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/ 18 January 2008
It was unclear on Friday whether President Thabo Mbeki will attend the African National Congress’s (ANC) three-day national executive committee lekgotla (meeting) in Midrand. Presidential spokesperson Mukoni Ratshitanga said he could not comment on whether Mbeki would be attending.
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/ 18 January 2008
A 28-year-old prisoner was allegedly beaten to death by Department of Correctional Services officers at the instruction of a senior prison officer at Pietermaritzburg’s New Prison, the Witness newspaper reported on Friday. An investigation has been launched into the death of the prisoner.
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/ 18 January 2008
Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk has called on the United States to assume a ”fair share of responsibility” in reducing world greenhouse-gas emissions. He was delivering a speech in Cape Town at a climate-change round-table discussion.
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/ 18 January 2008
African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma’s attack on the print media on Friday, in his ANC Today online newsletter, reveals a ”hostile state of mind towards the media”, says the South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef). It contains ”wild generalisations encompassing the media as a whole”, Sanef said.
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/ 18 January 2008
Three Pretoria High Court judges have described the ”insensitivity” of Hoërskool Ermelo and its governing body to students who did not want to be taught in Afrikaans as ”shocking”. The judges last year dismissed the school’s application to set aside a decision to revoke the powers of its governing body to determine language policy.
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/ 18 January 2008
The government of Lesotho believes it has uncovered a plot by opposition political parties to assassinate some government ministers and business people, spokesperson Mothejoa Metsing said on Friday. Metsing said the government had uncovered a plot that was allegedly to take place during a planned mass work boycott in February.
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/ 18 January 2008
Israel closed border crossings with the Gaza Strip and destroyed the Hamas-run Interior Ministry on Friday in what witnesses said was an air strike, stepping up what it says is a campaign to halt Palestinian rocket attacks. One woman was killed and at least 30 others nearby were wounded in a large explosion, medical officials said.
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/ 18 January 2008
Two intrepid adventurers are planning to swap extreme cold for extreme heat after becoming the first South Africans to walk unsupported to the South Pole. Speaking only hours after completing their epic 1 113km journey, Alex Harris said on Friday that he and his teammate, Sibusiso Vilane, had now decided to take on a desert.
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/ 18 January 2008
Pakistani forces killed up to 90 militants in two battles on Friday in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border, the military said. The clashes came two days after hundreds of militants overran a paramilitary fort in another part of South Waziristan.
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/ 18 January 2008
Zimbabwe’s central bank introduced new higher value banknotes on Friday that failed to ease a cash shortage that has kept commercial banks busy with long queues of desperate residents wanting to withdraw money. Banknotes have joined a growing list of basic items in short supply in the crisis-hit country.