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/ 4 February 2005
Vusi Pikoli’s surprise appointment to the top job at the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) followed shortly after a corruption probe prevented one of the leading contenders for the post, former Limpopo premier Ngoako Ramatlhodi, from being admitted to the Bar, effectively ending his bid.
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/ 4 February 2005
The United Nations suffered grave damage to its international reputation on Thursday after it emerged that the official who headed the oil-for-food programme for Iraq sought and obtained bribes from Saddam Hussein’s regime. Benon Sevan was rebuked for actions which were ”ethically improper and seriously undermined the integrity of the UN”.
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/ 4 February 2005
The Pope remained ”stable” in hospital on Thursday as his illness raised the question of what the Catholic church would do if he were to become permanently incapacitated — and reopened debate over whether popes should retire instead of reigning for life.
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/ 4 February 2005
Silence enveloped Baghdad’s police academy on Thursday as 2000 cadets filed into classes to sit a mid-term exam of multiple-choice questions. When the exam ended American soldiers carried the papers away for marking and the cadets stood in huddles, comparing answers.
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/ 4 February 2005
Scantily clad women help sell cars. And there’s nothing wrong with using the odd man in a G-string to advertise shoes. But when a clothes company tried presenting a group of well-dressed women in a Last Supper style pose, their poster campaign was banned in Milan.
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/ 4 February 2005
The Congress of South African Trade Unions’s (Cosatu) expulsion from Zimbabwe this week has triggered a wave of protest among South African civil society organisations, church groups and youth organisations riled by the African National Congress’s policy of "quiet diplomacy".
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/ 4 February 2005
The most devastating prosecution documents handed in at court this week are two affidavits from businessman David Wilson, the former MD of the Renong Overseas Corporation — the Malaysian company that won the rights to develop Durban’s Point Waterfront.
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/ 4 February 2005
The newly appointed national director of public prosecution, Vusi Pikoli, this week spoke out on a number of controversial issues, from the perceived "preferential" treatment of MPs involved in the Travelgate scam to speculation that the Scorpions unit would be moved from the National Prosecuting Authority to the South African Police Service. On Travelgate, he told the <i>M&G</i> the law would take its course
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/ 4 February 2005
The Cape Town council has slashed hundreds of millions of rands from its capital budget — effectively halting scores of its own township-based infrastructure projects — while redirecting about R246-million to the flagship N2 Gateway Project, the government’s pilot initiative to eradicate shacks. About 12 000 families will be relocated as part of the development.
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/ 4 February 2005
In the week that the African National Congress Youth League again endorsed Deputy President Jacob Zuma to succeed President Thabo Mbeki, a raft of new evidence concerning the allegedly corrupt relationship between Zuma and Durban businessman Schabir Shaik emerged at the Shaik trial.