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/ 20 October 2004
There are a number of ”large networks” involved in illegal mining activity on the Free State gold fields, Parliament’s select committee on economic and foreign affairs heard on Wednesday. South Africa’s chief inspector of mines, May Hermanus, said the illegal mining is taking place via disused shafts and tunnels.
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/ 20 October 2004
The controversial Atkins diet, credited by a host of celebrities for helping them acquire a svelte figure, has a new figurehead — a portly British cat that has shed half its body weight under the regime. Fidget has slimmed down from a hefty 10kg to only 5kg, his owner said on Wednesday.
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/ 20 October 2004
Keeran Sewsunker, the Durban Daily News reporter who was recently exposed as a serial plagiarist, has been fired following a disciplinary hearing. DITonline, a student news website based at the Durban Institute of Technology, first broke the story on August 27 and the Mail & Guardian Online published another story on September 23.
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/ 20 October 2004
Conservationists, scientists and animal-rights campaigners from around Southern Africa gathered on Wednesday at the start of a three-day conference to discuss ways of controlling the region’s expanding elephant population. Debate around the elephants has been characterised by sharply conflicting views and high emotion.
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/ 20 October 2004
Former Bela-Bela farmer Deon Crous told the Boeremag treason trial on Wednesday how he was brought in to drive rented cars — in which bombs were to be planted — from Johannesburg International airport. Crous also said he had built petrol bombs on the instructions of the accused Herman van Rooyen.
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/ 20 October 2004
United Nations peacekeepers in Liberia used teargas to disperse a demonstration on Wednesday by parents and pupils who want their primary school in the capital reopened. Several parents said the protest embodied larger frustrations both with the Gyude Bryant government and the UN mission in the country.
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/ 20 October 2004
Minister of Communications Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri announced on Wednesday the names of two of the three potential bidders for the unallocated equity in the second national telephone operator (SNO). They are Old Mutual Asset Managers and Tata Africa Holding.
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/ 20 October 2004
French arms-company executive Alain Thetard had an explosive temper and threw things at his staff, the Durban High Court heard on Wednesday. This was testimony from the fourth witness to be called in the Schabir Shaik fraud and corruption trial.
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/ 20 October 2004
A limited-edition magnum of champagne believed to be one of 12 selected to mark the 1981 marriage of Prince Charles and Princess Diana is expected to fetch thousands of pounds at auction, a saleroom official said on Wednesday. The Cuvee Dom Perignon 1961 vintage was selected by makers Moët & Chandon for the royal wedding in 1981.