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/ 23 November 2006

More than 300 cases of drug-resistant TB confirmed

A total of 303 cases of extreme drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) have been confirmed across the country, the Department of Health said on Thursday. ”They are in the hospitals, they are on treatment. Some of them have died,” said the department’s head of TB, Dr Lindiwe Mvusi. Mvusi did not have details at hand of how many had died.

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/ 22 November 2006

Aids march gives Manto rare backing

South Africa’s embattled health minister received a rare public boost on Wednesday when hundreds of traditional healers marched in Johannesburg to support her natural treatments for HIV/Aids. Several hundred healers, many wrapped in red cloaks and headscarves, praised Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.

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/ 22 November 2006

Five million pupils to benefit from no-fee policy

Over five million South African pupils and 13 000 schools will be exempt from school fees from January, the Department of Education said on Wednesday. ”The Department of Education wishes to announce that all the nine provincial departments of education have submitted their lists of the number of learners and schools [that] would benefit,” the department said in a statement.

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/ 22 November 2006

Swallows carry torch for Soweto giants

It will be an unlikely scenario at Green Point stadium on Wednesday night when Moroka Swallows carry the torch for the dimmed fortunes of Soweto’s glamour clubs as they face Ajax Cape Town in the last of the Telkom Knockout quarterfinals. With Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs already eliminated from the tournament, Swallows will be out to swoop into the semifinals.

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/ 22 November 2006

Township property sales booming

The township residential property market is showing more vibrancy than that of formerly white suburbs, media reports said on Wednesday. First National Bank Home Loans CEO Ed Grondel said the township market is performing better than the national metropolitan market in more than one respect.

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/ 21 November 2006

Survey sheds light on Gauteng small business

One in six Gauteng adults, or over a million people, run small businesses and the growing diverse sector accounts for 35% of the province’s employment a survey has found, the FinMark Trust said on Tuesday. The survey, commissioned by the Gauteng Enterprise Propeller and the FinMark Trust, aimed at accurate information and better understanding about the small-business sector.

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/ 21 November 2006

Gauteng considers new tolls and taxes

The Gauteng government will be considering a ”provincial tax” to ease pressure on resources from inter-provincial migration, provincial minister of finance and economic affairs Paul Mashatile announced on Tuesday. A feasibility study has already been completed and will soon go to the executive council for deliberations, he said in tabling his medium-term budget policy statement.

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/ 18 November 2006

Kebble murder: Cops silent on arrest

Police would not comment on reports on Friday that a Johannesburg police commissioner had been arrested in connection the murder of mining magnate Brett Kebble. National police spokesperson Sally de Beer would also not comment on a report, in the <i>Star</i> newspaper, that the former Hell’s Angels biker suspected of killing Kebble had vanished.

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/ 17 November 2006

Wanderers to take firm action against racial abuse

The Gauteng Cricket Board announced on Friday that it would take firm action against any spectator guilty of racial abuse during the tours by India and Pakistan. Chief executive Alan Kourie said that following incidents of racial abuse reported from Australia, the board had decided to pay careful attention to the situation at matches at the Wanderers.

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/ 17 November 2006

School violence rears its ugly head

A grade eight pupil is to appear in the Frankfort Magistrate’s Court on Friday for allegedly stabbing a classmate, Free State police said. Following the incident on Tuesday at 8am, police arrested an 18-year-old pupil at the Reseng Thabo High School in Tweeling, said Captain Hennie Labuschagne. The victim was in the classroom together with his classmates.

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/ 16 November 2006

Selebi’s pal nabbed for Kebble murder

The Scorpions on Wednesday night arrested a prominent businessman in connection with the murder of mining magnate Brett Kebble in September last year, the elite unit said on Thursday. Talk Radio 702 named the suspect as Glenn Agliotti, a friend of police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi and fixer for Kebble.

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/ 15 November 2006

Jo’burg: The city that never sleeps

"With a little bit of vision, a little bit of money, something new is beginning to emerge [in the inner city]," said Lael Bethlehem, the chief executive officer of the Johannesburg Development Agency, at Constitution Hill on Monday. Constitution Hill is located at the edge of Hillbrow, one of the most derelict areas in central Johannesburg.

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/ 14 November 2006

Pupil stabbed in Cape Town classroom

A 17-year-old pupil was in a serious but stable condition in hospital after he was stabbed at his school in Nyanga on Tuesday, Cape Town police said. The boy was in a classroom at Oscar Mpetha High when two youths stormed in at 10.15am and stabbed him in the head and back, Captain Randall Stoffels said. Two teenagers were arrested.

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/ 13 November 2006

The police must also respect the Constitution

”I am going to charge you with the murder of that dead person.” With these words Superintendent Ngubane of the Booysens police station turned what had been just another dreary encounter with dysfunctional police into a full-on fight over the state of policing in Gauteng. I am a Quaker and on Friday evening, November 3, I was attending a meeting in Rosettenville, writes Justine White.

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/ 9 November 2006

Health workers’ strike reduced to pickets

An unprotected strike by health workers in Mpumalanga has been replaced by lunch-time pickets, the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) said on Thursday. Provincial secretary December Manana said Nehawu met its members to report back on a meeting with Mpumalanga Premier Thabang Makwetla.

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/ 8 November 2006

Acsa could face charges after fuel spill

The Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) could face charges of criminal neglect after an aviation fuel leak at OR Tambo International Airport, Beeld reported on Wednesday. It said conservation organisations described Tuesday’s spill — the third since July last year — as an environmental disaster.

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/ 6 November 2006

How the next president will be chosen

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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/ 5 November 2006

Jo’burg Open to tee off in January

South Africa’s standing in the international golf rankings is set to rise a notch or two in January next year with the launch of the inaugural Jo’burg Open. A public-sector partnership has rallied round the first staging of the multimillion-rand event, to be hosted at Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club from January 11 to 14.

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/ 4 November 2006

On a road to nowhere

The Gauteng government’s public transport summit, convened by its Transport Minister Ignatius Jacobs this week, was a crude bluff. In the context of failed taxi recapitalisation, a bungled car-pool-lane experiment, a Gautrain project plagued with glitches and, most importantly, heightened debate about the necessity for public transport, the summit missed the opportunity to grapple with the mobility needs of Gauteng citizens.

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/ 2 November 2006

Thousands struck off health roll

Over 8 000 health practitioners have been struck off the roll after failing to pay their annual fees, the Health Professionals’ Council of South Africa (HPSCA) said on Thursday. ”A total of 8 593 health professionals have been struck off the roll after failing to meet the deadline,” said HPCSA spokesperson Tendai Dhliwayo.

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/ 31 October 2006

Dozens of Zimbabweans held for Gauteng robberies

Fifty-two Zimbabweans were arrested in the last two weeks in connection with armed robberies in Gauteng, police said on Tuesday. Superintendent Fanie Molapo of the special investigations unit said most of the robbers targeted Pick ‘n Pay and Spar supermarkets. On Saturday, a Zimbabwean was killed and two of his countrymen were wounded in an exchange of fire with police.

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/ 31 October 2006

Nkobi group not part of Gautrain project

Gauteng concession company Bombela has not allocated any work on the Gautrain project to companies linked to Schabir Shaik, according to a statement issued on Monday. The statement said Nkobi Holdings and Kobitech Transport Systems were among the companies listed on the Gautrain prospective supplier database.

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/ 30 October 2006

Cops step up fight against railway crime

Crime levels on commuter trains are still unacceptable, but the dedicated rail-police unit is making a difference, government and commuter-rail officials said on Monday. They were speaking in Cape Town at the national launch of the South African Police Service Railway Unit, which began operating in the Western Cape in 2004.

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/ 27 October 2006

How do you solve a problem like congestion?

When Happiness Tshabalala burst into the ministry of transport with a basket of flowers on her arm and began hurling handfuls of rose petals over cubicle walls, her colleagues knew better than to ask. The fervour with which she celebrated national days of awareness was matched only by her inability to understand their general thrust.

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/ 27 October 2006

Petrol price set to drop

The retail price of all grades of petrol will decline by 21c per litre from Wednesday November 1, the Department of Minerals and Energy said on Friday. The wholesale price of diesel 0,05% sulphur will decline by 2c a litre and that of 0,005% sulphur will fall by 1c a litre on the same date.