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/ 9 December 2004
The South African Police Service (SAPS) and the South African Security Association both came out in defence on Thursday of the SAPS’s decision to employ private security companies for guard duties at police premises. ”It is much cheaper and cost-effective to utilise private security services,” said SAPS communications head Joseph Ngobeni.
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/ 9 December 2004
Abdullah Brenner, a hitman in the plot to assassinate Cape Town regional magistrate Wilma van der Merwe, was jailed on Thursday for 10 years. His co-accused Ashraf Lee, who unwittingly became involved in the conspiracy, was given a two-year sentence suspended conditionally for four years on a firearm charge.
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/ 9 December 2004
The bid by Harmony for Gold Fields is not good for an empowerment company like Mvelaphanda Resources, Mvela chairperson Tokyo Sexwale said on Thursday. "The biggest losers are black people, black economic empowerment [BEE] players … because we don’t have the kind of chequebooks that old institutional investors have," he said.
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/ 9 December 2004
If the power station at Koeberg in the Western Cape were coal-fired and not nuclear, it would have needed to burn more than 105-million tonnes of the black stuff over the past two decades to equal the power it has produced from just 621 tonnes of uranium, says Minister of Minerals and Energy Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.
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/ 9 December 2004
South Africa’s inflation outlook generally remains positive, but there are certain developments that will have to be monitored closely by the monetary policy committee to ensure that inflation remains within the target range, South African Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni said on Thursday.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Business&ao=176320">No change in interest rates</a>
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/ 9 December 2004
Only two days after his inauguration, President Hamid Karzai is already trying to get the message out — Afghanistan needs to stem its booming drugs trade if the country is going to move forward. With the ink barely dry after his swearing in, Karzai has called a two-day meeting of tribal elders and provincial officials from around Afghanistan to discuss strategies to combat the drugs trade.
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/ 9 December 2004
The Cape Bar Council has entered the fray over the medicine-pricing case with a firm rebuke to Cape Judge President John Hlophe. Hlophe in a judgement last week rebuked a senior member of the Cape Bar, senior counsel Jeremy Gauntlett, for allegedly going over his head in approaching the Supreme Court of Appeal on the matter.
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/ 9 December 2004
The bodies of two more boys were found in Bruma Lake on Thursday afternoon after they were swept down the Jukskei River on Wednesday. The popular Johannesburg lake was drained on Thursday as rescue workers searched for the two boys. Earlier on Thursday, emergency personnel found the body of a third boy.
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/ 9 December 2004
Tens of thousands of angry winemakers took to the streets across France on Wednesday demanding urgent government action to help haul the industry out of its worst crisis in more than a century. The industry is demanding state help ranging from a â,¬10 000 emergency payment for young winemakers to a fund aimed at encouraging older producers to take early retirement.
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/ 9 December 2004
A two-day meeting of the South African Reserve Bank’s (SARB) monetary policy committee ended in Pretoria on Thursday afternoon when SARB Governor Tito Mboweni announced the repo rate will be kept steady at 7,5%. Mike Schussler, economist at T-Sec, said: "The decision was very much as expected."