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/ 31 January 2007

Zille voted Pretoria newsmaker of the year

Cape Town mayor Helen Zille has been voted Newsmaker of the Year for 2006 by the National Press Club, Pretoria. Zille had regularly made the headlines, press club chairperson Patrick Hlahla said on Wednesday. ”Following the municipal elections in March, she eventually became mayor after deals with smaller political parties,” he said.

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/ 31 January 2007

SAA hijack accused declared unfit to stand trial

Zimbabwean university student Tinashe Rioga, who allegedly tried to hijack a South African Airways (SAA) flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg last year, was on Wednesday declared unfit to stand trial in terms of the Mental Disorders Act. The order was made by magistrate Johan Vermaak when Rioga appeared in the Bellville Regional Court.

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/ 31 January 2007

Mugabe urged to sell state firms to help economy

President Robert Mugabe’s government should immediately sell more than a dozen state firms to help raise money for the embattled economy, Zimbabwe’s central bank governer said on Wednesday. The privatisation of loss-making state firms would yield up to -billion this year, easing a foreign-currency crunch, Gideon Gono said in a monetary policy statement.

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/ 31 January 2007

Iran denies nuclear help from North Korea

Iran, accused by some Western nations of seeking to develop a nuclear weapon, on Wednesday denied a British newspaper report that North Korea was giving it technical help to fulfil its ambition. The United Nations Security Council voted to ban military supplies and weapons shipments to North Korea after Pyongyang carried out its first nuclear test in October.

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/ 31 January 2007

Business against Crime manager gunned down

Business against Crime project manager Alan McKenzie was shot at the home of a family member in Table View, Cape Town police said on Wednesday. Captain Randall Stoffels said McKenzie (56) was shot four times by five armed men who entered the house after 10pm on Tuesday. McKenzie attempted to overpower one of the men, while a second man held others in the house at gunpoint.

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/ 31 January 2007

Ex-Somali warlord elected new Parliament speaker

Somali lawmakers on Wednesday elected a former warlord as their new speaker, two weeks after firing his predecessor for brokering unauthorised peace talks with an Islamist movement. A day after President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed sought to rally support behind his embattled government, the MPs overwhelmingly endorsed Justice Minister Aden Mohamed Nur.

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/ 31 January 2007

More SA names for terror list, says Pahad

South Africa has been informed that more South Africans are to be listed on the United Nations Security Council list of terror suspects, Foreign Affairs Deputy Minister Aziz Pahad said on Wednesday. Pahad did not say which UN member country was planning the listing, when it would be done or how many South Africans would be listed.