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/ 24 September 2004
A political tussle has broken out within the legal fraternity over the medicine pricing wars. The ongoing legal battle between Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and pharmacists is exposing deep racial and political divisions in the Cape Town legal community.
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/ 24 September 2004
In a study of five transitional democracies, South Africa has fared worst in providing citizens with access to information. And the Presidency was among a handful of institutions that failed to provide any information in response to requests filed under the country’s much-vaunted Promotion of Access to Information Act.
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/ 24 September 2004
The Congress of South African Trade Unions says it is disturbed by the news that Barclays Bank may acquire a major shareholding in Absa. The two banks confirmed on Thursday that they were involved in talks which could see the sale of a 21% stake in Absa to Barclays. Sanlam has a 21% stake — the largest single shareholder.
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/ 24 September 2004
Zimbabwe’s banking crisis continued to mount with the forced closure of another large commercial bank by the Central Bank, the fourth such bank to be shut down this year due to liquidity woes. At the time of its closure Trust Bank owed about Z,4-trillion, an amount equal to the country’s domestic debt.
Zim’s banks are unsafe, says IMF
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/ 24 September 2004
A durable boom in consumer spending and strong salary increases are helping to swell government coffers as economic growth picks up speed. ”Revenue collections are going very well, both in respect of consumer activity and PAYE. We are very bullish about revenues,” South African Revenue Service (Sars) Commissioner Pravin Gordhan said on Thursday.
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/ 24 September 2004
The cash-strapped Eastern Cape government has threatened to withdraw up to R220-million annually from Coega Development Corporation — the national Department of Trade and Industry’s flagship infrastructure development project — in a move which could plunge it into financial crisis.
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/ 24 September 2004
President Thabo Mbeki has spent a long week in New York swimming against the tide. It may be difficult to get the United Nations General Assembly to focus on practicalities at the best of times, but the president’s call for a ”new definition” of security premised on expanded prosperity and democracy, struggled for media and diplomatic oxygen on a day dominated by a succession of appalling reports from Iraq.
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/ 24 September 2004
Johannesburg prison inmate Brenda Wardle scored a partial victory this week when the Johannesburg High Court ordered that the parole board hearing her application for early release be reconvened. The provincial commissioner of correctional services and the chairperson of the parole hearing have been ordered to ensure that Wardle is given a fair hearing and an opportunity to make her case.
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/ 24 September 2004
South Africa’s up-and-coming coal king is an amiable MBA graduate from the University of Massachusetts and is never really satisfied with himself, his company and the industry he operates in. Sipho Nkosi, CEO of Eyesizwe Coal, is passionate about creating a world-class company underpinned by profitability, without ignoring worker safety and transformation.
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/ 24 September 2004
Some call it South Africa’s Siberia, a dumping ground for the unwanted, but those condemned to live in Pomfret lament that some of them were wanted — as warriors. The families of the Angolan fighters recruited by Simon Mann are counting the cost of their men’s involvement with the Briton.