-final match will take place on 20 November due to their CAF Champions League committments.

Chiefs took the long route to the final with a 4-2 penalty shootout win over Free State Stars after the game had ended 1-1.

SuperSport also impressed with a 3-1 victory over Moroka Swallows while Dikwena, who recently lifted the MTN8, disposed of Mamelodi Sundowns 2-1.

The full draw was as follows:

20 November 2013: SuperSport United v Orlando Pirates

2 November 2013: Kaizer Chiefs v Platinum Stars
For more http://www.soccerladuma.com

Johannesburg – A foreign shop owner arrested in Bekkersdal, near Westonaria, will be charged with attempted murder, Gauteng police said on Wednesday.

Constable Elsie Tshonte said the man was arrested for possession of an unlicensed firearm and ammunition.

“Police are now also investigating attempted murder,” she said.

Residents told the police the man had a gun with which he had shot another man.

“Police officers searched the shop and found the gun.”

Tshonte said police were continuing to monitor the area following violent service delivery protests.

Earlier, protesters gathered near the local taxi rank and burnt tyres.

Last week, 35 protesters were arrested and charged with public violence after a petrol bomb and stones were thrown into the police station.

Three police vehicles and a disaster management vehicle were damaged.

Tshonte said no protesters were arrested on Wednesday.

Sapa

CAPE TOWN – The investigating officer working on the rape and murder case of Bredasdorp teenager Anene Booysen has defended the police probe.
Johannes Kana is standing trial for the rape, mutilation and murder of the 17-year-old in February.

The trial resumed in the Swellendam Circuit Court on Wednesday.

Kana confessed to raping Booysen but denied killing her.
Warrant officer Edmund Abels told the court Booysen’s rape and murder case was thoroughly investigated.

He said all tip-offs and leads were followed up.

Abels said even though the teenager mentioned the name “Zwai” when questioned about the suspects, no concrete forensic evidence could link him to the crime.

The court also heard a bra, which belonged to Booysen, had blood on it.

But again, no forensic evidence could be decisively linked to Kana.
The case resumes on Monday.
For more http://www.ewn.co.za

JOHANNESBURG – The medium-term budget policy statement has given South Africa some breathing room, ratings agency Standard and Poor’s (S&P) said on Wednesday. Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan delivered his speech in Parliament, Cape Town. Speaking to Talk Radio 702/567 Cape Talk’s Bruce Whitfield this evening, the minister defended his optimistic view of the economy as a whole. – See more at: http://ewn.co.za/2013/10/23/SP-reacts-to-budget-speech-1#sthash.NzloeDCK.dpuf

Johannesburg – A military colonel who committed an armed robbery at an Eastern Cape police station 18 years ago, has handed himself over to the military police, the defence department said on Wednesday.

Brigadier General Xolani Mabanga said Colonel Nceba Patrick Bobelo reported to the joint operations headquarters in Pretoria on Tuesday afternoon.

“Arrangements were made for him to be taken by the military police. The military police then consulted with the correctional services department and the police for him to be handed over,” Mabanga said.

“The correctional services officials from Pretoria indicated that he [Bobelo] had to serve his sentence in the Eastern Cape. They were discussing the modalities of having him transferred.”

Disappeared from Mbombela home

Mabanga said there were no indications that Bobelo was trying to evade arrest or that he was trying to run away because he handed himself over.

On Tuesday, Eastern Cape police spokesperson Colonel Sibongile Soci said a warrant of arrest has been issued and police are looking for Bobelo.

Beeld reported on Tuesday that Bobelo disappeared from his Mbombela home in Mpumalanga before police could arrest him.

According to the report, indications were that Bobelo was trying to evade arrest. Soci told the newspaper Bobelo was not considered a fugitive.

Bobelo’s appeal against his prison sentence failed in 2001, but neither the army nor the justice department were able to explain why Bobelo, commander of the military’s joint tactical headquarters in Mpumalanga, had avoided jail.

Advanced rank

In 1995, he was one of four defendants convicted of robbing the Ntabethemba police station in the Eastern Cape. Two policemen were attacked and several firearms were stolen.

The four were sentenced to 12 years in prison each, of which three years were conditionally suspended.

One of the four appealed successfully in 2001, but Bobelo and the other two were ordered to start serving their jail terms immediately.

Bobelo, however, spent the next 12 years being advanced to the rank of colonel.

Following a Beeld report two months ago on Bobelo’s involvement in the robbery, the National Prosecuting Authority in the Eastern Cape received a query from the SA National Defence Force to determine why Bobelo had not served his sentence. The warrant for his arrest was then issued.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – Police shot and injured a man they caught stealing from a furniture shop in Johannesburg on Wednesday morning, metro police said.

He and three accomplices were robbing a Joshua Doore furniture shop on the corner of Fox and Delvers streets at around 08:00, Chief Superintendent Wayne Minnaar said.

A JMPD officer caught them red-handed as they were loading TVs and radios onto a van.

“One was shot in the leg during the scuffle as they were trying to flee,” he said.

He and another man were arrested. The other two ran away.

The arrested men would be charged with armed robbery at the Johannesburg Central police station.

Police were searching for the other two.

– SAPA

Bloemfontein – A man was killed when a tractor he was working on fell on top of him on a farm in Bethlehem, Free State, paramedics said on Wednesday.

The man, in his late 40s, had been working on the tractor late on Tuesday and when his wife woke up on Wednesday, found he had not come home, said ER24 spokesperson Vanessa Jackson.

“The farmer’s son went to look for him and was devastated to find his father trapped under the tractor,” she said.

Paramedics declared him dead on the scene.

– SAPA

Pretoria – Retired judge Ian Farlam expressed concern on Wednesday about murders linked to the Marikana Commission of Inquiry.

Farlam sent the commission’s condolences following the murder of National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) branch chairperson William Setelele.

He was gunned down near the Marikana koppie, close to Lonmin’s platinum mine in the North West, last Thursday.

“It is a matter of concern because a number of people connected to this commission have been assassinated. It is a matter which I am sure is receiving attention from the authorities,” he said.

“My colleagues and I wish to extend our condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of our former witness (Setelele). I hope the perpetrators will be brought to book in due course.”

Shot eight times

Karel Tip, for the NUM at the commission, also expressed his condolences. Setelele testified at the commission in January and February.

North West police said the Setelele was shot eight times.

“The man was gunned down on Thursday night between 19:00 and 20:00. He was on his way to visit his girlfriend when four men came out of the bushes and shot at his car,” said Brigadier Thulani Ngubane.

He was hit once when he was driving. When he stopped and got out of the car the men fired another seven bullets at him. He died on the scene.

Another NUM official, Daluvuyo Bongo, was killed in October last year.

At the time, Tip said NUM believed Bongo’s murder was a “target killing”.

Key evidence

The NUM branch secretary was shot six times at his home at the Wonderkop hostel complex in Marikana on 5 October. He was scheduled to testify at the commission’s public hearings.

At the time of Bongo’s death, NUM said he was set to present key information to the commission.

The inquiry, chaired by Farlam, is investigating the deaths of 44 people during strike-related unrest at Lonmin platinum’s operations at Marikana, near Rustenburg, last year.

Evidence leader Matthew Chaskalson SC was cross-examining Lieutenant Colonel Duncan Scott on Wednesday.

Scott helped draft the police plan which was to be used to try and disperse and disarm the striking mineworkers. The plan was referred to as the “Scott plan”.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – Lack of accountability and lapses in leadership are some of the causes of governance failure, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela said on Wednesday.

“Whether we are talking about an organisation, or the state, it is a situation where the majority hand over power to the few, with the understanding that they are better off with a few managing their affairs,” Madonsela told delegates at the Black Management Forum conference in Midrand.

“It is a relationship of trust and it can only succeed if those, who are entrusted with power and resources, understand that they are stewards -that resources do not belong to them.”

She said it often did not work that way.

“At the level of government… we are getting a mentality [from communities] that says if we start a fire they will come,” Madonsela said.

“With a trust deficit [with regard to government], some communities are increasingly resorting to violence and are literally starting fires with the view to draw attention to themselves.”

She said this was happening in many disadvantaged areas.

“If those who exercise public power don’t… [follow the democratic values in the Constitution], the criminal elements have an easier task of promoting a [violent] reaction.”

Madonsela said her office was increasingly finding that leaders had problems understanding what it meant to do the right thing.

“Increasingly there is an issue of conflict of interest, where people place themselves in situations where really they have two masters,” she said.

“When you find yourself in a situation with two masters, something has to give and often it is your organisation that has to give, and other interests take [precedence].”

Failure of governance

Madonsela said a “loss of institutional memory” also led to the failure of governance.

“Even if you get highly competent people, it is difficult for them to know volumes and volumes of internal policies,” she said.

“Institutional memory loss leads to governance failures because increasingly people take action without going through the policies – because there are so many of them.”

She said the life cycle of directors general was too short, and a significant number did not finish their three-year terms.

“It is musical chairs. The same applies to municipal managers, but increasingly it’s applying to ministers, premiers, MECs, mayors and councillors,” Madonsela said.

“Increasingly that continuity is lost.”

Other causes of governance failure were a lack of skills, inconsistent enforcement, and power struggles, among others.

“Is it possible that good governance is the key that we lost in the transition from the society we inherited to the one we wanted to become when we signed the Constitution?” Madonsela asked.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – Two people were arrested in Durban after being found in possession of drugs with an estimated street value of R6.5m, KwaZulu-Natal police said on Wednesday.

The couple aged between 28 and 29 were caught on Tuesday night at the King Shaka International Airport after they landed from India, said police spokesperson Jay Naicker.

Police confiscated 36kg of crystal methamphetamine in their luggage.

A 36-year-old woman was later arrested in the Point area in Durban waiting for the delivery of drugs from the couple, said Naicker.

The three would appear in court soon for dealing in drugs.

The arrests followed an instruction by provincial police commissioner, Lieutenant General Mmamonnye Ngobeni, to identify people supplying drugs to dealers in the province.

– SAPA