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/ 27 February 2007
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
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
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
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
The president of the South African Rugby Union (Saru), Oregan Hoskins, on Friday called on the country’s provinces and Super 14 franchises to raise their transformation game. Saru came under fire in Parliament this week about a shortage of black players in its Super 14 teams.
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/ 24 February 2007
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
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 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
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.
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/ 15 February 2007
On Tuesday, a spokesperson for Cricket South Africa revealed that batsman HD Ackerman had been suspended for three matches following an on-field altercation with an opponent. One of the charges laid was that HD’s actions ”brought the game into disrepute”. Ja nee Lemmer reckons he did that just by pulling on his shirt and advertising the slimeball of the week.
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/ 14 February 2007
Fidentia executive chairperson Arthur Brown and his cronies are responsible for reducing R2-billion in other people’s savings to a meagre R8,5-million. This claim emerged on Monday night when one of the curators of Fidentia, forensic accountant George Papadakis, said that about R8,5-million is left in the company’s ”larder”.
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/ 13 February 2007
Most municipalities in the Eastern Cape are in chaos, a provincial government lekgotla (meeting) agreed on Tuesday, South African Broadcasting Corporation radio news reported. Provincial minister Sam Kwelita said participants agreed that the government needs to take action on the condition of municipalities.
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/ 12 February 2007
All the assets of financial-services firm Fidentia will be used to recover millions of rands it cannot account for, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported on Monday. It said this was decided at a meeting in Cape Town earlier in the day between curators and officials of the transport Seta (Sector Education and Training Authority).
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/ 12 February 2007
Drastic new measures have been proposed to stop the spread of the virulent strain of tuberculosis (TB) that has claimed at least five lives in the Eastern Cape. It was reported on Monday that the suggested steps include infection monitoring at airports and border posts and the isolation of patients — even against their will.
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/ 8 February 2007
South Africa is not experiencing a heatwave, the South African Weather Service said on Thursday. ”It is close to a heatwave, but it [the temperature] will be cooling down rapidly tomorrow [Friday],” said spokesperson Garth Sampson. He said a heatwave is measured in the smallest province of the country, which is Gauteng.
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/ 7 February 2007
The European Union has earmarked R9-billion in development funding for South Africa over the next seven years, EU ambassador to South Africa Lodewijk Briët announced on Wednesday. ”We want to work with South Africa to enhance its democratic roots … and to help South Africa and Southern Africa, and all of sub-Saharan Africa, to move ahead,” he said at a briefing in Cape Town.
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/ 5 February 2007
Almost 35% of the total South African personal income of R1,232-billion accrued to Gauteng in 2006, followed by KwaZulu-Natal with 16,3% and the Western Cape with 14,7%, a new report showed on Monday. Gauteng led the pack despite the 2005 boundary changes that favoured the Northern Cape.
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/ 5 February 2007
Shipped halfway across the world to Asia as a seafood delicacy, abalone has become a prized commodity for South African entrepreneurs as well as criminals who have poached the mollusc almost to extinction. Known colloquially in South Africa as ”perlemoen”, abalone is so endangered the government has drastically reduced the total allowable catch.
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/ 31 January 2007
A R50-million biomass fuel-pellet project has been launched at the Coega Industrial Development Zone near Port Elizabeth, South African Broadcasting Corporation news reported on Wednesday. The plant is expected to create thousands of jobs when it starts production in July.
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/ 31 January 2007
In a major crackdown on alcohol abuse, liquor-outlet owners in the Eastern Cape who sell booze to drunk patrons could be held liable if drunken customers cause harm to others. Bingeing boozers also face being monitored when they are out on the town — and may be banned from the province’s pubs and taverns.
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/ 30 January 2007
Provincial health departments in the nine provinces of the country are in a state of paralysis due to corruption and neglect, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Tuesday. ”A DA analysis of the nine provincial health departments reveals a pattern of neglect, mismanagement and blatant corruption,” DA health spokesperson Gareth Morgan said on Tuesday.
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/ 30 January 2007
After initially declining, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) on Tuesday accepted an invitation by Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana to attend a ritual ceremony where a bull will be slaughtered. ”As a leader of our country the minister is sure to uphold the law,” said SPCA executive director Marcelle Meredith.
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/ 30 January 2007
A 45-year-old Butterworth woman was arrested after she shot dead her son, mistaking him for an attacker, Eastern Cape police said on Tuesday. Captain Jackson Manatha said the woman was having a fist fight with a neighbour when her 15-year-old son tried to intervene at around 8pm on Monday.
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/ 30 January 2007
Two Eastern Cape universities have, incredibly, slashed their debt over the past year, the Daily Dispatch reported on its website on Monday. Fort Hare’s debt is down from R78-million to R15-million, and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University’s debt is down from R101,9-million at the end of 2005 to R15-million.
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/ 29 January 2007
Sending young men to the army could help end violent crime, Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana said over the weekend. ”The worrying trend whereby our youths are involved in the current spate of armed robberies and other related violent crimes that are ravaging our country could be reversed once they join the army,” he said.
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/ 26 January 2007
The Eastern Cape had temperatures so high on Friday that they were almost hazardous to health, the South African Weather Service said. ”Both Port Elizabeth and East London are at around a discomfort index of 107,” said spokesperson Garth Sampson, adding that an index of 110 is hazardous to health.
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/ 26 January 2007
A niece and a nephew of mine started school this year. The inevitable conversations about uniforms and school bags, alongside blanket coverage of schools’ opening day, drove home several unpleasant realities about our education system. I am glad that Warona and Sinesipo wake up to schools that are better resourced than the one I first enrolled in at the beginning of 1978, writes Pumla Dineo Gqola.
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/ 25 January 2007
No dates have yet been set for the scrapping of taxis in Gauteng, Transport Department spokesperson Sam Monareng said on Thursday. Dates have also yet to be set for the destruction of old vehicles in the North West, Limpopo and Mpumalanga, he said. All Monareng could indicate was that dates would be announced ”soon”.
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/ 24 January 2007
World acclaimed female boxer Laila Ali is looking for male sparring partners to help her prepare for her world super middleweight title defence against Gwendolyn O’Neill at Emperor’s Palace, east of Johannesburg, on February 3. This was disclosed by the promoters of the fight, Golden Gloves Promotion, after Ali arrived in the country on Tuesday.
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/ 23 January 2007
South African cities due to host the 2010 Soccer World Cup complained on Tuesday of funding shortfalls of millions of rand to build stadiums for the continent’s biggest sporting event. Estimates have swelled due to inflation and exchange-rate fluctuations, officials told a parliamentary sport committee.
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/ 21 January 2007
Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq hit 92 not out to dampen the celebrations of Makhaya Ntini, who took his 300th wicket for South Africa in the second Test on Saturday. South Africa were 115 for three in their second innings at the close of the second day, a deficit of 26 runs.
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/ 20 January 2007
First National Bank (FNB) is to spend R50-million on standby generators and uninterrupted power supply units at its branches nationwide in response to power failures, it said on Friday. FNB said about R15,5-million [of the total amount] had already gone towards generators at 63 branches.