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/ 8 November 2007
Koni Media, led by the Groovin Nchabaleng, might not sound like a very serious proposition. But the secretive attempt by Koni to buy Johncom is part of a Machiavellian strategy to deal with the <i>Sunday Times</i>, the group’s largest and most powerful newspaper. The attempted buy-out by a government front follows news that the police are investigating the <i>Sunday Times</i> editor.
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/ 8 November 2007
Darfur has been falling off the radar a bit over the past few weeks. The child-adoption scandal in neighbouring Chad and the potential implosion of the peace deal between Khartoum and South Sudan pushed the troubled region off the front pages. The dearth of coverage of the subject doesn’t mean that there has been an improvement.
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/ 7 November 2007
Self-regulation for newspapers ratcheted up a gear last week with the inaugural meeting of the Press Council in Johannesburg. But the African National Congress (ANC) is also notching up its own pressure on the press. Comprising a panel of citizens and journalists, the Press Council was launched earlier this year to beef up the existing ombudsman in handling complaints about coverage. The system is a kind of fifth estate to check on the fourth.
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/ 7 November 2007
The Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund is ”unaware” of having received any money from German arms manufacturer Thyssen-Krupp during the arms deal. Speaking in the National Assembly on Tuesday, Patricia de Lille said the African National Congress and the children’s fund benefited inappropriately from the arms deal.
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/ 7 November 2007
Locked security gates and the immobility of some residents as well as a suspected electrical fault all possibly contributed to the 12 deaths in a blaze on Tuesday night at one wing of a KwaZulu-Natal old-age home. One of those who managed to escape from the home is believed to be a 99-year-old woman.
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/ 7 November 2007
The war to halt perlemoen (abalone) poaching has pitched R180-a-kilogram divers on the one side against R4 000-a-month marine inspectors on the other, MPs heard on Wednesday during a briefing to members of Parliament’s environmental affairs portfolio committee.
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/ 7 November 2007
Soft-drink giant Coca-Cola, broadcaster SuperSport and the Octagon group of companies have withdrawn from the annual Nelson Mandela Invitational golf tournament. The three companies said in a joint statement on Wednesday they believed their continued participation in the tournament would be ”inappropriate”.
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/ 7 November 2007
Almost 6 000 people marched in the Johannesburg city centre on Wednesday, protesting against police murders in Gauteng. The march was organised by the Gauteng Provincial Community Policing Forum in partnership with police and Liquor Traders against Crime.
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/ 7 November 2007
Thousands of bananas washed up on two Dutch North Sea islands on Wednesday after at least six containers fell off a cargo ship in a storm and at least one burst open, a local official said. ”I think everybody on the island has a bunch now,” said Gossen Buren, a shipping official at the local lighthouse.
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/ 7 November 2007
A Nationwide Boeing 737 had to make an emergency landing at Cape Town International Airport on Wednesday afternoon when an engine fell off during take-off. The plane, which had been bound for Johannesburg, landed safely after airport fire and rescue services hurriedly cleared the debris from the runway. There were 106 passengers on board.