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/ 20 February 2008
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel’s 2008/09 national budget tabled in Parliament on Wednesday brings tax relief, reduced corporate taxes, financial support for Eskom’s programme to build power stations, a new electricity levy, more social spending and a boost for job creation.
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/ 20 February 2008
Despite global economic turmoil, South Africa’s economy remains robust and the longer-term outlook favourable, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Wednesday. "It is time for neither gloom nor panic," he said in his 2008/09 budget speech to the National Assembly.
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/ 20 February 2008
A group of Nobel laureates called on Wednesday for an arms embargo against Burma, dismissing elections planned for 2010 as flawed if pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi is barred from standing. Seven laureates, including Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu, said the junta should face sanctions for its crackdown on Buddhist monks.
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/ 20 February 2008
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel has delivered what he terms a "can do" budget that aims to put the doomsayers and naysayers at rest by boosting infrastructure and people. Manuel noted that this was important or else the doomsayers and naysayers would simply "take control".
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/ 19 February 2008
Persian Gulf countries may enlist South African expertise in their plans to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, Kuwait’s Foreign Minister said on Tuesday. Mohamed Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah was speaking after talks in Cape Town with his South African counterpart, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
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/ 19 February 2008
Looking at the options available to Finance Minister Trevor Manuel when he delivers his national budget in the National Assembly on Wednesday, the experts of the Old Mutual Investment Group reckon that he could have as much as R25-billion to play with. But how would he spend it?
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/ 19 February 2008
The first of South Africa’s long-planned "new generation" prisons should be completed by February next year, MPs heard on Tuesday. The R662-million Kimberley Correctional Centre was more than one-third completed by the end of last month, prisons commissioner Vernie Petersen said.
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/ 19 February 2008
Recent cases of spying involving the mayor of Cape Town and a report alleging a conspiracy to bring down the government are part of apartheid ”baggage”, Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils said in Cape Town on Tuesday. He said it is a ”knee-jerk reaction” to assume that the National Intelligence Agency is behind such cases.
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/ 19 February 2008
The disbanding of the Scorpions is still only a ”proposal” and will go to Parliament and include public participation, Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula said in Cape Town on Tuesday. The unit will also stay on the high-profile cases on which it is currently working, he told a media briefing on the future of the criminal justice system.
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/ 19 February 2008
The Annestacia murder trial, involving accused Richard Engelbrecht, proceeded behind closed doors on Tuesday as the prosecutor presented the testimony of a pathologist. Prosecutor Mornay Julius was also to present the testimony of a six-year-old girl who was allegedly raped by Engelbrecht at the age of three.
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/ 19 February 2008
Evictions have begun at the housing development in Delft illegally occupied by backyard dwellers, the Western Cape Anti-Eviction campaign said on Tuesday morning. A Cape High Court judge on Monday refused the more than 1Â 000 squatters leave to appeal against an earlier eviction order.
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/ 18 February 2008
The Cape High Court on Monday dismissed an application for leave to appeal against an eviction order that compelled illegal occupiers of unfinished homes in Delft on the Cape Flats to vacate their houses by 6pm last Sunday. Judge Deon van Zyl ruled late on Monday that the grounds for appeal were altogether without merit.
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/ 18 February 2008
Janine Wiese, mother of slain 11-year-old Annestacia, wants her daughter’s alleged killer to remain in prison for the rest of his life, she told the Cape High Court on Monday. The mother was asked by prosecutor Mornay Julius how she felt about Richard Engelbrecht, who has pleaded guilty to the girl’s rape and murder.
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/ 18 February 2008
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel’s national budget on Wednesday should "turn talk into action", the Independent Democrats (ID) said on Monday. "Our economy is faced with a number of constraints, from the looming threat of a global recession … to the domestic energy crisis," ID spokesperson Schalk Lubbe said.
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/ 18 February 2008
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel should make good on expectations of a higher age limit for the child support grant, the Black Sash said on Monday. Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya told a media briefing last week that the grant would be extended to the age of 18 and the means test recalculated.
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/ 18 February 2008
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel’s national budget speech on Wednesday is even more keenly anticipated this year in view of the electricity crisis and its anticipated negative effects on the economy, and Democratic Alliance spokesperson Kobus Marais has urged Manuel to tackle the crisis head-on.
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/ 16 February 2008
World player of the year Bryan Habana scored the only try of the match as the Bulls began the defence of their Super 14 title with a hard-fought 16-9 victory over the Stormers on Saturday. Habana scored his 25th try in 40 matches in the competition when he dived over on the left hand side four minutes before halftime.
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/ 15 February 2008
Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille, the mayor of Cape Town, is once again going to challenge the authorities by marching against gangsterism and drugs in a community where the drug lords are thriving. She announced that on Sunday she would conduct a march through the streets of Macassar in the east of the city, near Somerset West.
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/ 15 February 2008
Helen Zille, the leader of the Democratic Alliance, on Friday challenged African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma to pledge his own allegiance to the Constitution, and to declare that loyalty to the Constitution is more important than loyalty to the ANC.
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/ 15 February 2008
With only weeks to go before the Zimbabwean elections, there has been no let-up in the slanted coverage of the campaign by the country’s public broadcaster, according to the independent Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe. It said that it noted with concern that the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation showed no sign of observing Zimbabwean law.
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/ 15 February 2008
Pointing out that Thursday February 21 is International Mother Language Day, the president of the African National Congress, Jacob Zuma, has called for the new schools’ pledge drawn up by the Department of Education to be recited in the different languages of the country — depending on the region.
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/ 14 February 2008
The government intends acquiring five million hectares of land next year in an effort to have 30% of agricultural land in the hands of black farmers by 2014, Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Lulu Xingwana said in Cape Town on Thursday. Currently, black farmers own 4,7% of farm land, she told a press briefing.
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/ 14 February 2008
The Department of Health on Thursday released a revised policy and guidelines clearing the way for dual therapy in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. At the same time, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang dismissed claims that her department was reluctant to implement the new regime.
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/ 14 February 2008
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang on Thursday dismissed claims that her department was reluctant to implement dual therapy for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. ”I was the first person to express concern about mono therapy … but we had to make sure that we had enough time to examine the implications of dual therapy,” she said.
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/ 14 February 2008
Lindiwe Hendricks, the Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, on Thursday denied that South Africa is facing a water crisis. "I can categorically say that we are not facing a water crisis, or a water-contamination crisis," she told a media briefing in Parliament. "The water that comes out of our taps is among the best in the world."
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/ 14 February 2008
The Cape Cobras cruised to a third successive victory in the MTN Domestic Championship at Newlands on Wednesday, beating the Lions by six wickets with four overs to spare. The Lions won the toss and elected to bat first. Stephen Cook and stand-in captain Alviro Petersen got them off to a flying start with a partnership of 61 off 79 balls.
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/ 14 February 2008
Ajax Cape Town maintained their position at the top of the Premier Soccer League standings with a well-deserved 3-1 win over Bloemfontein Celtic at the Athlone Stadium on Wednesday night. The opening minutes of the game were scrappy as neither team were able to stamp their authority on the match.
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/ 13 February 2008
Security guard Richard Engelbrecht, who on Wednesday pleaded guilty in the Cape High Court to the rape and murder of Cape Flats schoolgirl Annestacia Wiese, alleges that police threatened him with harm if he did not confess to a magistrate. Although he has pleaded guilty, the judge has not yet pronounced him guilty.
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/ 13 February 2008
The management of Port Elizabeth’s Jose Pearson Tuberculosis (TB) Hospital has taken steps to crack down on dagga smoking by patients with drug-resistant strains of TB. Some patients with extensively or multidrug-resistant TB being held in isolation have been using their cellphones to order the drug.
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/ 13 February 2008
The Democratic Alliance (DA) on Wednesday urged President Thabo Mbeki to disband the Ginwala Commission of Inquiry into suspended National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli in view of ”disturbing new evidence”.
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/ 13 February 2008
South Africa’s consumers will continue to fuel economic growth as their incomes increase, a government minister said on Wednesday. Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa told Parliament on Wednesday the economy had gone through structural changes and consumer spending will be resilient.
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/ 13 February 2008
The African National Congress (ANC) has rejected the call made on Tuesday by the Democratic Alliance for Parliament to be dissolved and new elections held, as well as the call made by the Independent Democrats for the government to resign. A statement issued by the ANC on Wednesday said: ”We believe that such calls have no merit.”