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/ 8 November 2004
An Italian prosecutor on Monday sought to probe the link between alleged Mafioso Vito Palazzolo and Count Riccardo Agusta, who achieved notoriety in the Roodefontein saga. The Cape Town Magistrate’s Court is hearing evidence for Palazzolo’s trial in absentia in Italy.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=125163">Failed bid to charge Palazzolo</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=125147">Stressed policeman unfit to testify</a>
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/ 8 November 2004
Sun International has consolidated its leading position in South Africa’s R7,34-billion casino industry over the past year, and is now ready to pursue regional and international opportunities in the gaming, hotel and resort sectors, according to CEO Peter Bacon.
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/ 8 November 2004
A veteran South African detective on Monday told how his bid to have Vito Palazzolo charged with corruption was turned down by the Western Cape’s director of prosecutions. "I thought I had a case," said Leonard Knipe, who was national head of serious and violent crime before he retired from the police.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=125147">Stressed policeman unfit to testify</a>
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/ 8 November 2004
Stressed former police officer Abraham Smith is unfit to give evidence at the Palazzolo inquiry, a clinical psychologist said on Monday. Psychologist Petrus Roux was called to testify at the hearing in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court after Smith broke down in the stand last week and was admitted to a clinic.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=125069">Italian judge criticises SA magistrate</a>
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/ 5 November 2004
A letter from an Italian judge, which is apparently strongly critical of the way a South African magistrate has been dealing with the Palazzolo hearings, was handed in to the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Friday. The court is overseeing the questioning of witnesses whose testimony will be used in alleged Mafioso’s Vito Palazzolo’s trial in absentia in Italy.
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/ 5 November 2004
South Africa’s official opposition, the Democratic Alliance, says small and medium businesses should be excluded from costly — and bureaucratic — burdens imposed by the Employment Equity Act. Charges of alleged employment-equity violations against eight KwaZulu-Natal clothing companies will cost thousands of jobs, the DA said.
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/ 4 November 2004
Politicians and members of the judiciary, with the exception of magistrates, are to receive a maximum salary increase of 6% this year, the Presidency announced on Thursday. Mbeki’s decision comes after the recommendations of the Independent Commission for the Remuneration of Public Office Bearers.
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/ 4 November 2004
A crowd of Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) activists marched to Parliament on Thursday as part of a national demonstration calling for the government to pay the TAC’s costs in recent litigation. The spirited protesters toyi-toyied and chanted their way down several blocks in the city centre, bringing traffic to a standstill.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=124964">Slow start in treating Aids kids</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=124826">TAC to challenge Dept of Health in court</a>
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/ 4 November 2004
Alleged Mafia kingpin Vito Palazzolo is suing top police investigator Captain Piet Viljoen and a former member of the organised crime unit for R5-million each for defamation. Advocate Klaus von Lieres und Wilkau, who has acted as a consultant to Palazzolo, revealed this on Monday in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court.
Magistrate calls for change in the law
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/ 4 November 2004
Matric results in mathematics, so poor they are a ”crisis of performance”, remain as a legacy of apartheid, a forthcoming publication has found. Focusing on maths, because of the range of career choices it provides, Professor Servaas van der Berg looked at an education system that by world and African standards is a poor performer.
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/ 4 November 2004
Twenty-four percent of urban-dwelling South Africans are in favour of abortion on demand, a market research company said on Thursday. Research Surveys said in a statement they had surveyed a sample of 500 adults living in metropolitan areas and with access to a landline telephone.
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/ 4 November 2004
The magistrate in charge of the Palazzolo inquiry called on Wednesday for a change in the law to allow foreign judicial officers more of a role in similar hearings. Towards the end of the day on Wednesday, Cape Town magistrate Derek Winter commented on what he said was the ”problematic nature of these proceedings”.
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/ 3 November 2004
Speaker Baleka Mbete has barred parliamentary questions relating to the business relationship between Deputy President Jacob Zuma and his adviser Schabir Shaik, which was to be debated on Wednesday. Mbete gave the official opposition Democratic Alliance notice of this earlier on Wednesday, chief whip Douglas Gibson said.
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/ 3 November 2004
Zimbabwe’s silos ”are full”, and the country has enjoyed ”a wonderful harvest” in the last year, the country’s ambassador to South Africa, Simon Khaya Moyo, told the National Assembly’s foreign affairs portfolio committee on Wednesday. Moyo would not comment on the jail sentence of opposition MP Roy Bennett.
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/ 3 November 2004
A top police officer said on Wednesday he stands by a document in which he listed Cape Town attorney Harry Snitcher as part of the Mafia’s organisation in the Western Cape. Captain Piet Viljoen was testifying in proceedings in which Italian prosecutors are questioning witnesses on the affairs of alleged Mafioso Vito Palazzolo.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=124881">Palazzolo linked to Staggie</a>
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/ 3 November 2004
Alleged Mafia boss Vito Palazzolo had links to Western Cape drug lord Rashied Staggie, the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court heard on Wednesday. This was testimony from crack police investigator Captain Piet Viljoen, one of a series of witnesses who have been subpoenaed to answer Italian prosecutors’ questions on Palazzolo.
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/ 2 November 2004
Minister of Correctional Services Ngconde Balfour and MPs experienced the toxic smoke and flammability of mattresses at Pollsmoor prison on Wednesday, where three inmates died in a fire last week. ”Honestly, we must check to change this,” said Dennis Bloem, chairperson of Parliament’s portfolio committee on correctional services.
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/ 2 November 2004
The National Council of Provinces (NCOP) was to meet later on Tuesday to pass a resolution that backtracks on one passed by the chamber last week — "which regrets the refusal of the president to address the serious crime of rape in our country and to acknowledge the suffering of women and children who are attacked on a daily basis".
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/ 2 November 2004
Privatisation came under fire on Tuesday afternoon in a debate in the National Assembly on the planned retrenchment of 7 600 workers at South Africa’s semi-privatised fixed-line telephone monopoly Telkom. Leading the debate was Freedom Front Plus leader Pieter Mulder.
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/ 2 November 2004
Friday November 5 marks the last day of trading of shares in Metro Cash & Carry (Metcash) as such on the JSE Securities Exchange (JSE), following the buyout of the company’s African and South African operations by a consortium of Metcash management, a black empowerment consortium and associates.
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/ 2 November 2004
The former police officer who broke down at the Vito Palazzolo inquiry on Monday has been admitted to a clinic, the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court heard on Tuesday. Abraham Smith was to have testified at the inquiry, in which questions from Italian prosecutors are being put to a series of South African witnesses.
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/ 1 November 2004
A former elite police officer broke down on Monday in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court, where he had been summoned to answer questions about alleged Mafia kingpin Roberto Palazzolo. Abraham Smith was called on the first day of a hearing in which questions drawn up by Italian prosecutors are being put to a series of witnesses.
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/ 1 November 2004
The Chambers of Commerce and Industry of South Africa (Chamsa) has welcomed the South African government’s commitment to low inflation — but says a thick-point definition of the target should be introduced. Chamsa also said value-added tax (VAT) should be increased by 1% to raise about R6,5-billion in tax revenue.
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/ 1 November 2004
Solidarity, the mainly white trade union, and the left-leaning Congress of South African Trade Unions were to work jointly on Monday to protest against retrenchments by fixed-line monopoly Telkom — by posting 25 statements on the door of the National Assembly. The Assembly is to debate the Telkom retrenchments on Tuesday.
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/ 1 November 2004
Pupils and teachers at Brandwacht Primary School near Mossel Bay on Monday were mourning the death of an 11-year-old pupil, Aubrey Peterson, killed by a collapsing wall. The Western Cape education department said four other pupils were injured in the accident on Friday. The wall that collapsed was under construction at the time.
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/ 29 October 2004
An 11-year-old pupil died and four others were injured when the wall of a classroom under construction collapsed on them at a school near Hartenbos in the southern Cape on Friday. Aubrey Peterson, who was in grade five at Brandwacht Primary School, and his school mates had been playing on the site.
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/ 29 October 2004
South African Airways (SAA) will soon be a separate entity reporting directly to the Department of Public Enterprises, Transnet chief executive Maria Ramos said on Friday. Addressing the Cape Town Press Club, Ramos said she has received permission from the Cabinet to begin the process of taking SAA out of the Transnet group.
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/ 29 October 2004
South Africa will give consideration to reviewing its policy on the ownership by foreign interests of South Africa’s banks, says Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel. In Parliament, he said the current policy "is informed by the view that four major banks is the minimum number necessary to ensure a certain level of competition in the market".
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/ 28 October 2004
Judgement was reserved on Thursday in Mark Thatcher’s Cape High Court bid to avoid answering questions from Equatorial Guinea prosecutors. Lawyers involved in the three-day hearing said that given the complexity of the case and the judges’ other commitments, judgement is unlikely to be handed down in the near future.
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/ 28 October 2004
A member of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) in the National Council of Provinces, Nelson Raju, died while playing a round of golf on Wednesday. Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi said in a statement that it was with ”profound sorrow and a sense of loss” that he had received the news that Raju had passed away.
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/ 28 October 2004
The Cape High Court hearing of Mark Thatcher’s bid to avoid answering questions from Equatorial Guinea prosecutors entered its third day on Thursday. State advocate Michael Donen is expected to finish his argument by lunch on Thursday, and Thatcher’s senior counsel, Peter Hodes, will reply after lunch.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=124499">E Guinea on ‘fishing expedition'</a>
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/ 28 October 2004
Food retailer Shoprite Holdings is expecting an "exciting" and much-improved second half of 2004 compared with the same period in 2003, with its turnover in the three months from July to September rising by 9,3% on a like-for-like basis, continuing the upward sales trend it experienced in the latter part of its financial year to the end of June 2004.