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/ 21 September 2004
Mark Thatcher won a two-month reprieve on Tuesday from a court order that he answer questions from Equatorial Guinea about his alleged involvement in a coup plot in the oil-rich nation, his lawyer said. Judge John Hlophe granted a request from state prosecutors that Thatcher’s testimony initially scheduled for Wednesday be postponed to November 26, said lawyer Alan Bruce-Brand.
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/ 20 September 2004
South Africa has launched an ambitious policy for biotechnology, according to the Science and Development Network. The Department of Science and Technology document has identified the main beneficiaries as health services, agriculture, industry, mining and the environment.
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/ 20 September 2004
Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel has called for an end to the management failures and ”lunacy” in the country’s public sector, saying the finances channelled to government have to be translated into concrete improvements in poverty, education and services.
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/ 20 September 2004
The government was finalising a multi-million rand aviation security plan, which would provide resources to secure airports around the country, Transport Minister Jeff Radebe confirmed on Monday. ”We [the government] are in the final stages of finalising the national aviation security plan,” and the plan would be put into effect ”as soon as possible”.
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/ 20 September 2004
Mark Thatcher has won a reprieve from a South African court order that he testify under oath about his alleged involvement in a plot to stage a coup in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, his lawyer said on Monday. State prosecutors have asked a Cape Town court to delay the testimony scheduled for Wednesday, when the son of a British former prime minister was to answer questions put to him by the Malabo goverment.
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/ 20 September 2004
"Give me a child until he is seven, and I will show you the man," goes the old Jesuit saying — an advertisement, if ever there were one, for the virtues of preprimary education. Yet, a decade after the advent of democracy, South Africa appears to spend more on keeping convicted criminals in their cells than on keeping children off the streets and in preschool.
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/ 17 September 2004
South Africa’s trade negotiations with China should be suspended until their effect on the local economy had been studied, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said on Friday. Cosatu president Zwelinzima Vavi was addressing the Southern African Textile and Clothing Workers’ Union in Cape Town.
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/ 17 September 2004
The African National Congress is scaring away prospective investors from South Africa with ”outlandish tirades” against so-called white capital, not seeming to realise that money knows no colour, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said on Friday in his weekly newsletter on the DA’s website.
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/ 16 September 2004
The Department of Correctional Services has promised to crack down on smoking at Cape Town’s Pollsmoor prison following a Labour Court challenge by a warder. The department and Minister of Correctional Services Ngconde Balfour have agreed to do ”whatever is required” to ensure that the law is ”strictly observed and complied with”.
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/ 16 September 2004
The jury was out on the effectiveness of Thursday’s public-service strike in the Western Cape as unions claimed a massive turnout while the provincial government sought to downplay its impact. In Cape Town, police estimated about 17 000 strikers snaked their way through the city.
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/ 16 September 2004
Briefing the media at Parliament on Thursday, the Democratic Alliance accused the African National Congress of using opportunistic enticements to lure municipal councillors during the 15-day floor crossing period, and vowed to look into the possibility of amending the relevant legislation.
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/ 16 September 2004
SABMiller, the world’s second-largest brewer by volume, has declined to comment on Thursday on media reports that the group is in talks regarding a possible joint acquisition of Canada’s Molson. SABMiller spokesperson Nigel Fairbrass said the group couldn’t comment on Thursday’s report in the <i>Wall Street Journal Europe</i>,
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/ 16 September 2004
Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel has spoken out against the trend of exorbitantly high salaries and greed among professionals, and has called instead for them to give something back to help to reduce the growing levels of inequality and poverty in the country.
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/ 15 September 2004
Black economic empowerment company Akani Leisure Investments has taken over the Halcyon Hotels Group — which includes in its portfolio the prestigious Bay hotel and Blues restaurant in Camps Bay. The acquisition represents the first major empowerment transaction at the top end of the Western Cape hospitality industry.
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/ 15 September 2004
A hemp growing project which offers hope to small farmers in the poverty stricken Eastern Cape could be derailed because hemp is still an illegal substance. Department of Health rules which lump hemp together with dagga could scupper plans for the effective mass production and marketing of the fibrous plant.
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/ 15 September 2004
The Food and Allied Workers Union (Fawu) on Tuesday evening threatened a consumer boycott of all SA Breweries products if some of their members were not reinstated. ”We will take the matter forward. Some issues we will take up seriously, including a total boycott of SAB products until such time as the matter is resolved,” said Fawu president Patrick Jonson, one of a group of about 20 Fawu members who chained and shackled themselves outside SAB’s Newlands depot.
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/ 14 September 2004
A new draft Bill, which will govern the tobacco industry, will grant the minister of health the power to issue regulations on the performance standard that all cigarettes sold in South Africa will have to meet, a top official told MPs on Tuesday. A cigarette will be required to ”self-extinguish after a few minutes if it is not puffed upon”.
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/ 14 September 2004
The government, led by Minister of Public Service and Administration Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, is set to carry on negotiations with public-sector unions on Tuesday evening, following a failure to reach agreement over Thursday’s threatened public-sector strike. The minister said the government is doing everything in its power to avert a strike.
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/ 14 September 2004
South African furniture, electronic goods and appliances retailer Lewis Group has opened the book building process for its initial public offering and listing on the JSE Securities Exchange South Africa, in which it plans to offer to the public 40-million ordinary shares of one cent each.
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/ 13 September 2004
The department of health is being taken to court again by Aids pressure group the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), which is demanding the department release its detailed anti-retroviral rollout programme. Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has already filed notice of her intention to oppose it.
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/ 13 September 2004
Mark Thatcher’s lawyers are in the Cape High Court on Monday to challenge a subpoena compelling their client to appear in court to answer questions from Equatorial Guinea prosecutors. ”An urgent review application is being brought in the Cape High Court in order to challenge a range of aspects relating to the subpoena,” said a member of the defence team.
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/ 11 September 2004
The search for Cape Town’s missing hippo was set to take to the air late on Saturday morning as nature conservation officials prepared to board a helicopter to view Zeekoevlei where the animal is hiding. Game capture expert Douw Grobler has been flown in from the Limpopo province to assist with the recapture of the animal.
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/ 11 September 2004
Former president Nelson Mandela has complained about South Africans who want to quickly amass wealth instead of helping others develop. It was at the level of ”what we once referred to as the RDP of the soul” that the nation seemed to ”crucially fallen behind” since the attainment of democracy, he said on Friday.
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/ 10 September 2004
Beer giant South African Breweries (SAB) says its lawyers are considering whether to appeal a Labour Court judgement that it wrongly dismissed 115 workers in 2001. The announcement was made on Friday to a group of about 40 of the workers who gathered at the gates of the company’s brewery in Newlands, Cape Town, demanding to be taken back into service.
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/ 9 September 2004
Nelson Mandela is neither a god nor a saint, he’s got vices and virtues like any other person, says his personal assistant Zelda la Grange.
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/ 9 September 2004
Women in labour so intoxicated they do not know they are giving birth, children fed alcohol to keep them quiet, and low grade wine cheaper than bread. These are realities in South Africa, the country with the worst foetal alcohol syndrome in the world.
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/ 8 September 2004
South Africa’s state-owned arms manufacturing and marketing company, Denel, "is practically at the doorstep of bankruptcy", CEO Victor Moche told MPs on Wednesday. However, he said there is light at the end of the tunnel if the entity focuses on research and development and balancing its budget.
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/ 8 September 2004
A lawyer for alleged Equatorial Guinea coup plotter Mark Thatcher confirmed on Wednesday that a subpoena had been issued for his client’s appearance in the Wynberg Regional Court. ”We still have to examine the subpoena,” said Alan Bruce-Brand. Bruce-Brand said the subpoena provided for Thatcher to go for questioning at the court on September 22.
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/ 7 September 2004
Plans to eradicate alien weeds infesting Southern Africa’s rivers have been ”indefinitely” derailed by administrative delays, a World Bank official confirmed on Wednesday. A multimillion-dollar Southern African Development Community anti-infestation project was due to start last year, but has been delayed.
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/ 6 September 2004
The Democratic Alliance on Monday welcomed another six municipal councillors to its ranks, bring its total countrywide to 1 022. In a speech prepared for delivery to a meeting of the DA’s Cape Town Unicity caucus, Leon said 40 councillors have now crossed over to the DA in the two-week floor-crossing period.
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/ 5 September 2004
A total of 5 138 firearms, mostly illegal have been destroyed during an ongoing firearm operation since last year in the Western Cape. Police spokesperson Superintendent Riaan Pool said the ongoing operation started on September 2003 and has seen about 967 people being arrested for possession of illegal firearms.
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/ 3 September 2004
South Africa’s official opposition leader, Tony Leon, says that Patricia de Lille’s Independent Democrats and Pieter Mulder’s Freedom Front Plus are the handmaidens of one-party dominance by the African National Congress and accuses the two opposition parties of existing only through ”cannibalising the opposition”.