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/ 14 September 2007
Political interests and specialist lobby groups appear once again to have stalled plans to dam the Cunene River where it forms the border between Angola and Namibia. After years of negotiations, expensive feasibility studies and considerable political rhetoric, the proposed Epupa Dam is no closer to being constructed.
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/ 14 September 2007
Government has gone into the carbon trading business. The state-owned Central Energy Fund has set up its own carbon trading operation. Headquartered in London, the operation is intended to ensure that South Africa maximises the benefits for the country from the rapidly growing trade in carbon credits. Carbon credit projects already in the pipeline stand to earn the country about R900-million.
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/ 14 September 2007
Eskom’s attempts to get co- generation agreements off the ground might be hampered by low electricity prices. Co-generation is the term for electricity that is produced as a co-product of an industrial process. And, even if new capacity is added to the grid, it will be comparatively small. The prospect of the world’s cheapest electricity is dangled before investors, even as the same low prices deter those who would potentially invest in new generating capacity.
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/ 14 September 2007
A band of top unionists is planning to press for Thabo Mbeki’s inclusion in the Congress of South African Trade Unions’s (Cosatu) list of favoured ANC leaders at next week’s central committee meeing. But the knives appear to be out for one of its key members, Cosatu president Willie Madisha.
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/ 14 September 2007
Africa Strategic Asset Protection, which faces allegations of corruption arising from its supply of security equipment to Parliament, won part of a highly sensitive contract to supply eavesdropping equipment to state intelligence agencies in 2004. The deal was to supply ”packet sniffer” technology.
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/ 14 September 2007
China’s concubines have struck again. A corrupt senior official in Shaanxi province has been brought down by his 11 mistresses, according to recent reports in the state media. Pang Jiayu, the former deputy head of the provincial political advisory body, has been sacked and expelled from the Communist Party after his former girlfriends exposed him, the People’s Daily said.
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/ 14 September 2007
News flash: There is nothing arousing about the sight of 36 000 bare-breasted, barely clothed virgins. Blame it on the relentless sun, or on the dervish wind blasting everything with red dust, or perhaps the litany of speeches which defiantly positioned Zulu culture in direct conflict with the Constitution.
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/ 14 September 2007
The Constitutional Court will this week hear argument that could dramatically change the system for foreigners to adopt South African children. The case for the adoption of baby R by an American couple will be argued on Tuesday in Braamfontein after the Johannesburg High Court and Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed attempts by the couple to obtain a custody and guardianship order.
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/ 14 September 2007
On Monday morning, hundreds of homeless people from the Joe Slovo squatter camp in Cape Town blockaded the N2 highway during peak-hour traffic, venting their anger and frustration with government for not providing houses. In response, Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said: ”Residents of the Joe Slovo informal settlement must decide whether they wish to cooperate with government.”
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/ 14 September 2007
Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF party has called a surprise special congress for December, setting the stage for a showdown between President Robert Mugabe and rivals within his party, who are plotting to oust him. A conference had been scheduled, but a meeting of Mugabe’s politburo last week decided that an extraordinary congress should be called instead.