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/ 18 December 2007

Zille extends Cape Town spy-saga deadline

Cape Town Mayor Helen Zille has extended by a month the deadline for the independent investigation into various allegations surrounding the city’s so-called spy saga. Zille has appointed Advocate Josie Jordaan of the Cape Bar to lead the investigation into allegations surrounding the George Fivaz and Associates investigation of Councillor Badih Chaaban.

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/ 14 December 2007

Mbeki: Stay true to ANC goals

In an eleventh-hour appeal before the African National Congress’s (ANC) national conference starts on Sunday, President Thabo Mbeki on Friday urged delegates to remain faithful to the party’s revolutionary goals. He said it is important that delegates fully understand the responsibility they carry on their shoulders.

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/ 14 December 2007

If you wear crocodile shoes, have an elephant leather wallet, or possess an ivory chess set, you will have to have a permit to own them from February 1 2008. If you have a cycad in your garden and you want to give it to your neighbour, you will also have to have a permit.

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/ 14 December 2007

New rape laws to help protect victims

After a protracted delay, South Africa’s tough new laws against sexual abuse will finally enter force on Sunday. The Justice and Constitutional Development Ministry said on Friday that the Sexual Offences Amendment Act will at last give greater protection to victims of sexual crimes.

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/ 14 December 2007

It’s your party and I’ll cry if I want to

Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool says he was ”disinvited” to speak at Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane’s farewell dinner on Thursday. ”I was most astounded when my office was informed that, under instruction from the Mayor of Cape Town [Helen Zille], I had been disinvited to speak at your farewell,” Rasool wrote.

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/ 13 December 2007

Joe Slovo ‘relocation’ in court’s hands

The proposed relocation of residents of Joe Slovo informal settlement is a bid to reverse century-old wrongs, the Cape High Court was told on Thursday. Cape Judge President John Hlophe was hearing an application by provincial authorities for permission to relocate the community, currently living in shacks alongside Cape Town’s N2 highway.

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/ 13 December 2007

Pikoli inquiry now awaiting submissions

Justice and Constitutional Development Minister Brigitte Mabandla has until January 15 to file her submissions with the Ginwala commission of inquiry into National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli. According to the rules and timeframes for the inquiry, Pikoli has until January 31 to do the same.

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/ 13 December 2007

DA fumes over unanswered questions

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has called for effective sanction of government departments for failing to answer written parliamentary questions after 233 of its questions went unanswered this year. Thirteen percent (233) of the 1 690 written parliamentary questions posed by the party this year remained unanswered on Wednesday.

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/ 13 December 2007

ANC on knife edge ahead of Polokwane

President Thabo Mbeki risks being cast aside by his party next week in favour of an arch rival who may yet be charged with corruption. Mbeki still has two years left as head of state but analysts say a defeat at the hands of Jacob Zuma in the African National (ANC) Congress leadership contest could leave him a lame duck.

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/ 12 December 2007

Winnie’s solution moots Zuma presidency

Controversial African National Congress (ANC) veteran Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has proposed ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma become South Africa’s president in 2009 and that a ”solution” be found for the legal difficulties confronting him. According to a statement issued by her office, Madikizela-Mandela on Wednesday spelled out her ”intervention proposal”.

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/ 12 December 2007

Joe Slovo residents fight eviction in court

The Cape High Court is to deliver judgement on Thursday morning in an application launched by about 20 000 residents of the Joe Slovo informal settlement to stop their eviction and relocation. After hearing argument all day on Wednesday for and against the evictions, Judge President John Hlophe said he needed time to think about everything.

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/ 12 December 2007

SA ‘stands ready’ to deliver on climate change

There is no longer any excuse for any country to ignore climate change and South Africa will contribute its fair share, Environmental Affairs Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said on Wednesday. Speaking at the United Nations climate-change conference in Bali, he said 12 years after the Kyoto Protocol the world was faced with further alarming scientific findings.

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/ 12 December 2007

Nationwide slowly resumes operations

Nationwide Airlines is gradually resuming its operations, with three of its 17 aircraft already back in service. The airline’s Boeing 767-300 service to London, which resumed last week, is operating as normal and two of its 737-500 aircraft are now being used on domestic flights, company spokesperson Charmaine Thome said on Wednesday.

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/ 11 December 2007

DA: Govt’s Land Bank claims suspicious

The assertion by the Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs that all is well at the Land Bank and there has been significant progress in the past three months ”does not fly”, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Tuesday. It is common knowledge that ”the situation at the Land Bank has been all but rosy,” DA spokesperson Kraai van Niekerk said.

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/ 11 December 2007

DA slams Eskom’s lack of warning on load shedding

The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) says it is quite unacceptable that Eskom does not give adequate warning to the public about its load shedding. "It is a crying shame that Eskom can paralyse the economic powerhouse of Africa — Gauteng province — every time it needs to do maintenance to power-generating equipment," the DA said on Tuesday.

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/ 10 December 2007

Tutu likens US and UK policies to apartheid

Archbishop Desmond Tutu accused the United States and Britain on Monday of pursuing policies like those of South Africa’s apartheid-era government by detaining terrorism suspects without trial. He said the detention of suspected al-Qaeda members at the US naval base in Guantánamo Bay was a ”huge blot on a democracy”.

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/ 10 December 2007

‘One hundred percent burns are always fatal’

An elderly British tourist found dead after a fire on Table Mountain could have died of a heart attack, the doctor who did the post-mortem examination conceded on Monday at the trial of British national Anthony Cooper, who is alleged to have started the fire in January last year by tossing a burning cigarette butt on to dry grass.

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/ 9 December 2007

South African politics are a joke, seriously

As the African National Congress prepares for its elective conference in Polokwane on December 16, satirists have not run short of gags designed to cut the party’s members down to size. ”The satirist in South Africa today has become probably more of a psychiatrist than an entertainer,” says comedian Pieter-Dirk Uys.

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/ 7 December 2007

Pollsmoor whistle-blower gets his job back

The Cape Town Labour Court has ordered that whistle-blowing prison doctor Paul Theron get his job in Pollsmoor back. He was suspended after telling the Inspecting Judge of Prisons and a parliamentary committee about what he said was an acute healthcare crisis at Pollsmoor, including chronic understaffing and lack of disease control.

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/ 7 December 2007

MPs slam 2010 transport plans

Parliament’s transport portfolio committee has tabled a scathing report on the country’s transport preparedness to host the 2010 Soccer World Cup. The report, circulated in Parliament on Friday, says that at present there is only one senior official, a chief director, who is working full time on 2010 in the Department of Transport.

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/ 7 December 2007

Yengeni policeman faces criminal probe

Police are investigating charges of corruption and obstruction of justice against a senior Cape Town policeman involved in Tony Yengeni’s alleged drunk-driving saga. Provincial police spokesperson Novel Potelwa said that Goodwood station commissioner, Senior Superintendent Siphiwe Hewana, had also been suspended without pay, and faced an internal disciplinary hearing.