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/ 1 February 2008
In the midst of a national grid meltdownwhich closed the mining industry, BHP Billiton’s three aluminium smelters, powered entirely by Eskom, were up and running — despite being some of South Africa’s greediest energy guzzlers. And the government appears determined to press ahead with establishing another massive smelter, the Rio Tinto Alcan plant, at Coega in the Eastern Cape.
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/ 1 February 2008
Last week’s Eskom blackout and the“stability pact” that will reduce theutility’s power supply to South Africa’s mines by 10% have forced mining companies to take stringent cost-cutting measures, including retrenchments. The Mail & Guardian has established that the mining group with the most marginal operations, Harmony, plans to retrench 10% of its 43 000-strong workforce.
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/ 31 January 2008
Free State farmers were on Thursday asked by Eskom to cut their power consumption by 10%, mainly during the ”red periods” of between 6pm and 7pm every day. ”This is with immediate effect,” Free State Agriculture president Louw Steytler told journalists in Bloemfontein.
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/ 31 January 2008
The African National Congress Youth League should act to stop the possibility of an ANC president running for a third term, ANC president Jacob Zuma said on Thursday. Zuma, speaking at the league’s national executive committee meeting in Vanderbijlpark, said the first president of the ANC after apartheid, Nelson Mandela, had only served one term.
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/ 31 January 2008
Press photographers were again barred from attending a press conference where South African Reserve Bank (SARB) Governor Tito Mboweni announced the latest repo-rate decision on Thursday. It is the second time that photographers have been barred from taking pictures of Mboweni at the SARB press conference.
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/ 31 January 2008
A court in Zimbabwe dismissed an appeal against the extradition of Simon Mann, a former British special forces officer accused of leading a coup plot to topple the government in the oil-rich West African nation of Equatorial Guinea, his lawyers said on Thursday. Mann’s lawyers had argued he would face torture and a likely death sentence if extradited Equatorial Guinea.
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/ 31 January 2008
Understandably, in a time of crisis someone has to carry the blame.
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/ 31 January 2008
Central Methodist Church Bishop Paul Verryn has condemned the heavy-handed way in which police arrested up to 1Â 500 refugees housed at his church in the Johannesburg CBD. The arrests were made during a late-night raid on Wednesday. The church is seen as a sanctuary for Zimbabwean refugees.
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/ 31 January 2008
The government is looking at the possibility of introducing roadworthiness tests for private vehicles every two years, a senior traffic official said at the launch of a national road safety campaign in Durban on Thursday. Thabo Tsholetsane said government was ”doing a study” to see how often roadworthiness tests could be carried out.