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/ 24 October 2007
A city-commissioned probe into the activities of controversial councillor Badhi Chaaban was completely legitimate, Cape Town mayor Helen Zille said on Wednesday. However, she promised she would ask an outsider with ”impeccable credentials”, such as a retired judge or senior advocate, to establish whether council funds were misused.
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/ 24 October 2007
South Africa still does not have a comprehensive national security policy, the South African Human Rights Commission said on Wednesday. It also had no policy to fight poverty, said SAHRC CEO Tselifo Thitanyane. ”The integrated justice system is not really working,” said commission chairperson Jody Kollapen.
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/ 24 October 2007
Ethiopia has started re-erecting its famed Axum obelisk 30 months after it returned to the country from Italy where it stayed for 70 years, a United Nations expert said on Wednesday. The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation is overseeing the operation.
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/ 24 October 2007
Alleged drug dealer Nazier Kapdi is well-known at the Western Cape directorate for public prosecutions (DPP), the Wynberg Regional Court heard on Wednesday. ”I’ve been a prosecutor for 30 years and I know Kapdi; I know he does not operate his network alone,” DPP senior deputy director Nollie Nieuhaus told the court.
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/ 24 October 2007
Sixty-eight villagers in northern Namibia were hospitalised last week after eating a dog that had been killed by disease, the local daily the Namibian reported on Wednesday. The paper said the dog’s owner had killed it after it contracted an unknown skin disease and ordered it to be burned.
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/ 24 October 2007
Life is improving steadily — at least in the area of housing and basic service delivery — for the 48-million people living in South Africa, according to Statistics South Africa. The organisation on Wednesday released the first results of its 2007 Community Survey, based on responses from about 255Â 000 households.
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/ 24 October 2007
The nine South African soldiers killed during a military training exercise at Lohatla base were on Wednesday hailed as heroes and heroines during a memorial service in Kimberley. Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said that the five men and four women had fallen in defence of South Africa’s hard-won democracy.
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/ 24 October 2007
Four men were arrested after allegedly kidnapping a young boy and demanding R75 000 ransom from his parents on Wednesday, Pretoria police said. ”The [boy’s mother] told the men to come to her office today [Wednesday] to collect the money, and at the same time, she called police,” Inspector Paul Ramaloko said.
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/ 24 October 2007
A Russian supermarket worker branded ”the chessboard murderer” was found guilty on Wednesday of killing 48 people after he confessed in court that the first time he took a life was like falling in love. He was given his nickname by Russian media because he had hoped to put a coin on every space of a 64-place chessboard, one for each victim.
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/ 24 October 2007
National oil company PetroSA is to construct a R39-billion crude-oil refinery in Coega near Port Elizabeth, the company announced on Wednesday. Dubbed Project Mthombo, the proposed crude-oil refinery is expected to produce about 200 000 barrels of fuel a day and will come on stream in 2014/15.