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/ 16 October 2006
The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) was not responding to any form of pressure in condemning the Young Communist League (YCL) for calling President Thabo Mbeki a dictator, the league said on Monday. ”The ANC did not pressure us to issue a statement condemning the YCL,” the organisation said in a statement.
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/ 16 October 2006
The number of patients awaiting antiretroviral (ARV) treatment is significantly lower than speculated, the Department of Health said on Monday. ”About 178Â 635 people had been initiated on antiretroviral therapy in the 262 accredited facilities in the country by June this year,” said spokesperson Charity Bengu.
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/ 16 October 2006
The National Development Agency (NDA) is tightening up its systems to prevent a repeat of an R8,8-million misappropriation of funds discovered in a recent forensic audit. It has also begun criminal proceedings against the former NDA employee allegedly at the centre of the fraud, NDA chief executive Godfrey Mokate said in Johannesburg on Monday.
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/ 16 October 2006
Phil Jaques, batsman Mark Cosgrove, bowlers Shaun Tait and Jason Gillespie — who has been named as captain — will all be given the chance to impress the selectors ahead of the forthcoming Ashes series. Gillespie, who was sensationally dropped from the Australian team midway through last year’s Ashes series in England, is relishing the prospect of leading the Prime Minister’s XI against England.
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/ 16 October 2006
Cash-in-transit security guards will go on strike if the government does not take steps to protect them from armed robberies, the Motor Transport Workers’ Union (MTWU) warned on Monday. ”We will not hesitate to strike if something is not done to stop this carnage and murder, thus leaving ATMs empty, and shops and banks stranded,” said MTWU general secretary Emily Fourie.
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/ 16 October 2006
The Democratic Alliance (DA) on Monday urged Eskom chief executive Thulani Gcabashe to make public the KPMG report on the R129-million fraud scandal at the state electricity utility. Media reports indicate the report has been known by Gcabashe since May, but he and Eskom’s senior management have chosen ”to keep it under wraps,” DA spokesperson Gareth Morgan said.
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/ 16 October 2006
There will be ”far-reaching negative consequences” if government abandons the willing-buyer, willing-seller approach to land reform, the Democratic Alliance (DA) warned on Monday. The party was reacting to media reports that government is considering radical changes to its land-reform policy.
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/ 16 October 2006
Discipline problems in many schools cannot be solved by departments of education or by teachers working on their own, the president of a teachers’ association on Monday. ”It is, however, essential that the Department of Education should take the lead in beginning to find solutions,” said Dave Balt, president of the Professional Teachers’ Association of South Africa.
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/ 16 October 2006
”On yer bike” goes the typically blunt English expression to tell someone to get moving, get out of your face, or simply get lost because of a difference of opinion. I’ve been told to get on my bike in myriad different ways since last week’s column about the department of transport’s brilliant scheme to solve the growing problem of traffic congestion on the N1 Joburg-Pretoria highway.
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/ 16 October 2006
The Randburg Regional Court refused bail to senior Scorpions advocate Portia Kgantsi on Monday. She was arrested earlier this month for bribery, corruption, extortion and defeating the ends of justice. Key to the magistrate’s decision was Kgantsi having falsely claimed in an affidavit that she had handed in a valid passport when it was in fact an expired passport.