BY STAFF REPORTER
TAUNG- A case against four men who allegedly tortured and killed a Khibitswane man appeared before Taung Magistrates Court on Thursday.

Thabo Kamolane, Tlamelo Pico, Oratile Teisho and a 17 year-old minor appeared at Taung Magistrate Court facing murder charges. It is alleged that four men approached Siphiwe Kgosimere,17, who was working as a teacher at initiation school in Pudimoe village during festive season and abducted him.

The four men allegedly attacked Kgosimere with knobkerries and sjamboks after accusing him of stealing R6000.

According to information, Kgosimere was tortured and beaten to death after taken back to the initiation school.

North West police spokesperson captain Pelonomi Makau said three men will be back in court on the 17 February 2015 and were remanded in custody while a 17 year-old boy was released under his parents custody.

“Three men appeared before Taung Magistrate Court for murder after they allegedly killed a 19 year-old man at initiation school last year December” Makau said.

The case was postponed until 17 February 2015 for further investigations.
-TDN

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Utah -A US mother pleaded guilty on Thursday to killing six of her newborns and storing their bodies in the garage, bringing closure to a case that small town prosecutors called uniquely heinous.

Megan Huntsman, 39, faces up to life in prison when she’s sentenced April 20.

Her voice broke as she said “guilty” six times to answer for each count.

For more http://www.iol.co.za

Butterworth – Around 34 people are being treated for food poisoning after eating a dead cow in Dutywa near Butterworth, the Eastern Cape health department said on Thursday.

“They are presenting with vomiting, stomach cramps and headaches; this is after feeding on a dead cow,” said spokesman Sizwe Kupelo.

The people from Gxarha village were being treated at the Dutywa community health centre.

He said the number of people affected could rise as the community was calling for more ambulances.

This was the third food poisoning incident in as many weeks, Kupelo said.

“In Flagstaff, 115 people were treated for the same habit of feeding on dead cows, with one 64-year-old dying.”

In the second incident, 36 people were taken to hospital and some to ICU after drinking sour milk which was allegedly poisoned with organophosphates.

“We once again urge people to stop feeding on dead animals,” Kupelo said.

“If an animal dies naturally, without being slaughtered, if it was sick, they should not feed on it, they should just bury it or burn it.”

Sapa

Cape Town – A relative of a Somali national who was shot dead in Mitchells Plain along with two of his countrymen says a religious dispute led to their deaths.

The gunman, also a Somalian, has since been arrested, said police spokesman Frederick Van Wyk.

Three other Somali men were shot and wounded during the same incident on Wednesday. Brothers Abdi, 39, and Mohamed Musri, 40, died in hospital.

For more http://www.iol.co.za

Johannesburg – There is a low risk of load shedding being implemented over the weekend due to generators performing at their optimum, Eskom said on Friday.

“Our projection shows that we will not have to implement load shedding over the weekend,” spokesman Khulu Phasiwe said.

The demand for electricity during weekends was usually low.

“The risk of load shedding is low to medium, because we do have some generators working optimally at this moment,” he said.

There may be a need to implement load shedding if Eskom experienced any technical breakdowns.

President Jacob Zuma announced on Thursday during his State of the Nation Address in Parliament that Eskom would be given R23-billion to stabilise its finances.

On Monday morning at a breakfast meeting in Cape Town, he added that he was concerned about shortcomings in the running of the power grid and said the government wanted to establish whether this was due to negligence.

“You can’t have one power station collapsing after the other because they are not serviced; where were the people who are working there? What were they doing?”

The president described Eskom’s situation as a “challenge”, not a crisis.

He again blamed the scheduled blackouts, in part, on the apartheid regime’s failure to expand the electricity supplier’s capacity.

“If you look at energy, energy has a history in this country, it has never been enough. It was believed to be because the powers that be at the time said ‘we have enough’.

“So the demand has just rocketed after 1994, and therefore undermined the capacity we have,” he said.

Sapa

Johannesburg – A blind church minister has lodged a complaint against the Airports Company of SA (Acsa) because an official would not let his guide dog travel with him, Beeld reported on Friday.

Willem van Deventer, his wife Claire, and his dog Tonto almost missed a family wedding in Cape Town when an official at the OR Tambo International Airport would not let the dog fly with them.

For more http://www.iol.co.za

Pretoria – The Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) says the student representative council is holding the institution to ransom by shutting down campuses as student debt is increasing.

Students have closed the Soshanguve campuses for two weeks and on Thursday the protests over financial exclusion and insufficient National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) spread to the main campus in Pretoria West, Emalahleni and Ga-Rankuwa.

For more http://www.iol.co.za

Pretoria – “The evil spirit inside me made me do it.” This was the excuse of a mother of three from Mapulaneng in Mpumalanga, after she was caught red-handed with four tins of Nestlé NAN baby milk formula stuffed under her dress.

Zodwa Mthembu, a hawker in Bushbuckridge, was sentenced in the lower court to a fine of R20 000 or five years in jail, of which half was suspended for five years. The woman thus had to pay a fine of R10 000.

For more http://www.iol.co.za

Tonga – A man accused of raping his neighbour’s 15-year-old daughter accused her of framing him because he would not give her his Blackberry phone, the Tonga Regional Court heard on Thursday.

Vasco Mabila, 19, of KaMaqhekeza, pleaded not guilty to rape, a Sapa correspondent reported.

He testified that he did not rape or have sex with the complainant, but accused her of seducing him.

For more http://www.iol.co.za

Johannesburg – Two alleged robbers were arrested in Nasrec, near Soweto, on Thursday after they fired shots at metro police, Johannesburg metro police said.

“At about (5pm), metro police officers were sitting on the N17 bridge, near the N1 south off-ramp,” said Inspector Edna Mamonyane.

“They then saw a white Mercedes-Benz, and as the Mercedes approached the officers, it opened fire.”

The officers got into their car and pursued the Mercedes, with SAPS cars also in pursuit.

For more http://www.iol.co.za