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/ 12 September 2007
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Minnows Zimbabwe upset tournament favourites Australia in the first shock of the Twenty20 World Championship at Newlands on Wednesday. Opening batsman Brendan Taylor guided Zimbabwe to a five-wicket win after Australia limped to 138-9 in their 20 overs after choosing to bat on a slow pitch.
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/ 12 September 2007
Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu vehemently denied on Wednesday that she was contemplating forced removals from Cape Town’s troubled Joe Slovo settlement. But in the same breath she said she had instructed her department ”to investigate legal avenues to compel residents of informal settlements to make way for housing developments”.
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/ 12 September 2007
Farmers who evict tenant workers illegally will have their land expropriated, Deputy Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Dirk du Toit warned on Wednesday. ”Those people who don’t want to hear, we are not only going to take them to court, we are going to also take their land away from them,” he told MPs in the National Assembly.
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/ 12 September 2007
Thanks to floor-crossing, the African National Congress (ANC) has at last secured a clear two-thirds majority in the Morkel family. The decisive moment came on Wednesday when the last of the Morkel brothers, Craig, joined the party. But the patriarch, former premier Gerald Morkel, has no intention of following in his sons’ footsteps.
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/ 12 September 2007
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has condemned the absence of ”working-class representatives” on the final list of names for the new South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) board approved by the National Assembly’s communications committee.
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/ 12 September 2007
In the latest twist in the current floor-crossing saga the African National Congress (ANC), despite all its previous protestations about taking firm action against members of Parliament convicted of fraud, on Wednesday accepted into their ranks Craig Morkel, who was convicted of fraud and theft in the Travelgate debacle.
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/ 12 September 2007
Mpumalanga and North West have spent R166-million on strike recovery measures, Education Minister Naledi Pandor told the National Council of Provinces on Tuesday. Replying to oral questions, Pandor said Mpumalanga had spent R96-million on teacher remuneration for Saturday and holiday classes.
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/ 11 September 2007
The arrest of Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille was an attempt to settle political battles with state resources, the Western Cape office of the Congress of South African Trade Unions said on Tuesday. The Cosatu statement coincided with a brief appearance by Zille and 10 other people in the Mitchells Plain Magistrate’s Court.
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/ 11 September 2007
The United Independent Front (UIF) lost both its representatives in the National Assembly on Tuesday when they crossed the floor to the African National Congress. Its single proportional seat in the National Council of Provinces could also be in danger after one of its two Western Cape MPLs also defected to the ANC.
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/ 11 September 2007
Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu on Tuesday threatened forced removals in the wake of this week’s housing protests in Cape Town. ”Until now, no attempts have been made to force residents of the informal settlement at Joe Slovo to move,” she said in a statement.
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/ 11 September 2007
State-owned broadcast signal distributor Sentech is protesting that it simply does not have enough money to do its job properly. Writing in the company’s annual report, chairperson Colin Hickling points out that it has been proved impossible to roll out a national broadband radio network until extra funds are received from the government.
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/ 11 September 2007
The policy of affirmative action in South Africa will remain, despite calls from some labour unions to end it, the chief executive of Business Unity South Africa told Parliament on Tuesday. Since the end of apartheid, the government has targeted black South Africans, women and the disabled for preferential treatment when it comes to jobs which they previously had no access to.
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/ 11 September 2007
The National Assembly’s communications committee on Tuesday recommended 12 names for the new South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) board, including six current board members. The six are Alison Gilwald, Andile Mbeki, Fadila Lagadien, Khanyisile Mkhonza, Christine Qunta and Ashwin Trikamjee.
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/ 10 September 2007
South African President Thabo Mbeki opened an international biotechnology centre on Monday that aims to develop vaccines for HIV/Aids and other diseases that kill thousands of Africans daily. The Cape Town-based branch of the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology will focus on infectious diseases including malaria and tuberculosis.
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/ 10 September 2007
The Democratic Alliance (DA) had a ”lively” exchange of views with National Assembly speaker Baleka Mbete on Monday in a meeting held to discuss her suspension of DA MP Mike Waters. The meeting was also aimed at discussing Mbete’s ruling as out of order a question, asked by Waters, about Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s theft conviction.
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/ 10 September 2007
Cape Town city councillor Badhi Chaaban said on Monday he is a member of both the African Muslim Party (AMP) and the newly formed National People’s Party (NPP), as both allow dual membership. But he has asked the AMP leadership for permission to formally cross to the NPP, taking his council seat with him.
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/ 10 September 2007
The situation at the scene of a housing protest at the Joe Slovo informal settlement in Langa, which earlier shut the N2 highway between Cape Town and the airport, is under control, said Captain Elliot Sinyangana of the Cape Town police on Monday. ”Situation is calm at present, but we are monitoring the situation. The roads are clear and people can use the N2,” he said.
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/ 10 September 2007
Namibia and Zambia both pulled off shock wins in the African Nations Cup qualifiers at the weekend to book their places at the 2008 finals in Ghana. They were joined by fellow group winners Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal while 2010 World Cup hosts South Africa sneaked in the back door.
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/ 10 September 2007
Police arrested Democratic Alliance (DA) leader and Cape Town mayor Helen Zille on Sunday in connection with a protest she led against drug lords wreaking havoc in Cape Town’s poor districts. DA councillor Grant Pascoe said Zille was arrested after she went to a police station to inquire about the arrest of a religious leader who had participated in the protest.
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/ 9 September 2007
Western Province at last recorded a win over Absa Currie Cup rugby frontrunners when they beat the Sharks in a hard fought match at Newlands on Saturday. The first half belonged to the men in the hooped jerseys and the home team led 16-6 at halftime with the WP looseforwards dominating at the breakdown.
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/ 7 September 2007
The South African government’s attitude to global warming was very encouraging, chief scientific adviser to the British government David King said on Friday. The South African-born King, who is in the country for a series of ministerial meetings on a range of issues, also gave the thumbs-up to this country’s planned pebble-bed modular nuclear reactor.
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/ 7 September 2007
German soccer legend Franz Beckenbauer visited the construction site of Cape Town’s 2010 Soccer World Cup stadium on Friday and declared himself ”very, very impressed” with preparations. ”I am very, very impressed with the construction going on in Cape Town and it’s fantastic what the people in South Africa are doing in preparing themselves for the World Cup in 2010,” he said.
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/ 7 September 2007
One of the Cape Town councillors embroiled in the city’s floor-crossing battle said on Friday she did not know what party she belonged to any more. Georgina Sass was one of five Independent Democrats members that the newly formed National People’s Party claimed on Thursday had defected to it.
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/ 7 September 2007
The Democratic Alliance (DA) is looking at the legality of the Tshwane metro council’s reported ban on ”white businesses”, and the matter could even end up in the Constitutional Court, DA leader Helen Zille said on Friday. ”Such a resolution amounts to naked racism and flies in the face of the Constitution,” she said in her weekly online newsletter, SA Today.
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/ 6 September 2007
Democratic Alliance (DA) MP Mike Waters has been suspended from Parliament following his outburst in the National Assembly on Wednesday. At the start of proceedings in the House on Thursday afternoon, speaker Baleka Mbete described his conduct of the day before as ”outrageous, disrespectful and grossly disorderly”.
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/ 6 September 2007
Former leader of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Juan Uys has thrown his weight behind the newly created National People’s Party (NPP). He said on Thursday that he had also taken up a post as personal assistant to controversial Cape Town city councillor Badhi Chaaban. He said that the NPP appointed him as its media liaison officer this week.
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/ 6 September 2007
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel told Parliament on Thursday that total spending by all three spheres of government in the financial year to March was R5,3-billion rand less than had been appropriated. Much of the underspending was blamed on lack of capacity.
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/ 6 September 2007
The majority of the members of the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) walked out of the National Assembly on Thursday after speaker Baleka Mbete officially suspended one of them for five days. Health spokesperson Mike Waters upset the speaker on Wednesday when he challenged her ruling that a question directed to Manto Tshabalala Msimang was out of order.
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/ 6 September 2007
The newly formed National People’s Party (NPP) on Thursday claimed that five former members of the Independent Democrats (ID) had crossed the floor, bringing their Cape Town metro seats with them. However, the ID said two of the five — Abdulla Omar and Aaron Kallie — were expelled from the party before the floor-crossing window opened.
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/ 6 September 2007
The South African Cabinet was concerned about the level of fraud that led to the distribution of faulty condoms that might have exposed people to HIV. ”All those implicated in the scam will face the full force of the law,” government spokesperson Themba Maseko told the media on Thursday.
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/ 6 September 2007
The South African Cabinet has appointed Eskom as the ”only” buyer of power from independent power producers. Briefing the media on Thursday, the day after Cabinet’s fortnightly meeting, government spokesperson Themba Maseko said the Cabinet had resolved that Eskom become the only buyer.
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/ 5 September 2007
There was an uproar in the National Assembly on Wednesday when a Democratic Alliance MP was ordered to leave after a written question he posed to the health minister was ruled out of order. The question was whether the minister had been convicted of theft and whether she had disclosed this information to President Thabo Mbeki.