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/ 5 May 2000

April car sales healthy

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Thursday 4.35pm NEW car sales in April were encouraging despite the number of public holidays during the month, according to the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa. Latest figures released by Naamsa showed that 14827 new passenger cars were sold in April, some 1354 units or 10% more than […]

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/ 5 May 2000

ALLEGED SYNDICATE BOSS CLEARED

JULIA Mashele and her co-accused Johannes Makhanye were acquited and discharged on 32 counts ranking from theft to kidnapping and murder in the Pretoria regional court on Friday morning. Mashele and Makhanye, who were alleged to have been involved in organised crime in the Soshanguve area north of Pretoria, hugged each other as the public […]

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/ 5 May 2000

Zim crisis: Our wake-up call

Ben Cousins SECOND LOOK Zimbabwean-style land invasions are likely in South Africa in the future unless politicians begin to deal decisively with the highly emotive issue of unequal and racially skewed land distribution. This is a real prospect, despite the great differences between the political economies of the two countries. As in Zimbabwe, local invasions […]

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/ 5 May 2000

Why shouldn’t it happen here?

Steven Friedman WORM’S EYE VIEW We can learn from events across our borders: but do we? An aspect of Zimbabwe’s trauma which has received less notice than it should is what it tells us about our own hang-ups. If citizens’ responses in radio phone- ins or letters to the press are a guide, that of […]

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/ 5 May 2000

What’s up with the IBA?

Thebe Mabanga IN YOUR EAR The Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) is an interesting figure in South African broadcasting. It was established in 1993 to regulate the broadcasting industry and has made considerable, but sometimes jittery, strides in fulfilling its duties. One of its successes is the deregulation of the airwaves, with radio now reaching an […]

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/ 5 May 2000

‘We won’t beat an empty drum’

Howard Barrell President Thabo Mbeki said this week that the crisis in Zimbabwe was the result of a failure to redistribute land in the country – rather than a violent manipulation of a grievance for electoral purposes by Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe. In an address to the nation on Thursday night, Mbeki also rejected calls […]

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/ 5 May 2000

Vigilante group faces split

Evidence wa ka Ngobeni Senior members of South Africa’s biggest vigilante group, Mapogo a Matamaga, want the notorious organisation to abandon its hallmark policy of viciously sjamboking suspected criminals. The Mapogo members have accused its controversial president, Monhle Magolego, an enthusiastic proponent of corporal punishment, of behaving like a dictator. They say the unlawful beating […]

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/ 5 May 2000

ZIM FOREIGN PAYMENT ARREARS SOAR

ZIMBABWE’s foreign payment arrears have climbed to at least $350-million dollars, raising the prospect of a default on its external debt and further fuel shortages, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday. It said the deficit relates to payments for goods already dispatched to Zimbabwe and for orders not yet sent. Citing bankers it added that […]

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/ 5 May 2000

Of mice and men

A legal battle over a genetically modified rodent is putting the lucrative mutant mouse industry under the microscope James Meek In October a jury in San Francisco will make a decision in one of the new millennium’s most bizarre and complex court cases. Teams of elite lawyers will have spent weeks studying and arguing over […]