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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.
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/ 5 September 2007
The latest spending patterns by provincial departments show a measurable improvement, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Wednesday. Although provinces still face capacity challenges, there is improvement, he told journalists during the Treasury’s tabling of provincial budgets and expenditure review in Parliament.
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/ 5 September 2007
African National Congress national chairperson Mosiuoa Lekota has defended his negative remarks about people singing freedom songs such as Umshini Wami, saying the issue was not about ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma, but about policy. ”These liberation and freedom songs are not pop songs … which we sing for personal entertainment here and there,” he said.
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/ 5 September 2007
The Cape High Court on Wednesday confirmed an earlier ruling to refuse bail for Najwa Petersen, who is charged with the murder of her celebrity husband, Taliep. Her appeal was launched before acting Judge John Whitehead.
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/ 5 September 2007
The Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Western Cape suffered a further blow on Wednesday with the defection of two of its senior MPLs to the African National Congress (ANC). The defecting members are DA provincial chairperson Kent Morkel and Kobus Brynard, who is a member of the provincial executive.
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/ 5 September 2007
Reformed Hard Livings gang leader Rashied Staggie was on Wednesday found not guilty of the revenge murder of taxi driver Mogamat Ryklief. Staggie appeared in the Cape High Court before Judge Nathan Erasmus, who labelled the only state witness, Donavan Richards, as a ”good liar who manipulated words to suit himself”.
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/ 4 September 2007
Government incompetence and not apartheid is to blame for the Land Bank’s woes, says the Freedom Front Plus (FF+). ”Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Lulama Xingwana’s accusation that the current problems of the Land Bank are the direct result of apartheid is a lame excuse,” FF+ agriculture and land affairs spokesperson Pieter Groenewald said on Tuesday.
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/ 4 September 2007
The proposed compulsory disclosure of race and nationality for all property registrations is re-racialisation and bad for the economy, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Tuesday. ”Re-racialising land ownership will hamper investment and misses the point,” DA spokesperson on land affairs Maans Nel said in a statement.
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/ 4 September 2007
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel has ruled out fixing the price of bread in South Africa. ”If we try and cap prices here we will create all manner of difficulties for ourselves,” he told MPs in the National Assembly on Tuesday. Manuel was responding to a call from Pan Africanist Congress MP Motsoko Pheko to fix the bread price.
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/ 4 September 2007
White women should be struck off a list of groups recognised as previously disadvantaged in terms of the employment equity legislation, the Black Management Forum said on Tuesday. In its written submission, the forum requested that the current employment equity legislation be amended to exclude white women as beneficiaries.
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/ 4 September 2007
The embattled Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) has suffered a further blow with the defection of its deputy president Themba Godi and two MPLs to the newly formed African People’s Convention (APC). Godi’s move to the APC was announced by National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete at the start of proceedings on Tuesday.
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/ 4 September 2007
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the Young Communists League took issue on Tuesday with African National Congress national chairperson Mosiuoa Lekota over his remarks about those singing the freedom song, Umshini Wami. ”We respect comrade Lekota’s views but we disagree with them strongly,” Cosatu said in a statement.
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/ 4 September 2007
Former Hard Livings gang leader Rashied Staggie has decided not to testify in his murder trial in the Cape High Court. His advocate, Koos Louw, closed his client’s case on Tuesday morning without calling any witnesses. Staggie is charged with the August 1996 killing of taxi driver Mogamat Ryklief, allegedly in revenge for the slaying three days earlier of Staggie’s twin brother.
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/ 4 September 2007
A man who was recently released on bail, charged with allowing dog fights at his home, on Monday almost landed back in Pollsmoor Prison for arriving late at court. When Cape Town prosecutor Miriam Motsoahae called Wayne Browers’ name, he did not respond.
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/ 3 September 2007
The floor-crossing saga took another turn on Monday as the African National Congress claimed control of the Drakenstein and Knysna municipalities. Meanwhile, the ID’s caucus leader in the Cape Town city council, Simon Grindrod, strongly criticised former ID councillor David Sasman, now leader of the National People’s Party.
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/ 3 September 2007
Officials of South Africa’s Parliament boasted on Monday that for the first time since 2003/04 the institution had received a clean bill of financial health from the Auditor General. There is, according to the secretary of Parliament, Zingile Dingani, no qualification and no matter of emphasis in the report.
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/ 3 September 2007
The leader of South Africa’s main opposition party on Monday said floor-crossing would not change the balance of power in Cape Town, the only major city not controlled by the ruling African National Congress (ANC). The DA opposes floor-crossing, which it says favours the ANC and weakens democracy.
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/ 2 September 2007
Uncertainty over the future of Cape Town’s coalition government continued on Sunday as the newly formed National People’s Party claimed to have secured the allegiance of 10 councillors. The coalition, led by the Democratic Alliance, holds power by a majority of 20 in the 210-seat council.
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/ 1 September 2007
After all the drama of the court cases that preceded it, the floor-crossing window got off to a low-key start on Saturday. The only excitement was provided by a senior African Christian Democratic Party politician in the Western Cape, Johan Kriel, who accompanied his move to the Democratic Alliance (DA) with a blistering attack on ACDP leader, Kenneth Meshoe.
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/ 1 September 2007
A number of local councillors and one member of a provincial legislature have crossed over to the Democratic Alliance (DA) since the floor-crossing window opened at midnight, DA federal chairperson James Selfe said on Saturday. ”There is a steady trickle of people to us, but it’s a trickle, not a flood, and that’s as we anticipated it,” he said.
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/ 1 September 2007
The first politician to publicly announce he was crossing the floor did so on Saturday with a blistering attack on his former leader, president of the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) Kenneth Meshoe. ”He thinks he is president for life, anointed and appointed, and that the only one who can unappoint him is God,” said a disillusioned Johan Kriel.
A Cape High Court judge on Friday reserved judgement in Najwa Petersen’s appeal against a magistrate’s refusal to grant her bail. Petersen, who was not in court, is appealing last month’s decision by Wynberg regional magistrate Robert Henney. She and three alleged hired hit men are charged with the murder of her husband, entertainer Taliep Petersen, in December last year.