South Africa

Pretoria - International Relations and Cooperation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane will be on a diplomatic blitz in the next few days, which will see her visiting three countries.

Pretoria – Gauteng hospitals will, from Friday, be allowed to order medical products directly from pharmaceutical companies in a bid to end the delays in hospitals and clinics getting their medical supplies.

Pretoria – The South African National Roads Agency Limited says that reports that it has run out of money are factually incorrect.

Cape Town – The new smart ID card, which the Department of Home Affairs expects to start rolling out to the public within the next three months, demonstrates again what South Africa as a country is capable of, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu said today after receiving the new ID card.

Pretoria – An alleged serial rapist, who was due to appear in court on charges of raping 34 children and two women, has committed suicide in his cell shortly before his appearance.

Pretoria - Group Five has been appointed to manage PetroSA’s 2013 maintenance shutdown, said the national oil company on Thursday.

Pretoria - Calm has returned to Eskom’s Medupi power plant this morning, following protest action by between 500 and 1000 workers at the Limpopo plant on Wednesday.

Butterworth - A 52-year-old Eastern Cape man has appeared in court in connection with the rape of a seven-year-old boy.

Pretoria - Parliament’s Presiding Officers, Members and officials have extended their condolences to the family of former Chief Justice Pius Langa, who passed away on Wednesday.

Pretoria - The National Health Laboratory Service and the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, together with the national Department of Health, will commemorate World Hepatitis Day on Monday, 29 July.

Durban - The South African Police Service (SAPS) in KwaZulu-Natal has opened a docket for malicious damage to property following the discovery of dumped workbooks/textbooks in Empangeni, 149km away from Durban.

Cape Town – The Department of Home Affairs’ new smart ID card is a step in the right direction and will help combat identity fraud, former President FW de Klerk said today after receiving his new smart ID card.

Pretoria – The Department of Water Affairs is making good progress in efforts to eradicate unlawful irrigation in the Vaal River System by 2014, with the intervention already having stopped 51 million cubic meters per annum of unlawful water use.

Johannesburg – Four days before the Gauteng MEC for Economic Development, Nkosiphendule Kolisile, died in a tragic accident along with his driver and bodyguard, he sent a message to all his staff and told them that they were the umbilical cord between the public service and the people of Gauteng.

Johannesburg – Unless government intensifies its anti-rhino poaching measures, South Africa will have a serious problem in dealing with an ever growing demand for the horn in Asian countries, a conservation expert has said.