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/ 29 December 2004
Three South Africans are still missing somewhere in Thailand with two more unaccounted for in India after Sunday’s devastating tsunami in the wake of a massive quake off the shores of Sumatra. The bodies of four South Africans known to have died were being ferried back to the country.
Tsunami disaster special report
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/ 28 December 2004
The Gauteng Department of Education will on Wednesday release matric results of 71 382 candidates who wrote the 2004 examinations, spokesperson Panyaza Lesufi said on Monday. Gauteng Premier, Mbhazima Shilowa, is expected to attend the ceremony, along with several MECs.
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/ 23 December 2004
Two more young girls have been rescued from being sold for sex, and four people have been arrested, Gauteng police said on Thursday. The girls were lured into a child-prostitution ring after they ran away from an orphanage in Johannesburg, said Superintendent Lungelo Dlamini.
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/ 17 December 2004
With the music industry hit by a testosterone rush, Brian Letlhabane talks to local pop’s heart-throbs and heavies, featuring the likes of MXO, Mr Selwyn and RJ Bejamin.
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/ 17 December 2004
The police destroyed more than 20 500 firearms in Kempton Park on Friday in a bid to fight the proliferation of guns in the country. ”The police are winning the war on the proliferation of illegal firearms,” Gauteng police’s acting spokesperson Senior Superintendent Mary Martins-Engelbrecht said.
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/ 17 December 2004
Media group Primedia has made a firm offer to buy New Africa Investments Limited (Nail) for R45,1-million, or R0,356 a share. William Kirsh, CEO of Primedia, said: "The conclusion of the Nail deal is another milestone for Primedia and brings to conclusion Primedia’s successful bid for Nail’s key media assets."
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/ 15 December 2004
Shoddy service at the Yeoville police station in Johannesburg — experienced first-hand by a Gauteng provincial minister last month — is being attended to, the department of community safety heard on Wednesday. The minister had to intervene personally before a nine-year-old rape victim was helped, and her rapist arrested.
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/ 15 December 2004
The number of road deaths so far this December appears about the same as last year, the Department of Transport said in Pretoria on Wednesday. ”This is incredibly disappointing for us,” said the department’s chief director of land transportation regulation, Wendy Watson.
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/ 13 December 2004
The city of Cape Town is in the process of formulating a policy that deals with applications for the closure of existing public roads in order to create gated communities, the city announced on Monday. In a statement by council spokesperson Lisle Brown, it noted that there was an increasing demand for the establishment of gated communities in South African cities.
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/ 13 December 2004
Only one percent of heavy vehicles travelling on the N4 toll route are overloaded, compared with 30% before 1998, the latest issue of Transport World Africa magazine reports. During this time, Trans African Concessions has had a R3-billion concession contract to design, construct, rehabilitate, finance, operate, maintain and expand the N4 from west of Witbank to Maputo as a toll road.
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/ 10 December 2004
Archbishop Desmond Tutu has had to balance his praise of government with negative comments to avoid being labelled a ”ruling party lapdog”, said ANC Secretary General Kgalema Motlanthe. On Thursday, Motlanthe told delegates at the ANC Gauteng 9th provincial congress that Tutu’s comments were an indication of the pressure on people to conform to the ”ideological straight-jacket of reaction”.
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/ 10 December 2004
The North Rand police have expressed concern over the number of drownings recorded since the start of December. North Rand police spokesperson Superintendent Eugene Opperman said the police’s water wing has had to recover 10 bodies in the area since the beginning of the month.
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/ 9 December 2004
The falling fuel price was a boon to the economy equivalent to a one-percent cut in interest rates, T-Sec chief economist Mike Schussler said on Thursday. ”The current falls in the oil price and rand strength [or dollar weakness] are combining to give South Africans the biggest petrol and diesel price fall in percentage terms since November 1990,” said Schussler.
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/ 8 December 2004
A South African editor tells this story: ”I asked my newsroom when a story should not identify a victim of abuse. One answer: ‘In cases of bestiality, the pet should not be named.”’ It’s a true tale and one that predates the rise, and rise, of tabloid journalism — which is the really appropriate context in which to discuss such species distinctions.
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/ 3 December 2004
The profiling of donors by the South African National Blood Service (SANBS) smacked of racism, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said on Thursday. She was referring to an admission by the SANBS that it racially profiled blood donations and that the Health Department was aware of this. Tshabalala-Msimang said she should have been consulted.
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/ 1 December 2004
If Gautengers use water sparingly between now and May — when authorities will re-assess the drought situation — restrictions might not be necessary in 2006 and 2007, Rand Water said on Wednesday. This is in spite of the Vaal Dam being only 32% full and falling by a further one percent each day.
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/ 30 November 2004
Gauteng education MEC Angie Motshekga did not benefit financially or act dishonestly in recommending a particular trust for a contract, a report released on Tuesday said. Motshekga’s conduct in her position as MEC was, however, found to be unacceptable. The Gauteng Legislature’s Integrity Commission investigated media allegations that Motshekga and her family had benefited financially from the Sediba Trust.
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/ 30 November 2004
The numbers for effective land restitution and redistribution are astronomical, the time short and sometimes it seems that only a miracle can ensure the success of the programme. Although most land stakeholders agree that land reform is too slow and that finances present a major obstacle to reform, different people have different ideas of how to overcome the department’s money blues. We take a closer look at these options.
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/ 30 November 2004
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/142915/aids_icon.gif" align=left>A year ago the government approved a national plan for the management, care and treatment of HIV/Aids. Its aim was to provide free anti-retroviral drugs in the public health sector. The HIV prevalence rates range from an estimated 13,1% in the Western Cape to a very high 37,5% of adults in KwaZulu-Natal. A <i>M&G</i> assessment as World Aids Day approaches reveals the leaders and laggards.
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/ 25 November 2004
The African National Congress (ANC) and the official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) both won three of eight contested municipal by-elections held on Wednesday – with the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) retaining two seats it previously had held.
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/ 25 November 2004
The real value of recorded building plans passed by municipalities (at constant 2000 prices) during the first nine months of 2004 increased by 29,5% or R5,167-billion from R17,507-billion to R22,674-billion compared with the first nine months of 2003, according to figures released on Thursday by Statistics South Africa.
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/ 23 November 2004
Down here, on the Deep South Coast, the pre-holiday panic is on. Supermarkets are full of frantic buyers, local authorities, understandably a little torpid during the rest of the year, are giving a spit and polish to those corners of the Hibiscus Coast that need it. This year, however, it’s been different, very different — the out-of-town holiday-makers have all been beaten to it by the purple alien …
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/ 22 November 2004
South African Breweries, the South African arm of global brewing giant SABMiller (SAB), has confirmed that it will invest R5-billion in its South African operation over the next five years to expand capacity and to improve its ability to meet changing consumer needs locally, underpinning the company’s strong growth prospects.
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/ 22 November 2004
Tributes have poured in for the National Council of Provinces chairperson Joyce Kgoali, who died in Johannesburg on Sunday. The African National Congress Women’s League called their late executive committee and working committee member ”unassuming and forthright” with an ”unshakeable” commitment to the
organisation’s policies.
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/ 20 November 2004
A police raid on a suspected child-sex operation in Benoni found a three-year-old boy being held hostage, and an under-age girl being pimped out for sex, police said on Friday. Four more men were arrested, one of whom was caught in the act of having sex with the 15-year-old girl, said a member of the Gauteng child protection unit.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=125809">Nigerians nabbed in child-sex syndicate</a>
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/ 19 November 2004
The police’s child protection unit say they have rescued 13 children over the last month in Gauteng and in Durban from a gang of men that used them for sex. Superintendent Andre Neethling, head of the child protection unit in Gauteng, said the girls had been locked up and given crack cocaine, which had made them dependent on their captors.
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/ 16 November 2004
Sheila Weinberg, anti-apartheid activist and member of the Gauteng legislature, has died at the age of 56, the legislature announced on Tuesday. In 1964, Weinberg became the youngest detainee in South Africa when, at the age of 17, she was held at the Johannesburg Fort under the 90-day detention law.
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/ 15 November 2004
Three police officers appeared in the Johannesburg Regional Court on Monday on charges of theft, defeating the ends of justice and assault — while a fourth was arrested on similar charges. The trio — a captain and two inspectors — were arrested on Friday after an investigation into the theft of stolen funds.
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/ 11 November 2004
The Klipdrift consumption in the Dorsbult has reached crisis proportions since Tuesday last week. But a message from Michael Moore — yes, he of <i>Fahrenheit 9/11</i> fame/notoriety (and, in the Dorsbult, hero worship; well, ok, among some of us) — has done his bit to cheer us up. He offers "17 reasons not to slit your wrists", a few of which follow …
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/ 9 November 2004
Gauteng still has a housing backlog of more than 440 000 people, provincial housing minister Nomvula Mokonyane said on Tuesday. Mokonyane said Gauteng’s housing goals fall within the Breaking New Ground housing-plan document introduced by Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu earlier this year.