Kuruman- The Northern Cape “no road, no school” protest will cost about 16 000 pupils a year of learning after a decision was taken that they will repeat their classes in 2015, City Press reports.

The provincial department announced today that matriculants in the Kuruman area will be allowed to write their examinations earlier in 2015 but other pupils will have to redo their grades.
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Johannesburg – Many people were shocked on Thursday when the judge in the Oscar Pistorius trial acquitted the paralympian of murder, and many took to social networking sites to voice their disappointment.

“Oscar Pistorius has been found NOT guilty? He killed his girlfriend! Is this a sick joke?! #JusticeForReeva,” @Harrv_Styles wrote on Twitter.

Another user, @KarlJCompton wrote: “I can’t believe Oscar Pistorius has been found not guilty of murder. He intended to kill her, don’t care what anyone says. #Disgusting.”

During the first half of her judgment on Thursday, Judge Thokozile Masipa found that Pistorius was not guilty of murder but could still be found guilty of culpable homicide.

“The accused therefore cannot be found guilty of murder dolus eventualis [legal intent]… that however is not the end of the matter as culpable homicide is a competent verdict,” she said in the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria.

The judge adjourned judgment early on Thursday before making a finding on whether the athlete was guilty of culpable homicide.

Judgment is expected to continue on Friday.

Pistorius, 27, said he thought an intruder was behind the door of the toilet in his Pretoria home when he shot through it. He fired four times, killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on 14 February 2013. The State argued the murder was premeditated.

Pistorius pleaded not guilty to the murder charge, and to three firearm-related charges.

Following Masipa’s finding on murder, some people on Twitter expressed sympathy with the Steenkamp family.

Steenkamp’s parents, Barry and June, were in court for the judgment.

“Speechless. Rest in peace, Reeva, sorry there is no justice and no closure for your family,” said @clausgurumeta.

Another user @ingeniusbooks said: “If I feel completely depressed about #OscarPistoriusJudgement I cannot imagine how Reeva’s parents must feel.”

While @chop59 said: “This should have been about justice for Reeva Steenkamps death! Not excuses for OP supreme domestic violence……bad decision so far!!”

A few Twitter users cracked jokes about the finding that Pistorius was acquitted of murder.

“What does England and Oscar Pistorius have in common? Looks like both will get away Scot free,” said @HarryBedfont.

User @Officialben_ said: “Now Oscar Pistorius has been found innocent I still don’t think anyone will risk throwing him a surprise party?”

“Wow! The Pope has apparently called for Oscar Pistorius’s lawyer to be named a saint, as he has officially made a crippled man walk today,” said @jamster83.

SAPA

Cape Town – Public Protector Thuli Madonsela on Thursday said she was evaluating an apology by Deputy Defence and Military Veterans Minister Kebby Maphatsoe.

“Regarding the spy allegations, we have noted the media release by the deputy minister and my team has been helping me [with] evaluating the response,” she said in Cape Town.

“I have that draft evaluation… Once we have done that evaluation process, we will determine what my next move is going to be.”

The Star reported on Monday that Maphatsoe, also the Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans’ Association chairman, had accused Madonsela of being a spy, insinuating she worked for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Madonsela’s office on Monday gave Maphatsoe three days to back his allegations, or issue an apology and retraction. Maphatsoe apologised on Tuesday.

“On Saturday and Monday, I made statements in my capacity as the national chairperson on behalf of MKMVA about the Public Protector,” Maphatsoe said in a statement.

Hate speech

“After consultation with my organisation, the African National Congress, it would seem as though my statements have been misunderstood and misinterpreted.

“I therefore withdraw those statements and apologise for any offences and hurt that would have been caused.”

Madonsela was asked whether she feared for her life or that of her family after increasing attacks on her character and actions.

“No, not really. Nobody has seriously, directly threatened me. My family has raised concerns though over being called a traitor, being called a foreign agent,” she said.

A member of her team had raised the question that being called a spy was hate speech and incitement to harm.

“When you call somebody a foreign agent, you are inviting others to consider this person an enemy of the people of South Africa.

“And some of them might then assume that that call extends to them defending the country against this foreign agent. And it was the reason we then requested that this should be withdrawn.”

SAPA

Cape Town – Public Protector Thuli Madonsela on Thursday said she was evaluating an apology by Deputy Defence and Military Veterans Minister Kebby Maphatsoe.

“Regarding the spy allegations, we have noted the media release by the deputy minister and my team has been helping me [with] evaluating the response,” she said in Cape Town.

“I have that draft evaluation… Once we have done that evaluation process, we will determine what my next move is going to be.”

The Star reported on Monday that Maphatsoe, also the Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans’ Association chairman, had accused Madonsela of being a spy, insinuating she worked for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Madonsela’s office on Monday gave Maphatsoe three days to back his allegations, or issue an apology and retraction. Maphatsoe apologised on Tuesday.

“On Saturday and Monday, I made statements in my capacity as the national chairperson on behalf of MKMVA about the Public Protector,” Maphatsoe said in a statement.

Hate speech

“After consultation with my organisation, the African National Congress, it would seem as though my statements have been misunderstood and misinterpreted.

“I therefore withdraw those statements and apologise for any offences and hurt that would have been caused.”

Madonsela was asked whether she feared for her life or that of her family after increasing attacks on her character and actions.

“No, not really. Nobody has seriously, directly threatened me. My family has raised concerns though over being called a traitor, being called a foreign agent,” she said.

A member of her team had raised the question that being called a spy was hate speech and incitement to harm.

“When you call somebody a foreign agent, you are inviting others to consider this person an enemy of the people of South Africa.

“And some of them might then assume that that call extends to them defending the country against this foreign agent. And it was the reason we then requested that this should be withdrawn.”

SAPA

Johannesburg – Paralympian Oscar Pistorius will spend another night wondering about his fate as judgment in his murder trial was adjourned early on Thursday.

Judge Thokozile Masipa adjourned proceedings in the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria before dealing with the matter of whether Pistorius was guilty of culpable homicide.

This was after she had found that he could not be guilty of murder.

However, Masipa found that Pistorius was negligent when he fired four shots into a toilet cubicle that killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

“I am of the view that the accused acted too hastily and used excessive force. In the circumstances it is clear that his conduct was negligent.”

Pistorius said he thought an intruder was behind the door of the toilet in his Pretoria home when he shot through it. He fired four times killing Steenkamp on 14 February 2013.

The State argued the murder was premeditated.

Pistorius, 27, pleaded not guilty to the murder charge, and to three firearm-related charges.

Judgment would continue on Friday.

Following the adjournment, Pistorius remained in the dock while his sister Aimee sat on his lap holding his head.

His lawyer Barry Roux left the court smiling, as did his uncle Arnold.

His brother, Carl Pistorius, was pushed out of court in a wheelchair. Both of his legs were in casts after he was involved in a near fatal accident last month.

Media swarms Pistorius

A wall of photographers and cameramen lined Pistorious’s route from courtroom GD to the white 4×4 parked outside the court building.

Pistorius was escorted out of the court room by police as he was pursued by the media.

People standing outside the building cheered and screamed as he was rushed out to his car.

Throughout the day the African National Congress Women’s League sang outside the court in support of the Steenkamp family.

“Pantsi [Down] ngo Oscar, pantsi [down]! Rot in jail, Oscar, rot in jail!”, they chanted.

There were also people in support of Pistorius outside the court.

“He didn’t do it on purpose,” student Anzer Rhema, 20 said outside the court.

“If I was the judge I would just forgive the person. Let him go. South Africans should forgive him for what happened,” she said.

Masipa surprised everyone

Before judgment started people were predicting a guilty verdict for the athlete, however, Masipa surprised them when she acquitted him of murder.

“The accused therefore cannot be found guilty of murder dolus eventualis [legal intent]… that however is not the end of the matter as culpable homicide is a competent verdict,” she said earlier, just before adjourning for an early lunch.

Masipa found that the evidence with regard to the charge was “purely circumstantial”.

While Masipa read through her judgment, systematically going through the sequence of events, Pistorius sat in the dock weeping, shaking and clenching his jaw.

When she found he could not be found guilty of murder Pistorius heaved a sigh of relief.

A number of Pistorius family members were in court, including his father Henke Pistorius.

Steenkamp’s parents, Barry and June, as well as her cousin Kim Martins attended the judgment.

Steenkamp’s friends the Myers family, witness Darren Fresco and former soccer player Marc Batchelor were also in court.

Earlier, Masipa said Pistorius was a “very poor witness” and contradicted himself on the stand.

She described him as an evasive witness and said he failed to listen to questions, thinking of the impact of his answers.

Masipa rejected Pistorius’s defence that this was because he was under emotional stress, traumatised, and medicated.

SAPA

Cape Town – South Africa will descend into anarchy unless the state starts expropriating white-owned land without paying compensation, Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema said on Thursday.

“Ours is a struggle to change property ownership in South Africa…. We believe that a progressive, peaceful expropriation of land without compensation will resolve the crisis of land ownership in South Africa,” he told the Cape Town Press Club.

“Our people will never arrive at the promised land if we do not resolve the land question, because you are nothing without the land.

“Your land is your identity…. There is no man who can have dignity if that man does not have property,” said Malema, who later, without acknowledging any contradiction, told his audience that the EFF fully subscribes to Marxist principles.

He said the dispossession of black landowners was one of the motivations for the formation of the African National Congress, but that the party had lost its way since coming to power 20 years ago.

Its “willing-seller, willing-buyer” land reform policy had proved a failure.

“No one is willing to sell,” he said, adding that the ruling party had yet to find an alternative policy.

Seize land 

Malema issued an unambiguous warning that if no political party took up this cause, the landless poor would rise up and seize land.

“There must be an organisation that leads people that are demanding ownership in terms of property, because if there is no leadership that leads our people in demanding these things, our people will lead themselves.

“We will have an unled revolution, an unled revolution is anarchy.”

He reiterated that there should be no compensation, because white farmers had not acquired their property by honest means.

“Those who took the land from us did not buy it, [they] actually committed a black genocide. And those blacks who survived were converted from land ownership to slaves, and therefore we should not be seen to be rewarding crime.

Speaking to a mainly affluent white audience at Cape Town’s Kelvin Grove Club, he said he was therefore asking his listeners to hand over “some of your property”.

However, Malema was quick to assure them that the EFF was committed to honouring former president Nelson Mandela’s dearly held vision of multi-racialism, and added: “We want to share the wealth with white people.”

“Your safety as people with money is guaranteed by the empowerment of those without money.”

He went on to recount that he had deliberately enrolled his son in a mainly white, Afrikaans-speaking school “because I want him to grow [up] with white people and know that these people are human beings and he must not be scared of them”.

Malema was scathing of leading figures in the ANC, in particular President Jacob Zuma, whom he portrayed as a paranoid populist with no respect for Parliament, and deserving of ousting.

Reminded of his once-militant support for Zuma, he said he had made a mistake and was trying to correct it through his new party.

“We have since apologised to South Africans for having sold them nothing in the form of President Zuma. It is a terrible mistake and we agree that we have contributed in this mess and that’s why we are now contributing in cleaning this mess we’ve created.”

DA spy tape fund

“We are not going to rest until we have removed Zuma as a president… he is not going to have a nice time in the next five years… watch this space,” he said to laughter and applause.

Malema, who was wearing his party’s trademark red overalls, urged his audience to contribute money to the Democratic Alliance’s court application for a review of the decision to drop corruption charges against Zuma in 2009.

He was equally dismissive of Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, saying he “loves money more than people”.

Asked where he would be in five years, Malema firmly answered: “In Parliament.”

The former ANC Youth League president said he had resolved to see out his days as a farmer after he was expelled from the ruling party, but felt compelled to return to politics after police shot dead 34 miners at Marikana two years ago.

“I had taken a decision to leave, but my conscience would not allow it.”

SAPA

Pretoria – A reasonable person would not have fired four times into a toilet cubicle, the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria heard during judgment in Oscar Pistorius’s trial.

“I am not persuaded that a reasonable person with his disability would have fired four shots into a small toilet cubicle,” Judge Thokozile Masipa read from her judgment.

Pistorius is accused of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in his Pretoria townhouse on Valentine’s Day last year. He shot her through the locked door of his toilet, apparently thinking she was an intruder about to emerge and attack him. She was hit in the hip, arm, and head.

Masipa agreed with the defence’s submission that Pistorius’s conduct could be better understood in the context of growing up in a society plagued by crime, and with a mother who was paranoid about crime.

“But that does not excuse the conduct of the accused,” she said.

Pistorius had other means to deal with what he perceived as a threat.

When he heard his bedroom window slide open, leading him to believe an intruder was coming in, he could have called security or shouted for help from his bedroom balcony.

“There is no explanation why he did not do so before going into the bathroom with a loaded gun,” she said.

Prosecutor Gerrie Nel sat quietly in his chair listening to Masipa.

Had Pistorius woken up and seen a silhouette hovering next to his bed, he would have been justified in immediately reaching for his gun, Masipa said.

“The accused had reasonable time to think,” she said.

She was dealing with the question of whether Pistorius was negligent in his conduct. The test for this is what a reasonable person in the same situation would have done.

Masipa adjourned proceedings at 14:30. Judgment would continue on Friday.

The Paralympian also faces three charges of contravening the Firearms Control Act – one of illegal possession of ammunition and two of discharging a firearm in public.

He allegedly fired a shot from a Glock pistol under a table at a Johannesburg restaurant in January 2013.

On 30 September 2012 he allegedly shot through the open sunroof of a car with his 9mm pistol while driving with friends in Modderfontein.

SAPA

Pretoria – In a lengthy verdict phase climaxing Oscar Pistorius’s trial, the judge said on Thursday he can’t be found guilty of murder but that he was negligent in the shooting death of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, raising the possibility he’ll be convicted of culpable homicide.

Judge Thokozile Masipa said she felt the Paralympian acted negligently when he fatally shot Steenkamp through a toilet door in his home in the predawn hours of Valentine’s Day last year.

In a moment of high-drama, she then stopped reading out her judgment in the six-month-long trial and adjourned until Friday. A formal judgment in the case that has riveted much of the world is expected on Friday.

If Pistorius is acquitted of murder, he could still be sent to jail for years if convicted of culpable homicide.

While the judge did not announce a verdict, she said the prosecution had not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Pistorius committed premeditated murder. She also ruled out a lesser murder charge, but said Pistorius may be vulnerable to being convicted of culpable homicide – in other words a negligent killing.

“I am of the view that the accused acted too hastily and with excessive force,” Masipa said of Pistorius’s actions on the fatal night last year.

Pistorius has acknowledged firing four shots through a toilet door in his home, hitting Steenkamp in the head, arm and hip area and killing her. He says he mistook her for an intruder. The prosecution alleges the athlete intentionally killed his girlfriend, a model and budding reality TV star, after a loud argument, which was heard by neighbours.

Culpable homicide

Culpable homicide normally carries a five-year jail sentence when a firearm is used, but it can be changed by a judge depending on the specific circumstances of the killing.

“Culpable homicide is a competent verdict,” the judge said.

Masipa said there were “just not enough facts” to support the finding of premeditated murder in Steenkamp’s fatal shooting.

As the judge spoke, Pistorius wept quietly, his shoulders shaking as he sat on a wooden bench.

Masipa earlier told Pistorius, 27, he could remain seated on the bench while she read her verdict out and until she asked him to stand for the judgment.

Masipa described Pistorius as a “very poor witness” who had lost his composure on the stand and was at times “evasive”, but she emphasised that did not mean he was guilty of murder.

Earlier, the 66-year-old judge cast doubt on witness accounts of hearing a woman’s screams, a key part of the prosecution’s case.

Masipa said “none of the witnesses had ever heard the accused cry or scream, let alone when he was anxious”, apparently acknowledging the possibility of the defence’s argument that Pistorius had been the person screaming in a high-pitched voice after discovering he had fatally shot Steenkamp.

‘Human beings are fickle’

Masipa also cited testimony of an acoustics expert called by the defence, saying it cast “serious doubt” on whether witnesses who were hundreds of metres away in their homes – as some state witnesses were – could have differentiated between the screams of a man or a woman.

At one point, Masipa said: “I continue to explain why most witnesses got their facts wrong.”

Masipa also said she was disregarding text messages between Steenkamp and Pistorius that had been entered as evidence. Prosecutors had submitted text messages that showed tension between them while the defence submitted messages that indicated mutual affection. That evidence, the judge said, doesn’t prove anything.

“Normal relationships are dynamic and unpredictable most of the time, while human beings are fickle,” she said.

Pistorius faced 25 years to life in prison if convicted of premeditated murder for fatally shooting Steenkamp. He also faced years in jail if found guilty of murder without pre-planning, or of negligent killing. Pistorius could also be acquitted if Masipa believes he made a tragic error and acted reasonably.

Earlier, Masipa began by outlining in detail the four charges against the Olympic runner: Murder, two counts of unlawfully firing a gun in a public place in unrelated incidents and one count of illegal possession of ammunition.

Before the session began, Pistorius hugged his brother Carl, who was seated in a wheelchair because of injuries suffered in a recent car crash.

The parents of Steenkamp were also in the packed gallery. Other members of Pistorius’ family, including his father Henke, sat behind him.

If Pistorius is convicted on any charge, the case will likely be postponed until a later sentencing hearing.

AP

MEC Masike to bid farewell to 126 medical bursary recipients

North West Health MEC, Dr. Magome Masike will bid farewell to 126 young people awarded bursaries to study medicine in Cuba. The South Africa-Cuba Medical Programme was introduced in 1998 to address shortage of medical professionals in health facilities.

The candidates were selected on the basis of academic excellence and commitment to serve the poorest communities upon completion of their studies. Other criteria included a history of active involvement in their communities, and the potential to be a dedicated and caring doctor. Priority was given to students from disadvantaged communities.

The North West province increased Cuban medical bursary recipients from 10 in 2008 to 180 in 2013.

The farewell function will held on Saturday at Mmabatho Convention Center.
-TDN
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