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/ 6 November 2003
A report on the Saulspoort bus tragedy, released on Thursday, stated that brakes were defective on at least three of the disaster bus’s wheels. Free State MEC for public works, roads and transport Sekhopi Malebo released the report, compiled by a Pretoria company specialising in such investigations.
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/ 31 October 2003
Cool conditions with a chance of some soft showers is the forecast for Saturday when the Sharks and Blue Bulls’ Currie Cup clash takes place at Loftus Versveld in Pretoria, a SA Weather Service spokesperson said on Friday.
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/ 28 October 2003
The Chamber of Mines’ ten gold mining members are looking to clean up 38 sites, mainly in Gauteng and the Free State, that have been contaminated with radioactive material, with the process expected to be completed within six to seven months.
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/ 20 October 2003
The icy cold weather gripping the country’s northern provinces is expected to last at least until Tuesday. At the same time, conditions which could lead to the development and spread of runaway veld fires were expected over the Cape Peninsula, the SAWS said.
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/ 14 October 2003
South Africa may be heading for a prolonged drought, which researchers warn could be among the most severe in decades. The country ”is currently experiencing drought conditions over most of the summer rainfall regions”, the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research said.
Mining magnate Brett Kebble announced on Thursday he is instituting legal action against Bulelani Ngcuka, following allegations of fraud made against him by the head of the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions. He said the allegations stem from a July 24 meeting Ngcuka held with editors.
Forty-six percent of South Africans who participated in a poll conducted by Research Surveys in August this year believed that President Thabo Mbeki was doing a good job as president of South Africa. Research Surveys said the results of the poll stemmed from interviews with 3 500 respondents over the age of 18.
The South African Department of Public Works is to spend millions of rands this year to upgrade various museums around the country, including the renovation of the Kruger House museum in central Pretoria. More than R20-million is also to be spent on the harbour at the Robben Island museum complex.
A 14-year-old boy cannot go to school because there is no-one else to look after his 85-year-old disabled grandmother. Their shack is one of the smallest and most dilapidated in one of Bloemfontein’s newest and poorest squatter areas.
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/ 23 September 2003
About 5,3-million people in South Africa, or 31,2% of those economically active, were officially unemployed in March this year, Statistics South Africa said on Tuesday. The corresponding figures for September and March last year, which Stats South Africa provided earlier, were 30,5% and 29,4% respectively.
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/ 23 September 2003
The Free State auditor general has found several irregularities after a forensic audit of the provincial department of local government and housing. These irregularities involve an amount of R62-million in 4 300 cases. In some cases applicants received housing subsidies more than once.
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/ 5 September 2003
Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi will join a dispute in the Bloemfontein High Court over tax on farmland. A Free State farmer has applied for a court order to declare the levying of a 2% municipal tax on his farms as illegal.
A few weeks ago the Springbok rugby team swept into the little hamlet of Ceres to shoot a television advertisement for the World Cup, which is apparently happening quite soon. The action was standard stuff, Saving Private Ryan in white shorts, and then they signed some balls, piled into the bus and burnt rubber back to the big smoke.
Another possible legal suit against South African mining houses loomed on Wednesday when a British legal firm announced its representation of former gold mineworkers.
A large German firm of engineering contractors, Lahmeyer International, was fined R10,6-million in the Lesotho High Court on Tuesday for bribery.
Like a slumbering giant waking up to its potential, the North West province is aggressively marketing itself as a premier tourist destination for jaded domestic travellers and as a prime location for overseas tourists.
Given the expectation of sharply declining inflation in 2003, real house prices are expected to rise for the fourth consecutive year this year. An increase in house prices of more than 18% nominal and 10% real is forecast.
Health and safety experts from the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) and journalists were locked out of the Beaconfield Sewage Plant in Kimberley on Thursday, Samwu members said.
A pack of dogs was found eating a new-born baby girl in bushes by the roadside at Ntuzuma location near Kwa-Mashu on Thursday in the second incident of its kind this week, police said.
The ANC has "seriously reprimanded" and fined its national chairman and Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota and suspended the membership of former chief whip Tony Yengeni, although the latter’s sanction was conditionally suspended for three years.
A condom project touted this week as one of the most ”innovative” to stem from the offset programme linked to South Africa’s multibillion-rand arms deal does not yet exist and has yet to create a single job.
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born during the First World War on July 18, 1918, at Mvezo on the banks of the winding Mbashe River, also known as the Bashee.
Gauteng has notched up the highest figure in South Africa for abandoned babies, accounting for 268 of the 409 babies abandoned nationally last year, according to Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.
The Pan Africanist Congress appears to be heading for a split, as supporters of Thami ka Plaatjie call for a third national congress.
The Gardens for Africa project, introduced by Toyota South Africa in KwaZulu-Natal last year, is proving a great success, and the company has decided to continue support for the programme.
A total of about 7 000 women around the country had received the anti-retroviral drug nevirapine at State hospitals and clinics by December last year, according to South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.
Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana has called for farmers to ensure that better safety measures are in place after the work-related deaths of three farm workers over the past few days.
A report on Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota’s failure to disclose his business interests to Parliament was handed to the President’s office on Friday.
Five of the nine provinces had underspent their HIV/Aids grant allocations for the 2002/2003 financial year.
Nature conservationists fear an invasion of local river systems after exotic freshwater crayfish were stolen from a Free State breeder this week.
The Griqua community of Bucklands near Douglas in the Northern Cape celebrated June with other dispossessed communities by receiving back land taken by the apartheid government.
The ”stubborn old lady” would have enjoyed sitting in the imposing presence of the grey mountain at the weekend, witnessing her extensive family regain their forebears’ land.