Mqanduli, Eastern Cape – A 61-year-old woman has been murdered at Ntsingisi near Mqanduli in the Eastern Cape, police said on Friday.

Major Zamukulungisa Jozana said two men shot her in her house on Thursday evening. The motive for the attack was not immediately known. – Sapa

Wellington – A New Zealand woman accidentally glued her lips together when she picked up a tube of super glue while reaching for her lipgloss in the dark, the Otago Daily Times newspaper reported on Friday.

Dunedin Police Senior Sergeant Steve Aitken said the emergency operator thought the woman might be gagged or suffering from a medical condition when she called for an ambulance shortly before midnight on Thursday.

“She could only grunt,” he said.

The 64-year-old woman was taken to Dunedin Hospital and is understood to have been released with her lips unstuck. – Sapa-dpa

The youth of South Africa are resilient, resourceful and responsive – but it remains to be seen whether they can play an active role in the fight against corruption by using the ballot to hold their political leaders accountable for improving governance.
For more http://www.iol.co.za

Johannesburg – A bearded and much skinnier Oscar Pistorius was “overcome with emotion” as he pulled on his carbon fibre running blades for his first track training since the killing of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, his agent says.

With a short beard and a blue hooded Nike sports top, the lean-looking double-amputee Olympian did some light jogging at his first formal session in around five months on Thursday.

He then described his return to a regular track routine for the first time since he fatally shot Steenkamp at his home on 14 February as “bittersweet” to his agent, Peet van Zyl.

“It was a very emotional experience for him to put the blades back on, to walk back onto the track, get the smell of the track,” Van Zyl, who went to the track at the University of Pretoria with Pistorius, told AP on Friday.

“It was tough for him. He said to me it was like a bittersweet feeling and emotion for him to be back on the track.”

Pistorius’s return to training was seen in a brief video clip released by his family. In the footage, which is around two minutes long, the athlete is first sitting on a chair at his usual training track at the university pulling on his running blades.

He then does some light jogging on the sunbathed track and, finally, wipes his face with both hands as he walks off the track, hinting at the emotion Van Zyl described.

Pistorius was charged with premeditated murder for Steenkamp’s Valentine’s Day shooting death. He denies murder and says he shot his girlfriend accidentally, believing she was an intruder in his house.

Pistorius’s next court appearance is 19 August, when prosecutors may indict him and a date could be set for the start of his murder trial, possibly in September or October.

He faces a life sentence with a minimum of 25 years in prison if he is convicted by a judge of premeditated murder.

Investigation

Police said the investigation into Pistorius’s shooting of Steenkamp was “at an advanced stage”, but declined to give further details, saying they “cannot be drawn into discussing the merits of the case”.

Prosecutors have said police will conclude their investigations by August and continue to probe the circumstances of Pistorius’s pre-dawn killing of Steenkamp, whom he shot multiple times through a toilet cubicle door.

In the last few months, the 26-year-old Pistorius has lost weight – about 10 to 12kg – and spends much of his time doing household chores at the Pretoria home of his uncle as he awaits his murder trial, Van Zyl said.

Pistorius looked much leaner in the video footage than he was at the London Olympics and Paralympics last year.

Pistorius telephoned Van Zyl and his coach, Ampie Louw, about a week ago to say he was ready to train again.

“[He] said, ‘Guys I think I’m ready to resume training,” Van Zyl said.

Van Zyl and Pistorius’s family, who also released a statement along with the footage, said Pistorius’s return to regular training was to help his own mental process ahead of a likely lengthy murder trial, and he was still not planning on competing anytime in 2013.

“His focus at this time remains entirely on the court case,” the Pistorius family said. “His family and those close to him have encouraged him to spend a few hours a week on the track, to assist him in finding the necessary mental and emotional equilibrium to process his trauma and prepare for the trial.”

Thursday’s visit was the second time Pistorius has been seen on the university track since he killed Steenkamp.

Returning to the track

A March sighting spurred speculation he was back in training, which was denied by his family, who described him then as being in “an extremely traumatised state” and not willing to contemplate training at that time.

Then, Pistorius was photographed by a schoolgirl on a cellphone while he was walking on the track, but he made that visit without the knowledge of anyone else, his agent said, and waited for a group of athletes he took to the track to leave before he put on his blades and just walked around.

His new routine will involve around three to four sessions a week and be run by Louw, Pistorius’s long-time coach and the man who introduced him to athletics when Pistorius was a teenager and still at school.

Van Zyl said Pistorius had discovered he was desperately missing running and training.

“I think the emotions yesterday show how much he really did miss being back on the track and being able to run,” Van Zyl said.

“Obviously with the world championships, both Paralympic world championships and IAAF world championships getting closer, it’s even tougher for him not be running or training or competing.”

– AP

Johannesburg – President Barack Obama will make a special effort to lay the groundwork for more aid to Africa, and especially South Africa, during his short stay in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

He has arrived at a time when South Africans are preoccupied with the health of former president Nelson Mandela, who remains in critical condition in hospital.
While in Senegal, Obama said that Washington had a “moral imperative” to help the world’s poorest continent feed itself.
For more http://www.news24.com

A farmer from Groot Marico, in North West, has been fined R30 000 for neglecting to feed a herd of 600 cattle, the Beeld newspaper reported on Thursday.

Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) inspector Jaco Pieterse told Beeld that four of the emaciated animals later had to be euthanised.

Van Wyk was found guilty of animal cruelty by the Groot Marico Magistrate’s Court, and was ordered to pay the SPCA’s legal costs.

Half of Van Wyk’s sentence was suspended for five years.

Pieterse said the SPCA was notified of the case by the local police in 2010.

They sent inspectors to the property and found that the cattle had neither food nor water. – Sapa

Cape Town – The ANC in North West has suspended the party’s chief whip in the Tlokwe municipality for his role in the embarrassing incident in which an ANC mayor was replaced by DA councillor Anette Combrinck.

This occurred after the ruling party’s councillors refused to vote.
For more http://www.iol.co.za

Johannesburg – Cosatu in North West is disappointed at premier Thandi Modise’s reshuffling of the provincial cabinet, it said on Thursday.

“[The Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu)] is highly disappointed at the manner in which the ANC continues to deal with issues of deployment… including deploying people who have destroyed the credibility of the ANC in the municipalities,” said Cosatu provincial secretary Solly Phetoe.

“We have demanded that some of the MECs be recalled, in particular in education and local government and traditional affairs, due to their incompetence to deal with corruption in their departments…”

The African National Congress announced on Wednesday that Modise had reshuffled her cabinet.

Wendy Matsemela replaced Louisa Mabe as education MEC; Manketse Tlhape replaced China Dodovu as local government MEC; and, Collen Maine replaced Mamokomele Mothibi as social development MEC.

Phetoe said Cosatu was not against the replacement of MECs.

“But we are disappointed that the replacement is done in a factional way, not to serve the interests of the poor people, but to serve the political agenda of certain individuals who want to continue with their corrupt activities using our movement.”

Phetoe said the person deployed to local government as MEC had “failed the ANC and failed the poor”.

“The current reshuffling is not going to unite that ANC with its alliance, as we are being highly disrespected,” he said.

“What we agreed at the deployment committee is not what we are seeing today, and we are expected to keep quiet for the sake of peace… .”

Sapa

Driving between Koster and Lichtenburg in North West is tough. For residents, this has been a daily experience for the past four years.

This potholed road has not only become a headache to its users, with lives lost and vehicles damaged, but the government has paid millions to companies, with nothing to show for it.
For more http://www.iol.co.za

Assets of Northern Cape ANC leader John Block worth more than R20 million were frozen by a high court order on Friday, the National Prosecuting Authority said.

The Northern Cape High Court provisionally granted the order, freezing the guest house and shares, which the Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) applied for, said Northern Cape NPA spokeswoman Mashudu Malabi.

The Upington guest house was worth about R500 000.

“The AFU is seeking to recover the value of improvements made to the guest house to the value of R380 000,” said Malabi.

The order also froze 10 ordinary shares worth about R20m in companies in the Trifecta Investment Holdings group belonging to Block.

Malabi said the high court would decide later whether the provisional order should be confirmed.

The assets were frozen on the basis of evidence presented to court in the NPA’s investigation into alleged corrupt payments by companies in the Trifecta group to Block and others.

Trifecta allegedly entered into a number of lease agreements with the Northern Cape social development department in which the rentals, or rental space, were grossly inflated.

As a result Trifecta received, or would receive, at the end of the lease agreements, rentals of R57m.

The order forms part of a series of freezing orders obtained by the AFU so far in the Trifecta matter against a number of Northern Cape politicians and department officials.

The other accused in the case are the director of Trifecta, Alfeus Scholtz, and Northern Cape African National Congress heavyweights Alvin Botes and Yolanda Botha.

Social development officials Rodney Saal and Cecil Ryland were also arrested in connection with the case and were out on bail. – Sapa