Eskom may delay approval for connecting new construction projects that are bigger than a residential home to its grid for up to six months in a bid to alleviate a power crisis, it said on Wednesday. The crisis forced a shutdown of crucial mines for five days in January and since then mines have been operating with only 90% of their power.
Packages for the 2010 Soccer World Cup will go on sale in South Africa in June, sales agent Match Hospitality announced on Wednesday. ”We want to give priority to the domestic market,” the company’s chief operating officer, Pascal Portes, said at the launch of the hospitality programme in Johannesburg.
Stuart Johnston, one of the most knowledgeable motoring scribes in South Africa, has released the 2008 edition of the <i>Motorheads Diary</i>. Edited by Johnston and beautifully designed by Gauteng classic car buff Heide-Marie von der Au, the second edition of this page-per-day diary for car and bike enthusiasts is an absolute gem.
Sixty-one percent of all Gauteng policing precincts recorded a decrease in the total amount of violent crimes between July and December 2007, compared with the same period the previous year. Addressing the, Gauteng minister for community safety Firoz Cachalia said violent contact-crime categories decreased within the target range of between 7% and 10%.
The South African Communist Party has asked the South African Police Service to finalise its investigation into a donation scandal after an internal audit cleared their secretary general Blade Nzimande. The SACP audit was set up to investigate the whereabouts of R500 000 donated to the party by controversial businessman Charles Modise.
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/ 29 February 2008
Media24 on Friday announced the closure of the Gauteng and Free State editions of its Afrikaans tabloid, Son, citing weak growth prospects. The Western Cape and Eastern Cape additions would continue to publish, a statement from Fergus Sampson, CEO of the emerging markets division, said.
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/ 29 February 2008
The retail price of all grades of petrol will increase by 61 cents per litre on Wednesday March 5 after increasing by 17 cents a litre last month, the Department of Minerals and Energy announced on Friday. The retail price of a litre of 95 octane unleaded petrol in Gauteng increases to R8,25, and to R8,01 at the coast — new highs.
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/ 29 February 2008
Wednesday afternoon and the sun beats down on a tattered strip of grass surrounded by embattled homes in the centre of KwaMashu township, north of Durban. Boy-men in excruciatingly tight shorts and sleeveless tops do violent pirouettes in the air — usually because someone else is clobbering them.
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/ 28 February 2008
A charge of insurance fraud against Clinton Nassif, former security head for slain mining magnate Brett Kebble, was withdrawn in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court on Thursday. ”The accused is a witness in other matters we are pursuing,” prosecutor Patrick Nkuna told the court in withdrawing the charge.
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/ 28 February 2008
Last week the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> reported that the South African Communist Party planned to axe two senior Cape Town members for daring to criticise undemocratic practices at the party’s congress last year and suggesting that it is obsessed with "individuals" (read Zuma) to the detriment of its professed role as the party of the working class.
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/ 27 February 2008
Custom and ethnicity allow young women to wear miniskirts, the National House of Traditional Leaders said on Wednesday in reaction to a recent attack on a woman wearing a short skirt at a Johannesburg taxi rank. The traditional leaders said the actions of the woman’s attackers were not only ”barbaric”, but also unconstitutional.
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/ 25 February 2008
Tourist guides from across Gauteng gathered under a hot marquee for the International Tourist Guides’ Day at Constitutional Hill in Johannesburg last week — and, for a change, were on the receiving end of an educational tour. "We are who we are through others," were the words of Lungi Morrison, of the Gauteng Tourism Authority.
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/ 24 February 2008
Bloemfontein Celtic beat Amazulu 3-2 in a Premier Soccer League (PSL) match at a packed Seisa Ramabodu Stadium in Bloemfontein on Sunday. In other matches, Mamelodi Sundowns handed victory to Wits University, Orlando Pirates were beaten by Santos, and Ajax beat Cosmos.
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/ 22 February 2008
Controversial businessman Charles Modise was denied bail in the Kimberly Magistrate’s Court on Friday. Modise is being investigated by the Scorpions and faces various charges, including fraud, forgery and corruption in the Northern Cape. Magistrate Andre Williams postponed the matter to July 9 for further investigations.
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/ 22 February 2008
Analysts say that Transport Minister Jeff Radebe has made all the right noises about public transport being the legacy of the 2010 World Cup and, if the budget is anything to go on, the Cabinet fully endorses his view. Trevor Manuel has allocated R6-billion to building public transport infrastructure over the next three years.
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/ 22 February 2008
Provinces will receive R238-billion this year, a whopping 16% higher than last year’s allocation. By 2010/11, provincial budgets will have doubled on their 2004/05 levels. All increases to key portfolios outstrip inflation by significant margins. But will they spend it well?
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/ 21 February 2008
The dance establishment is benefiting from some new recruits. Matthew Krouse reports on the FNB Dance Umbrella’s 20th birthday bash.
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/ 21 February 2008
The Gauteng National Taxi Alliance tendered an apology on Thursday to the woman who was assaulted at the Noord street taxi rank, allegedly by taxi drivers, and called on all taxi associations to investigate and suspend drivers implicated in the attack. It condemned the incident ”in the strongest possible terms”.
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/ 20 February 2008
Crime-hit hospitals in Gauteng should have security as soon as March, provincial health minister Brian Hlongwa announced on Wednesday during a Gauteng legislature social-cluster briefing outlining priorities in the coming year. Hlongwa also said Gautengers could have their medical histories recorded on smart cards soon.
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/ 20 February 2008
The Soccer City Stadium is 50% complete and will be finished in May next year, five months ahead of the Fifa deadline, Gauteng Sports, Arts, Culture and Recreation minister Barbara Creecy said on Wednesday. An independent state of readiness audit had shown that the province was ”firmly on track” to meet its commitments for the 2010 Fifa World Cup.
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/ 20 February 2008
An early-warning system is to be implemented in 240 Gauteng schools to prevent ”senseless” violence, provincial education minister Angie Motshekga announced on Wednesday at a briefing outlining the social cluster of the Gauteng legislature’s priorities for the year.
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/ 19 February 2008
Outrage mounted on Tuesday over an attack on a young woman at the Noord Street taxi rank in Johannesburg for wearing a miniskirt. Nwabisa Ngcukana (25) was humiliated when taxi drivers and hawkers at the rank tore off her clothes and said she was being taught a lesson for wearing a miniskirt.
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/ 19 February 2008
The National Lotteries Board has ordered Vodacom to stop its win-a-BMW competition. ”The board is satisfied that it has done its duty in policing and stopping the illegal lottery,” the board said in a statement on Tuesday. It said Vodacom was instructed on Monday to cease the competition.
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/ 19 February 2008
Classes at all the Tshwane University of Technology’s campuses were suspended amid student protests on Tuesday, authorities said. ”The decision was taken due to the prevailing atmosphere on campus and the potential for violent clashes between striking and non-striking students,” vice-chancellor Errol Tyobeka said.
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/ 19 February 2008
The first of South Africa’s long-planned "new generation" prisons should be completed by February next year, MPs heard on Tuesday. The R662-million Kimberley Correctional Centre was more than one-third completed by the end of last month, prisons commissioner Vernie Petersen said.
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/ 19 February 2008
South Africans will be able to see a total eclipse of the moon just before sunrise on Thursday. ”South Africans out [very] early on Thursday morning are in for a treat — an eclipsed Moon with Saturn over in the west, and a line of three planets over in the east above the rising sun,” said Claire Flanagan, Planetarium director.
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/ 17 February 2008
It was described as the show that couldn’t close, but on Sunday the curtain will finally come down on the <i>Lion King</i>, by far and away South Africa’s most popular stage production. This internationally acclaimed musical entered the South African theatre scene in June last year, and its stay has been extended three times.
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/ 16 February 2008
Johannesburg motorists had been using roads as a ”speeding track” since traffic law enforcement authorities in parts of Gauteng were barred from using speed cameras on some of the busiest roads in the city. The cameras were switched off until further notice, after traffic authorities failed to submit applications requesting permission from the National Prosecuting Authority.
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/ 15 February 2008
Vosloorus’s monthly gig is gaining momentum, writes Kwanele Sosibo.
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/ 14 February 2008
The Department of Health on Thursday released a revised policy and guidelines clearing the way for dual therapy in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. At the same time, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang dismissed claims that her department was reluctant to implement the new regime.
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/ 14 February 2008
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang on Thursday dismissed claims that her department was reluctant to implement dual therapy for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. ”I was the first person to express concern about mono therapy … but we had to make sure that we had enough time to examine the implications of dual therapy,” she said.
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/ 14 February 2008
The African National Congress (ANC) is subscribing to the ”big-lie” theory, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Thursday. ”The ANC subscribes to the theory that if the ”big lie” is repeated often enough, then people will believe it, and reality can be shaped by the ruling party,” the DA’s Gauteng provincial safety spokesperson, James Swart, said.