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/ 15 March 2007

Zille to run for DA leadership

Cape Town mayor Helen Zille says she will stand for the post of Democratic Alliance leader at the party’s federal congress in May this year. She made the announcement at a Cape Town Press Club dinner on Thursday evening, a year to the day after being elected mayor of Cape Town.

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/ 11 March 2007

Report: ANC told to repay Kebble millions

Trustees of Brett Kebble’s estate have issued notices of demand to the African National Congress (ANC) to repay millions it had received from the slain mining magnate, the Sunday Times reported. The notices demanded the return of ”R24-million in stolen money paid to the ANC and leading members from Kebble’s personal account between 2002 and 2005”.

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/ 10 March 2007

Leon: SA needs to throw off ‘ethnic blinkers’

South Africa still has a long way to go to throw off its ”ethnic blinkers”, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said, referring to his party’s leadership race. ”We are still held back by the prejudices and wrong-headed decisions of the past,” Leon told the party’s Gauteng congress at the Benoni High School on the East Rand.

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/ 8 March 2007

March 3 to March 8 2007

No Hout Bay ‘apartheid’ Your coverage of Hout Bay is simplistic and immoral. It is not an “apartheid” conflict, as you suggest, with racist, affluent whites on one side and poor, victimised black people on the other. It is about upholding the law and trying to find a humane and practical solution to unhealthy, overcrowded […]

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/ 8 March 2007

Johncom increases stake in CareerJunction

Johnnic Communications, the JSE-listed media and entertainment group, has increased its stake in online recruitment-services company CareerJunction. The acquisition of a further 25% of CareerJunction from permanent recruitment services and flexible staffing sector company Adcorp Holdings will raise Johncom’s shareholding to 85%.

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/ 7 March 2007

Safety violations exposed by labour blitz

Fifty out of 85 construction employers were found to be violating workplace safety regulations during an on-site crackdown by labour inspectors in the Eastern Cape, the Labour Department said on Wednesday. Department spokesperson Zolisa Sigabi said seven construction sites had been shut down and an additional 48 contravention notices were served.

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/ 6 March 2007

E Cape housing delivery criticised

The ”dismal” state of housing delivery in the Eastern Cape needs national intervention, a public watchdog organisation said on Tuesday. Public Service Accountability Monitor researcher Chantelle de Nobrega said the province would not meet a nationally set target to eradicate informal settlements by 2014 without help.

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/ 6 March 2007

Fidentia boss behind bars

Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown, the man at the centre of what could be South Africa’s biggest-ever corporate-investment scandal, is behind bars. He and group accountant Graham Maddock were arrested by the Scorpions at their luxurious Cape Town homes shortly after 8am on Tuesday.

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/ 4 March 2007

Trollip: DA in need of courageous leader

The Democratic Alliance (DA) needs a courageous leader who will be able to challenge and engage the African National Congress when it errs, DA Eastern Cape leader Athol Trollip said on Sunday. He said this will create a vigorous, rational and open-debate in a society that sought solutions to problems faced by the country.

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/ 2 March 2007

Searching for Looksmart

A small blackboard and a pointed archaeologist’s trowel lay on top of pauper’s grave number 5 910 in Mamelodi West cemetery where Looksmart Ngudle’s family hoped to find his remains. Chalked on the blackboard was ”Mam-07/001 (5910) 01-03-2007”, for the forensic anthropology team’s photographic record of the exhumation.

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/ 2 March 2007

Policing the rainbow nation

The sudden upsurge in right-wing Afrikaner mobilisation and the purge of Somali traders from Port Elizabeth’s Motherwell township both underscore how far South Africa still has to travel in dealing with diversity and xenophobia to stem inter-group hatred and find the holy grail of non-racialism.

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/ 1 March 2007

SA group wants F1 circuit in Cape Town

A South African company said on Thursday that it was bidding to build a Formula One race circuit near Cape Town’s international airport at an estimated cost of R1-billion. David Gant, chief executive of the South African Grand Prix Corporation, told reporters the project could be scuttled by land problems.

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/ 28 February 2007

Top school refuses to admit ‘bad’ pupil

A prestigious Eastern Cape high school is embroiled in a legal battle after refusing to accept a teenager because of her alleged ”bad” behaviour, the Dispatch reported on Wednesday. The classroom drama pits the 14-year-old girl, her parents and the Education Department against Queenstown Girls’ High School.

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/ 27 February 2007

E Cape reverses health brain drain

The Eastern Cape’s health services brain drain is being turned around with more than double the number of health professionals recruited than resigned in the past year, the provincial health department said on Tuesday. Spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said the Eastern Cape had managed to recruit about 3 600 new employees, mostly clinicians, in the financial year now ending.

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/ 27 February 2007

Coetzee out of DA leadership race

Democratic Alliance (DA) CEO Ryan Coetzee has put paid to rumours he might make himself available for election as DA leader when incumbent Tony Leon relinquishes the reins in May. In a terse statement on Tuesday, Coetzee said only: ”In response to ongoing speculation I wish to confirm that I will not be standing for the leadership of the DA.”

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/ 27 February 2007

(True) myths of Egoli

On the savannah plains of Africa, there is perhaps no greater body of myths than those about the city, and none are more fanciful than those about Johannesburg, variously known out there as Jozi, Jubheki and Egoli. It is the ill fortune of Pretoria always to tag along in the shadow cast by mammoth Johannesburg.

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/ 26 February 2007

Seremane enters DA leadership race

Democratic Alliance (DA) national chairperson Joe Seremane on Monday announced he will stand for election as his party’s new leader. ”I state it, unequivocally, right now, that I shall make myself available as candidate for the DA leader’s vacancy at our coming congress in May this year,” he told reporters in Cape Town.

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/ 24 February 2007

PE school girls ‘organised cocaine parties’

Port Elizabeth high-school girls were organising ”cocaine parties” via their cellphones, the Herald Online reported on Saturday. At least 20 girls, mainly from high schools in the city, were organising cocaine parties through the cellphone chat service MXit, said Gerrie Cronje, chief executive of a rehabilitation centre.

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/ 22 February 2007

Eagles kick off Pro20 title defence

Former internationals performed well for the Diamond Eagles as they saw off the Eastern Cape Warriors by 61 runs in the opening Standard Bank Pro20 match at Goodyear Park in Bloemfontein on Wednesday. Jacques Rudolph, Morne van Wyk and Nicky Boje were notable as the Eagles began their title defence in impressive fashion.

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/ 19 February 2007

Hunger drives E Cape pupils to suicide, says principal

Hunger and desperation are driving pupils to suicide at a school near Mthatha in the Eastern Cape, the media reported on Monday. Upper Corana High School principal Suthukazi Lujabe said that most pupils walk long distances on empty stomachs to get to school. She said one or two pupils had killed themselves because of hunger every year from 2001 to 2006.

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/ 18 February 2007

Prisoner takes Balfour to court

A prisoner is taking Correctional Services Minister Ngconde Balfour to court after an offer to reduce his sentence failed to materialise, media reports said on Sunday. Balfour allegedly offered Xolani Mahambehlala a sentence remission after he filmed acts of corruption by prison warders in the Eastern and Western Cape.