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/ 24 October 2007
A case of assault has been opened with the police in Vryheid on Tuesday after a daughter of Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi was struck by chairs during a KwaZulu-Natal legislature session. African National Congress and IFP leaders clashed over issues of service delivery moments before the chair throwing occurred.
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/ 23 October 2007
The Inkatha Freedom Party and the Democratic Alliance on Tuesday boycotted a sitting of the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) legislature in Vryheid. The boycott follows an incident on Monday when chairs were thrown during the sitting of the legislature, which is being held as part of the KwaZulu-Natal government’s policy of ”taking the government to the people”.
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/ 20 October 2007
A crack team of detectives was on Friday hunting for the killers of reggae star Lucky Dube as public outrage against violent crime mounted. Gauteng’s police commissioner Perumal Naidoo has hand-picked a team of investigators to track down Dube’s killers.
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/ 19 October 2007
The news of the death of South African reggae star Lucky Dube in a botched hijacking attempt in Johannesburg has drawn strong reaction from around the world. As he was leaving for the World Cup in France, President Thabo Mbeki made an appeal to South Africans to confront the ”scourge” of crime together.
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/ 19 October 2007
Johannesburg police were on Friday looking for three men driving a blue Volkswagen Polo believed to have been involved in the murder of reggae star Lucky Dube (43). The musician was shot dead in a botched hijacking in Rosettenville at about 8.20pm on Thursday night, said a police spokesperson.
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/ 16 October 2007
Political parties on Tuesday paid tribute to outgoing Democratic Party MP Douglas Gibson, who is leaving Parliament to take up a post as South Africa’s ambassador to Thailand. The African National Congress said despite the fact that Gibson had previously said things that offended its MPs, it would always respect his courage.
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/ 16 October 2007
African National Congress chairperson Mosiuoa Lekota in the National Assembly on Tuesday defended the decision to suspend National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli, as well as the police probe into the alleged theft of Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s health records.
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/ 14 October 2007
”It’s not like we’re England,” said the old woman sharing a flask of coffee with her middle-aged daughter on the train from Geneva to Zurich. ”They had the colonies, and we didn’t,” she adds, to explain the nature of Britain’s racial mix and why Switzerland does not need one. ”I worry,” says her daughter, ”there will be a putsch against him.”
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/ 12 October 2007
Media reports of parents incurring R300 fines for smacking their children are inaccurate, a senior African National Congress (ANC) member of Parliament’s social development portfolio committee said on Friday. Statements to that effect were ”quoted out of context”, MP Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu said in a statement.
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/ 10 October 2007
Parents will have to cough up at least R300 for giving children a clip on the ear if they are prosecuted under the proposed Children’s Act, a media report said on Tuesday. The new law stipulates that no form of corporal punishment is legal and a child may not be punished in a way that is ”cruel, inhuman or degrading”.
Nine senior advocates from the Cape Bar, some of them former acting judges, have publicly called on Cape Judge President John Hlophe to quit. ”We believe that there cannot be public confidence in the continuation in office now of Judge Hlophe,” they said in a letter published on Tuesday.
The lack of legislation regulating the conduct of judges has resulted in Cape Judge President John Hlophe getting away with a ”slap on the wrist”, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Friday. DA spokesperson on justice Sheila Camerer said Hlophe’s case highlighted the need to expedite the passing of such legislation.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has urged the speaker of the National Assembly to urgently reconvene Parliament so that President Thabo Mbeki can explain his reasons for suspending the National Director of Public Prosecutions, Vusi Pikoli. In a letter to the speaker, DA parliamentary leader Sandra Botha said the National Assembly has an obligation to deal with ”the crisis”.
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/ 25 September 2007
Yasuo Fukuda, a seasoned moderate lawmaker, was chosen as Japan’s Prime Minister on Tuesday, then tapped veteran ministers from his predecessor’s Cabinet to confront a resurgent opposition keen to force an election. The Liberal Democratic Party chose Fukuda as its leader to revive party fortunes after a disastrous year of scandals.
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/ 24 September 2007
President Thabo Mbeki has suspended Vusi Pikoli, the National Director of Public Prosecutions, it was announced on Monday. Mokotedi Mpshe was named as acting director. The move to suspend Pikoli — met with shock and disbelief by opposition political parties — comes amid a bitter turf war between the police and the Scorpions that has escalated to Cabinet level.
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/ 23 September 2007
Japan’s ruling party on Sunday picked Yasuo Fukuda, who seeks warmer ties with Asian neighbours, to succeed Shinzo Abe as prime minister in an effort to revive the party’s fortunes and fill a political vacuum. Fukuda will be chosen as prime minister on Tuesday by virtue of the ruling camp’s huge majority in Parliament’s Lower House.
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/ 20 September 2007
The controversial Constitution 13th Amendment Bill was passed in the National Assembly on Thursday, despite opposition from the Democratic Alliance and the Inkatha Freedom Party, among others. The Bill seeks to realign certain provincial borders to avoid municipal boundaries straddling them.
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/ 17 September 2007
United States President George Bush was planning to announce on Monday he had chosen former federal judge Michael Mukasey as his nominee for Attorney General, the White House said. Mukasey (66) would replace Alberto Gonzales, who resigned last month.
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/ 14 September 2007
Japan’s political crisis deepened when the Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, was admitted to hospital suffering from exhaustion less than 24 hours after suddenly announcing his resignation. Abe (52) was seen by a doctor on Thursday morning after feeling unwell and was admitted to Keio hospital in Tokyo later in the day.
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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
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe abruptly announced his resignation on Wednesday after a year in power dogged by scandals, an election rout and a crisis over Japan’s support for United States-led operations in Afghanistan. The hawkish Abe, who took office promising to boost Japan’s global security profile, had seen his clout dwindle.
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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.
Despite persistent incredulous questioning by opposition parties, President Thabo Mbeki insisted on Thursday that the Zimbabwean government, the two factions of the Movement for Democratic Change and representatives of civil society are engaged in talks that will produce conditions for holding free and fair elections next March in an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity.
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) is set to entrench its political dominance with a 15-day window period opening this week to allow elected officials to swap party allegiance without losing their seats. The opposition is likely to be further fragmented as representatives at the national, provincial and municipal government levels are free to cross the floor.
The DP was rocked last night by another resignation as recriminations grew over the reasons behind the shock ”retirement” of co-leader Wynand Malan.