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/ 7 November 2006
SA Rugby on Tuesday announced the appointment of dynamic Free State Cheetahs flank Kabamba Floors as Springbok Sevens captain for the first two tournaments in the International Rugby Board Sevens Series. Floors will lead South Africa in the opening tournament on December 1 and 2 in Dubai and a week later on home soil in George.
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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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/ 2 November 2006
I believe the hindsight of history will treat PW Botha much kinder than the quick appraisals following his death this week at his home in the Wilderness. For the image of a finger-wagging, self-righteous, smirking Groot Krokodil who defiantly refused to appear before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is still too vivid in our collective memory, writes Dries van Heerden.
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/ 1 November 2006
With a host of seasoned campaigners remaining at home, Springbok coach Jake White will be hoping to unearth new talent when his side takes on Ireland and England in Europe over the next month. The World Cup in France is just a year away, and White will experiment with four new caps and a number of new combinations on tour.
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/ 1 November 2006
By the early 21st century, Pieter Willem (PW) Botha’s name had become a byword for unaccountable government and the autocratic exercise of power. Botha, who died on Tuesday night at his home Die Anker near the Wilderness in the Western Cape, aged 90, was the archetype ”kragdadige” Afrikaner and a worthy successor to John Vorster, whom he replaced as prime minister.
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/ 31 October 2006
Springbok coach Jake White on Tuesday declared that it would not be a train smash if his team left for their four-match European tour on Saturday without a manager. The Springboks have been without a manager for the past five months since Athrob Pietersen vacated the position earlier this year.
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/ 31 October 2006
The South African Football Association (Safa) placed a gag at Tuesday’s media briefing on discussing the controversial issue of South Africa playing Egypt in next month’s Nelson Mandela Challenge game in London. The silence was equally deafening when Benni McCarthy’s continued absence from the Bafana Bafana squad was revealed.
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/ 26 October 2006
OR Tambo International airport is one of hundreds of South African place names that have been officially changed since 2000. The airport’s new name and a bust of Tambo are due to be unveiled on Friday by President Thabo Mbeki. The South African Geographical Names Council lists 833 new names approved since 2000, including at least 145 names that were completely changed.
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/ 25 October 2006
Secrecy is fundamental to the initiation custom, the public hearing on initiation schools heard on Wednesday. The South African Human Rights Commission’s Free State office manager, Mothusi Lepheana, who spoke in his personal capacity, said secrecy is needed to preserve the ”copyright” of the initiation process.
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/ 25 October 2006
The African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) called on Wednesday for a commission of inquiry into Bloemfontein’s flying squad, allegedly caught watching a pornographic movie while telephones rang unanswered. Free State ACDP leader Casper Nordier said far too many media reports showed problems at Bloemfontein’s flying squad.
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/ 25 October 2006
South Africa’s nine provinces are to receive an additional R28,2-billion over the next three years, according to Finance Minister Trevor Manuel’s Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement. Provincial government is projected to get R178,3-billion this year — 2006/07 — including R150,7-billion from the equitable share and R27,5-billion in conditional grants.
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/ 22 October 2006
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel is expected this week to enlarge the 2010 Soccer World Cup budget pie and apportion slices to government departments and host cities when he presents his mid-year ”mini-budget” on Wednesday. Businesses and individuals will also be looking for an indication of tax cuts further down the line.
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/ 19 October 2006
Two men were killed in a light aircraft crash on Thursday morning near Petrusburg in the Free State, police said. Superintendent Sam Sesing said the Piper Cherokee 140 crashed into an open piece of land on the farm Spitskop about 10km west of Petrusburg.
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/ 15 October 2006
Springbok coach Jake White named four new call-ups to his 28 men squad while giving a few senior players resting time ahead tour to the United Kingdom at the end of the year. Free State Cheetahs fullback Bevan Fortuin, Blue Bulls flanker Hilton Lobberts, Lions centre Jaco Pretorius and Sharks flyhalf Francois Steyn are the four new members in White’s squad.
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/ 14 October 2006
The Currie Cup was shared for the fourth time in its history when the Cheetahs and the Blue Bulls played to a 28-28 draw at Vodacom Park in Bloemfontein on Saturday evening. Both sides earned the boasting rights for one more season after playing 100 minutes of rugby when they deadlocked at 25-25 after 80 minutes.
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/ 13 October 2006
Bloemfontein was in an odd mood last Sunday morning. On one side of town, rooftop parties were celebrating the Macufe soccer festival and the green and white colours of Bloemfontein Celtic were in evidence. Elsewhere, it was eerily quiet as the locals began to come to terms with the fact that the Cheetahs had qualified for a home final for the first time in 12 years.
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/ 12 October 2006
The Free State rugby union offices were hit this week by a small ”tsunami” of supporters booking and buying tickets for the 2006 Currie Cup final in Bloemfontein. Harold Verster, president of the union, said on Thursday: ”People just swamped us and we are still barely handling the requests still streaming in for tickets.”
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/ 10 October 2006
Delegates at Free State public hearings on initiation schools on Tuesday called for special courts to be established to deal with transgressors of initiation customs. The call was made in a joint statement by the South African Human Rights Commission, the National House of Traditional Leaders and the Commission for the rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities.
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/ 10 October 2006
All tickets for the final of the Currie Cup championship between the Cheetah’s and the Blue Bulls have been sold on the first day, the Free State Rugby Union said on Monday. Spokesperson Liza-Anne Mould said they tried as far as possible to help all supporters with tickets on Monday.
The Free State Rugby Union offices in Bloemfontein have been swamped by hundreds of Cheetahs and Blue Bulls supporters since early on Monday morning trying to get tickets for the Currie Cup final over the coming weekend. ”The phones actually started to ring on Saturday just after the Cheetah-Sharks game,” Piet de Necker, spokesperson for the Free State Cheetahs Company, said.
Ten cases of the extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) have been reported in North West, the provincial department of health said on Friday. Spokesperson Lesiba Molala said four people have since died from the disease, while six others were being monitored at the Tshepong hospital complex in Klerksdorp.
Over the past 10 years there have been times when it seemed the Currie Cup was about to die. No one cared about the oldest provincial rugby competition in the world because it was at the wrong end of the season and either through injury or exclusion clauses it tended not to feature the best players in the country.
Traditional circumcision rites have killed 83 initiates in the Eastern Cape alone between 1996 and 2005, public hearings into initiation schools were told on Wednesday. There had been 19 more deaths in the province this year. Another 63 initiates had to undergo amputations, while 562 were hospitalised, Eastern Cape department of health officials said on the second day of the hearings.
Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Tony Leon launched an ”Agriculture Matters” campaign during a visit to the eastern Free State’s rural farming communities on Wednesday, the party said. ”As a positive contribution to addressing the deep concerns of our farming communities, the DA is today proud to launch its ‘Agriculture Matters’ campaign,” Leon said near Ficksburg.
Former Limpopo premier Ngoako Ramatlhodi has apologised for publicly claiming that President Thabo Mbeki’s ”autocratic behaviour” was dividing the party. The African National Congress National Working Committee had ”received and accepted” his unconditional apology, it said after a meeting in Johannesburg on Monday.
Parts of the Western Cape can expect heavy rain and snow on Monday, Weather SA warned on Monday. ”Heavy falls of rain are possible in the Overberg, Breede River Valley, Ruens, Garden Route and the Little Karoo,” said Weather SA. ”Very cold, wet and windy conditions are expected on the high-ground areas of the Western Cape province and western parts of the Northern Cape province.”
The Sharks, needing a full house of five points to be sure of an away semifinal berth, made sure when they convincingly beat the Valke — their old Red Devils nemesis — by 48 points to 10 and seven tries to one in their Absa Currie Cup rugby match in Durban on Saturday.
The Blue Bulls guaranteed themselves a place in the Currie Cup semifinal through a hard-fought and bruising battle that yielded a 41-31 victory over reigning champions, the Free State Cheetahs, at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday. The Cheetahs had come to Loftus already guaranteed of a place in the last four, but also wanted to repeat their miraculous feat of last year.
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/ 22 September 2006
Extreme drug resistant tuberculosis is a challenge that needs a collective regional approach, Southern African Development Community (SADC) health ministers said on Friday. At a meeting held in Maputo, Mozambique, the ministers agreed that the free movement of people between SADC countries could compound the spread of the disease in the region.
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/ 21 September 2006
Tests may have been mistaken showing that South African gold miners contracted a highly drug resistant strain of tuberculosis, health officials and a gold firm said on Thursday. A statement by the provincial department of health late on Tuesday that XDR-TB (extremely drug resistant tuberculosis) had been identified in six gold miners in the Free State, south-west of Johannesburg, sparked panic there.
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/ 20 September 2006
Gold Fields denied on Wednesday that it has had any cases of the so-called ”Killer TB” (tuberculosis) at any of its mines. ”Gold Fields wishes to state that news reports this morning with headlines such as ‘Killer TB spreads to mines’ and ‘Deadly new TB strain found in Free State’, are misleading.”
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/ 19 September 2006
Six miners from the Free State goldfields have been diagnosed with extreme drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), the provincial department of health said on Tuesday. Spokesperson Gela Naude said the six confirmed XDR-TB patients were all from Gold Fields and Harmony mines at Welkom.