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/ 31 October 2007
South African police are investigating alleged abuses at billionaire United States television magnate Oprah Winfrey’s all-girl leadership academy, a police spokesperson said on Wednesday. Rapport newspaper has reported a matron at the school allegedly fondled one of the pupils, and grabbed a girl by the throat and threw her against a wall.
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/ 29 October 2007
Senior African National Congress (ANC) member Kader Asmal on Monday called on hundreds of the ruling party’s influential branches to back business tycoon Cyril Ramaphosa as the next president of the ruling party and the country. Ramaphosa has said he has no interest in becoming South Africa’s next president.
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/ 15 October 2007
Burundi rebels will rejoin a truce-monitoring team they quit in July, the facilitator, South African Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula, said on Monday, boosting efforts to bring a lasting end to a decade of conflict. ”The stalled Burundi peace process will be resumed on Saturday October 20,” Nqakula told a news conference.
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/ 19 September 2007
The head of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said on Wednesday the union federation is likely to name controversial politician Jacob Zuma as its candidate to head the ruling African National Congress. ”I must say that he has become a very important symbol among workers,” Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said.
Crispin Mutamba fled exhausting bread and fuel queues in Zimbabwe for wealthy South Africa, only to find himself stuck in another one for three months outside Home Affairs in Pretoria hoping to get permission to stay. The chances are slim. Mutamba can’t find a job or a home, and, like many Zimbabweans, he feels like a pariah.
South Africa’s Health Department said on Tuesday it has recalled 20-million potentially defective condoms approved by an official accused of taking bribes from a manufacturer. Unsafe sex is especially risky in South Africa, which has one of the world’s highest HIV infection rates with an estimated 12% of its 47-million people infected with the virus.
His name is ”Average” and the story of his desperate flight from the wreckage of President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe is an increasingly common one. The tall 34-year-old, slouching exhausted in a Johannesburg church that has become a de facto transit camp, is one man in a tide of migrants washing up in South Africa.
South Africa’s platinum boom has given rise to mushrooming informal settlements by migrant labourers around mines, posing serious health, social and environmental risks to communities, a new report says. The world’s two biggest platinum producers, AngloPlat and Implats, have announced multibillion-rand expansion plans.
South African government and union negotiators postponed until Friday talks aimed at ending a costly three-week civil servants’ strike to enable labour unions to consult members, officials said. ”We are coming back on Friday. Labour requested more time to get a mandate from their members,” said Lewis Rabkin, spokesperson for the Public Services and Administration ministry.
Aids may be killing elected officials in some Southern African countries faster than they can be replaced, creating a new threat to democracy and governance in the region, a new study said. The Institute for Democracy in South Africa said a study of mortality patterns in Southern Africa indicated Africa’s HIV/Aids crisis was reaching deep into elected governments.