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/ 6 November 2003
South Africa would not go down the same path as Zimbabwe where people had taken the law into their own hands, because people were frustrated with the pace of land reform, New National Party leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk said on Thursday.
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/ 3 November 2003
A ceremony to rename Ga-Rankuwa Hospital north-west of Pretoria went ahead on Monday despite continuing objections to the change.
A group of about 50 people, including local residents and staff members, protested at the hospital, SABC news reported.
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/ 3 November 2003
The Democratic Alliance and the Inkatha Freedom Party on Sunday urged South Africans to register next weekend for the 2004 general elections. Speaking at a rally for his party and the IFP in Soweto, DA leader Tony Leon blamed apathy for the fact that so many people have not registered, and would be unable to vote next year.
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/ 29 October 2003
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and Tony Yengeni are two surprise omissions from the Gauteng African National Congress’s provincial and national election list. ”We don’t know ourselves why they are not there,” ANC provincial secretary David Makhura said in reply to several questions on Madikizela-Mandela and Yengeni.
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/ 29 October 2003
The crocodile playing Loch Ness monster in the Hennops River, west of Pretoria, might have been kidnapped, or else it was an escapee, an expert said on Wednesday. He believes Charlie, as the croc has been named, escaped from a crocodile farm or was removed from his natural environment as a baby crocodile.
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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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/ 24 October 2003
The SA Commercial Catering and Allied Workers Union (Saccawu) on Friday handed over a memorandum of demands to Shoprite Checkers management, requesting they meet the union’s demands within 48 hours. If the demands are not met, the union says it will intensify its strike.
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/ 24 October 2003
Peter Rorvik, director of the Durban International Film Festival, and Nashen Moodley, manager of the festival, respond to some questions from Shaun de Waal about the festival.
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/ 23 October 2003
Thabang Paul Khumalo, who has escaped four times from custody, was arrested in Sebokeng south of Johannesburg on Thursday. Police spotted and followed his vehicle to a garage near Orange Farm, where their attempts to shot him resulted in shots being fired.
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/ 22 October 2003
Delinquent passengers are running amok on the country’s trains, creating a headache for Metrorail who announced this week that it had spent R177-million this year on security alone. For next year it has budgeted R221-million for security expenses.
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/ 21 October 2003
The name Unisa is to remain, a university is to be named after former president Nelson Mandela, and the term technikon is to disappear, Minister of Education Kader Asmal said on Tuesday. He was announcing the new names of higher education institutions that are to merge in terms of a plan approved by the Cabinet last year.
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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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/ 18 October 2003
Statistics by the Department of Correctional Services indicate that of the country’s provinces Kwazulu-Natal, with 957, has the highest number of juveniles incarcerated. This was followed by the Western Cape, with 810 children, and Gauteng with 719 children.
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/ 14 October 2003
The SA Transport and Allied Workers Union and Airports Company of South Africa reached a deadlock at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration Gauteng on Friday. In a statement Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven said the only area of dispute was the basic wage increase.
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/ 11 October 2003
The South African labour market is flexible as it is the eighth least regulated of 130 nations surveyed by the World Bank, says Labour Minister Membathisi Mdladlana. Mdladlana said businesses in South Africa faced fewer labour regulations than their counterparts in Ireland, Switzerland or Australia.
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.
Vaal Rand police have identified 10 sports journalists and the driver involved in an accident on the R59 outside Alberton on Saturday that claimed the lives of six reporters. Fourteen journalists and a driver were returning after covering the Masakhane games in Vanderbijlpark.
Crash claims lives of six journalists
The number of juveniles in SA prisons has increased from 4 093 in 2002 to 4 449 this year, according to the Department of Correctional Service’s annual report. This figure includes 221 14-year olds. The report, presented in Parliament on Monday said there are currently 4 449 sentenced and unsentenced children in prisons.
Two sports journalists are still in a serious condition and one is stable following an accident on the R59 outside Alberton on Saturday that claimed the lives of six reporters. Fourteen journalists and a driver were returning after covering the Masakhane games in Vanderbijlpark.
Has Mbeki changed his mind; is his government’s embrace of conventional Aids science wholehearted; and does he support the methods of prevention, treatment and care of Aids that the rest of the world now recognises as optimal? Mbeki will trip up again and again on the Aids issue because the answer to each of the above is no, no and no again — though it shouldn’t be.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has announced it is throwing its full weight behind the campaign to make sure that every eligible voter is registered to vote in next year’s national and provincial elections. Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal each have more than two million people that still need to register.
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/ 30 September 2003
The country’s only independent website providing crime statistics nationally celebrates its one-month birthday on Wednesday — but critics wonder about its validity and accessibility to those most affected by crime. About 80% of the website’s respondents are from the Gauteng region.
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/ 30 September 2003
The South African national Department of Public Works is to spen a total of nearly two billion rand on its building programme in the nine provinces during the 2003/04 financial year. Nearly half of this money — a total of R900-million — will be spent on prisons.
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/ 26 September 2003
Artist Aidan Walsh has documented his travels to SA’s deserted spots in a series of paintings. Rajendra Chetty talks to the artist about the originating ideas for his Karoo journey and the social commentary behind his depiction of stark landscapes.
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/ 25 September 2003
The Gauteng health department has issued an emergency measles alert to the passengers and crew of a flight that landed in Johannesburg after a passenger contracted measles. Twenty-four cases of measles have been confirmed in Gauteng since the start of the year, compared with five cases for the whole of 2002.
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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
An African National Congress Women’s League delegation is departing for Nigeria as part of the organisation’s campaign to save Amina Lawal, the Nigerian citizen facing death by stoning for having a baby outside wedlock. A Southern Africa Development Community women’s delegation would join the league in Nigeria.
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/ 23 September 2003
Opposition parties have by and large criticised the latest edition of the police’s crime statistics, saying they were old, drew the wrong conclusions and lacked credibility. Democratic Alliance chief whip and safety spokesperson Douglas Gibson described the figures as old and outdated.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=20872">We’re winning the crime war, say police</a>
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/ 22 September 2003
The police has made great strides in reducing serious crime levels, although certain categories of crime have increased, says National Commissioner Jackie Selebi. Since 1994, murder has now dropped by 29,5% and there is a decrease in high profile cases of aggravated robbery.
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/ 11 September 2003
Every traveller has a special place, somewhere he or she keeps going back to and can never get enough of. For me that place has always been the Kruger National Park. And although I’ve stayed in a number of camps, and loved most of them, I have finally found my ”home” in the Kruger, where I could happily spend eternity.
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/ 11 September 2003
Often driven through but rarely explored, Limpopo has been called South Africa’s forgotten province. Or perhaps it’s one of our best kept secrets? This week we trek north in our series on the attractions of the nine provinces.
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/ 9 September 2003
The New National Party has renewed its call for an amnesty for people to hand in illegal firearms, saying ”rather sooner than later”. Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula has said it remained the government’s intention to reduce the number of firearms in the country, and to institute efficient regulations regarding gun ownership.