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/ 7 December 2006
The Department of Education must give teachers detailed salary advice so they know what money is owed to them and what the money is for, the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa said on Thursday. However, the department slammed unions for ”misinformed and inflammatory” remarks.
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/ 7 December 2006
The ruling African National Congress (ANC) was the big winner in the last round of by-elections to take place this year, claiming all but one of the 12 wards contested in results. The municipal by-elections on Wednesday were marked by low voter turnouts, with an 11% turnout at ward three in Mbolela (Nelspruit).
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/ 4 December 2006
Recent union remarks over outstanding payments to teachers are ”misinformed and inflammatory”, the Department of Education said on Monday. A settlement agreement for wage increases has been fulfilled by the department, said spokesperson Lunga Ngqengelele.
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/ 4 December 2006
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The most influential provincial leadership of South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) has voted in favour of President Thabo Mbeki remaining head of the ruling party next year, a potential blow to his former deputy, Jacob Zuma. Political analysts said the resolution signalled the start of the fiercest contest for the leadership of the ANC in its 94-year history.
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/ 4 December 2006
The African National Congress (ANC) in the Eastern Cape on Sunday passed a resolution encouraging Thabo Mbeki to stand for a third term as party leader. The resolution came at the provincial ANC’s three-yearly conference in Alice, a few hours after Mbeki loyalist Stone Sizani was named as the new provincial chairperson.
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/ 3 December 2006
Former Eastern Cape education minister Stone Sizani was on Sunday named as the new chairperson of the African National Congress in the province. He immediately acknowledged he faced a ”huge task” in overcoming the factionalism and divisions that have threatened to cripple the organisation.
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/ 1 December 2006
Problems with delegate registration on Friday caused major hold-ups at the African National Congress’s (ANC) Eastern Cape provincial conference in Alice. Registration, which involves creating a photo identity card for each of the more than 1Â 700 voting delegates, was supposed to have been completed before the opening session on Thursday night.
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/ 1 December 2006
President Thabo Mbeki has warned against people who use the African National Congress (ANC) as a stepladder to reach positions of power, instead of serving the people of South Africa. Speaking at the Eastern Cape ANC’s three-yearly conference in Alice, he said it has become very fashionable to be a member of the party ”and even more fashionable to be a leader of the ANC”.
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/ 29 November 2006
The suspension and ”golden handshake” for former Eastern Cape Treasury superintendent-general Monde Tom cost R4-million, the Public Service Accountability Monitor said on Wednesday. Tom’s 15 month suspension and confidential settlement package were revealed in the Auditor General’s report on the treasury’s 2005/06 annual financial statements.
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/ 24 November 2006
Congress of South Africa Trade Unions (Cosatu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi on Friday condemned the leak of internal reports to the media. The Star reported on Friday that a confidential report had described Cosatu president Willie Madisha as power hungry, dishonest and misled by President Thabo Mbeki.
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/ 24 November 2006
Global aluminium producer Alcan says construction on its R19,5-billion smelter at South Africa’s Coega development zone will start in 2008, and first production is expected before the end of 2010. The company says it will also now begin discussions with potential partners on the project.
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/ 23 November 2006
A total of 303 cases of extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) have been confirmed across the country, the Department of Health said on Thursday. ”They are in the hospitals, they are on treatment. Some of them have died,” said the department’s head of TB, Dr Lindiwe Mvusi. Mvusi did not have details at hand of how many had died.
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/ 22 November 2006
Provincial premiers have been offered R1-billion between them for skills-development programmes but none seem to be interested in picking up the cheques, said the Department of Labour on Wednesday. Department spokesperson Mokgadi Pela said the R1-billion National Skills Fund Strategic Projects are being launched in Dutywa in the Eastern Cape on December 2.
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/ 22 November 2006
Over five million South African pupils and 13Â 000 schools will be exempt from school fees from January, the Department of Education said on Wednesday. ”The Department of Education wishes to announce that all the nine provincial departments of education have submitted their lists of the number of learners and schools [that] would benefit,” the department said in a statement.
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/ 22 November 2006
An East London businessman has taken First National Bank to court over what he claimed was bad investment advice, media reports said on Wednesday. John Alexander is demanding R272 232 in damages from FNB’s Southernwood branch and one of their financial advisers, Michael Ries.
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/ 19 November 2006
A 24-year-old man was arrested in Butterworth for carrying a human head in his luggage at a bus rank in the Eastern Cape on Saturday, police said. Captain Jackson Manatha said the man was arrested around 11am after a tip-off. The man had already been on a bus when police found him and was taken to the police station where a human finger was found in his pocket.
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/ 17 November 2006
A grade eight pupil is to appear in the Frankfort Magistrate’s Court on Friday for allegedly stabbing a classmate, Free State police said. Following the incident on Tuesday at 8am, police arrested an 18-year-old pupil at the Reseng Thabo High School in Tweeling, said Captain Hennie Labuschagne. The victim was in the classroom together with his classmates.
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/ 16 November 2006
A project team has been set up to rectify the recent audit qualifications the Department of Labour has received from the auditor general, the department said on Thursday. Department of Labour director general Vanguard Mkosana said the project team will help to manage the department’s assets and report on issues timeously.
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/ 16 November 2006
The Eastern Cape health department says it is not correct that extreme-drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) patients at a Port Elizabeth hospital are being kept in the same wards as other TB patients. This follows a protest on Wednesday by about 40 patients at the Jose Pearson TB hospital with the less virulent multi-drug resistant strain of the disease.
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/ 15 November 2006
The final issues are being sorted out between Alcan, the Canadian aluminium company, and South Africa over the building of a smelter at Coega in the Eastern Cape, Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa said on Tuesday. Briefing the parliamentary media, the minister said his government had been "in touch" with Alcan "quite a lot in the last two weeks".
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/ 14 November 2006
A 17-year-old pupil was in a serious but stable condition in hospital after he was stabbed at his school in Nyanga on Tuesday, Cape Town police said. The boy was in a classroom at Oscar Mpetha High when two youths stormed in at 10.15am and stabbed him in the head and back, Captain Randall Stoffels said. Two teenagers were arrested.
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/ 14 November 2006
Only slightly more than one out of 10 South Africans with bank accounts have used their cellphones for banking, according to research released by World Wide Worx on Tuesday. A surprising finding from the research is that the youth market is the least likely to have tried cellphone banking.
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/ 9 November 2006
Eastern Cape legislature members have three different versions of an annual report for a department that has received nine audit disclaimers in 10 years, the Public Service Accountability Monitor said on Thursday. This was highlighted at a joint sitting of the legislature’s housing and local government committees last Friday.
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/ 9 November 2006
A Port Elizabeth school approached the high court to get the Eastern Cape’s education department to decide on the fate of two boys caught with dagga, the school’s principal said on Thursday. On Wednesday the school received the department’s decision, dated November 3, not to expel the boys, its principal said.
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/ 8 November 2006
Eskom will decide within six months whether to commission a second nuclear power plant to supplement its Cape Town Koeberg plant, media reports said on Wednesday. Phumzile Tshelane, Eskom’s technical strategy manager, said the company was looking at models of light-water reactors from French and United States suppliers, and one type of heavy-water reactor from a Canadian supplier.
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/ 6 November 2006
While President Thabo Mbeki will only give up his Union Buildings office in 2009, the next president will effectively be chosen in just over a year’s time at the ANC’s watershed elective conference in Polokwane, Limpopo. How will it happen? And how are the cards stacked? Zukile Majova and Mbuyisi Mgibisa investigated to bring you this exclusive report, taking you into the mechanics of an elective conference.
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/ 3 November 2006
New Springbok manager Zola Yeye has moved from being Jake White’s strongest critics to possibly one of his closest allies. The two men showed a united front at Yeye’s first press conference after being appointed as Springbok manager, though White admitted that he and the players had been sceptical of Yeye before the appointment.
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/ 3 November 2006
Nine months after the South African Football Association (Safa) decided to form a new company whose responsibility it was to increase the sagging profile of the national soccer team brand and take control of its administration ahead of the 2010 World Cup, the commercial wing is yet to start its work.
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/ 30 October 2006
A woman accused of witchcraft died in the Mount Ayliff hospital on Monday after being stoned by an angry mob from a local community, Eastern Cape police said. ”The community kept assaulting her when police arrived but they managed to get her away eventually,” said spokesperson Superintendent Nondumiso Jafta.
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/ 30 October 2006
Crime levels on commuter trains are still unacceptable, but the dedicated rail-police unit is making a difference, government and commuter-rail officials said on Monday. They were speaking in Cape Town at the national launch of the South African Police Service Railway Unit, which began operating in the Western Cape in 2004.
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/ 30 October 2006
Rescue teams recovered the bodies of the two remaining miners trapped underground at AngloGold Ashanti’s Tau Tona mine near Carletonville at the weekend. The recovery of all five missing miners was completed five days after the fall of ground at the mine, following two seismic events on Monday afternoon.
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/ 27 October 2006
It might seem that the politicians are dominating the headlines, but it’s an illusion created by the fact that the rugby season is over and the Springboks don’t play Ireland for another fortnight. The regular battleground of the Eastern Cape is hogging the domestic limelight, but over in the Antipodes even more Machiavellian forces are at work.