A KwaZulu-Natal police station was temporarily closed on Friday after it emerged that a member had tested positive for Covid-19. National police spokesperson Brig Vishnu Naidoo confirmed to TimesLIVE that health officials had evacuated members at the Folweni police station, south of Durban, as a “precautionary measure”. “A member who was feeling unwell was admitted […]
A Chinese company operating in KwaZulu-Natal has accused police of starving its CEO, Ming Lai He, while he was in custody. “He was not given food like others and was left to starve. Chen Lu CC also wants to condemn the Greenwood Park Police Station for unfair and inhumane treatment our CEO received upon his […]
General Constand Viljoen, a former chief of the defence force (SADF) during the apartheid era, died on Friday. He was 86. Viljoen was also the founding leader of the Freedom Front Plus. Former FF+ leader and MP Pieter Mulder confirmed Viljoen’s death on Twitter. “My sympathy to his wife and children,” he said. Mulder described […]
President Cyril Ramaphosa has defended the conduct — “in general” — of the 18,000 police and defence force personnel enforcing government’s Covid-19 shutdown regulations. The president also maintained that he had “no specific knowledge” of law-enforcement officials behaving unconstitutionally. “I have no reason to believe that they have acted unlawfully and in the event that […]
Durban’s biggest private hospital took extraordinary measures to shut down its emergency ward and ban new admissions after the deaths there of three patients from Covid-19 in 72 hours. The measures came shortly after KwaZulu-Natal premier Sihle Zikalala announced during a media conference in Durban on Friday afternoon that the provincial government was in consultation […]
There have now been seven Covid-19 deaths recorded in SA, health minister Dr Zweli Mkhize said on Friday. Speaking in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, he said there were 1,505 cases of Covid-19 recorded across the country, an increase of 43 from Thursday night. Mkhize said the two new recorded deaths were an 80-year-old man and an […]
The three-week lockdown, which started just after midnight, is unprecedented. It is the first time since South Africa became a democracy in 1994 that a president had stripped away the most basic freedoms of citizens – to walk, to shop, to socialise and to congregate for prayer without hindrance. “The law is that you stay […]
As millions of South Africans stayed home on Friday, the first day of a 21-day nationwide lockdown, essential services workers had to wake up as early as 4 am to report for duty. These include health workers, cashiers, petrol attendants, and garbage collectors. Rubbish trucks from the Johannesburg’s waste management company, Pikitup, moved swiftly through […]
When 89-year-old Blythe Kruger went to do her pre-lockdown shopping, she did not expect her card would not have enough points – or that someone would stand up for her. Kruger and her caregiver, Nontsikelelo Mduba, went to town while Kruger was under the impression her eBucks rewards stood at R500, when in fact they […]
Cape Town’s homeless, many of whom rely on the working masses for their daily bread, woke up to empty streets and high anxiety on Friday — day one of the nationwide lockdown to stem the spread of coronavirus. There was an air of desperation among some of them as they realised they may no longer […]
Mathew