LOCAL Community safety MEC Reagen Allen has expressed concern over the rise in child kidnappings in the Western Cape. He spoke in the wake of the latest incident involving a six-year old in Kensington yesterday. Little Shanawaaz Asghar was abducted on his way to school, Hidayatul Islam, by a handful of armed suspects. Allen has called on anyone with information that could lead to the arrest of the perpetrators, to […]
LOCAL The state is expected to continue cross-examination of the man accused of the rape and murder of eight-year-old Tazne van Wyk from Elsies River on Thursday. Proceedings will take place at the Cape High Court. During his testimony yesterday, Moyhdian Pangkaeker claimed the little girl was murdered by a group of people unknown to him. He previously pleaded not guilty to 27 charges. Tazne went missing in February two years ago […]
LOCAL More people now qualify for the R350 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant after the means test threshold was increased from R350 to R624. Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu this week gazetted the new regulations to increase the income threshold to R624, which is the food poverty line set by Stats SA in September 2021. The department said the reduced threshold was a factor in the number of declined applications. The […]
LOCAL The Department of Justice and Correctional Services is seeking to repeal an apartheid era trespass law, saying that it has lost its relevance in a constitutional democracy. The department has published the draft Unlawful Entering on Premises Bill for public comment. The new bill is aimed at replacing the old laws and to reintroduce regulations prohibiting unlawful entry to premises, and provide for matters connected to that. Department spokesperson […]
LOCAL Kensington residents in Cape Town are on high alert following the kidnapping of a six-year-old boy in the area this morning (Wednesday). Reports indicate that Shanawaaz Asghar was snatched outside his home on the corner of 4th avenue and 9th street, by six occupants in a silver car. The Grade R student is said to have been en route to Hidayatul Islam Primary. The local Community Policing Forum says […]
INTERNATIONAL Ukrainian officials have cheered apparent attacks on military bases in Russian-annexed Crimea and warned civilians to stay away from potential targets, shortly after Moscow on Tuesday said the explosions were the “result of sabotage”. Russian-installed officials have accused Ukrainian forces of shelling the city of Enerhodar, where the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is located, according to Interfax news agency, with Ukraine accusing Russia of shelling the city of Nikopol across the Dnieper river […]
INTERNATIONAL Failing to subdue resistance across Myanmar, military government chief Min Aung Hlaing is resorting to increasingly desperate measures to cling to power, firing senior ministers and military officers, and purging business cronies. The heads of the navy and air force are among those who have lost their positions, as Min Aung Hlaing has sought to consolidate his position amid continued armed resistance to his rule — including with ethnic […]
INTERNATIONAL Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which is chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has bought $7bn of shares in US companies including Starbucks, Zoom and Microsoft. The purchases bring the market value of the sovereign wealth fund's investment portfolio to about $40.8bn at the end of the second quarter. Bloomberg reported that the move echoed the PIF’s strategy in early 2020, when the fund spent billions on stakes in […]
INTERNATIONAL When Mohammad Aslam first began driving people between Kabul and Logar in 2019, the province was already one of the most insecure in Afghanistan. Despite the northern part of the province being only 40 minutes south of Kabul, the security situation in Logar suffered a precipitous decline every year since 2014, when Ashraf Ghani, himself a Logari, became president. By 2015, even the district closest to Kabul, Mohammad Agha, had […]
VOC became the first Muslim radio station in South Africa when a special events license was granted to the station in Ramadan/January 1995. Subsequent temporary broadcast licenses were granted, permitting the station to broadcast for 24 hours.
