Total South Africa has decided to develop South Africa’s first ever bullfrog reserve, right behind their newly developed Petroport, north of Johannesburg, soon after it discovered the Petroport had destroyed the frogs’ breeding ground. ”Total decided to work with environmentalists in reducing the negative impacts on the frogs.”
A two-seater light aircraft made an emergency landing on the N12 highway between Lenasia and Westonaria in Gauteng, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said on Thursday. ”We know at the moment that the pilot had engine failure on approach for landing on runway 13 at Baragwanath airfield,” said a CAA accident investigator.
The four-year-old granddaughter of Transvaal Judge President Bernard Ngoepe was kidnapped in a robbery in Lenasia on Wednesday, Vaal police said. Preliminary investigations ruled out the possibility of a link between the kidnapping and the Jacob Zuma rape trial, from which Ngoepe had recused himself.
President Thabo Mbeki has opened a new museum complex at the University of the Witwatersrand to showcase the origin of mankind and bushman rock art to the public. Mbeki said the opening of the Origins Centre was timely, following soon after the inauguration of the Southern African Large Telescope and the Cradle of Humankind Maropeng Visitor’s Centre.
The SA Transport and Allied Workers’ Union has threatened to make its national strike on Monday next week the launching pad of a second round of downing tools. This follows the union’s claim that Transnet, at the weekend, went ”behind labour’s backs” and signed an agreement to transfer Metrorail to the SA Rail Commuter Corporation by the end of this month.
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The African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) has called for a multi-party governance system in the Western Cape after Wednesday’s local government elections. The party’s leadership made the call on Friday after no single party won an absolute majority in Cape Town, paving the way for political parties to form coalitions.
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Judge Willem van der Merwe will preside over former deputy president Jacob Zuma’s rape trial on Monday. This comes after Transvaal Judge President Bernard Ngoepe acceded to a request that he recuse himself at the start of the trial in February.
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The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) hopes to have posted 90% of the local government election results by sunset, its chairperson Brigalia Bam said on Thursday. A 47% voter turnout had been recorded by 10.45am, Bam said in a briefing at the IEC’s national operations centre in Pretoria.
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Provisional results show a 46,72% poll with just more than 14-million votes cast from a pool of 21Â 054Â 957 registered voters. The African National Congress had swept the board in the Northern Cape by 9.45am on Thursday, and the DA’s worst fear seemed to have come true in the Western Cape.
Rain hammers down on a Johannesburg night as a woman pulls up outside a suburban house, steps from her car, the engine running, and rings the bell. A man breaks cover from bushes across the street. He slides into the vehicle and begins to reverse. The woman whirls around and screams.
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The Democratic Alliance was trailing the African National Congress in most wards as municipal election results were trickling in on Thursday morning. The African National Congress had captured 14 of the 20 counted Western Cape municipalities by 8am on Thursday.
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The Democratic Alliance and the African National Congress were neck and neck in the local government election race in the Western Cape with the Independent Democrats trailing in third place on Thursday morning. Only 232 people voted for municipal ward candidates in the troubled Khutsong township in Merafong City on Wednesday.
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South Africa’s third local government election since the advent of democracy in 1994 took place in a low key and peaceful manner on Wednesday. ”The voting process has proceeded smoothly throughout the country,” the Independent Electoral Commission said in a brief statement.
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South Africans have become used to voting, a political analyst said about Wednesday’s quiet and uneventful local government elections. ”We are used to voting by now and local elections have always been ‘lower temperature’ elections than national elections,” political analyst Hennie Kotze said on Wednesday.
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A holiday atmosphere took hold of strife-torn Khutsong early on Wednesday afternoon as residents opted for soccer instead of voting. However, Khutsong voters make up only a fraction of 1% of the country’s 21-million voters and should not be concentrated on to the detriment of the others, President Thabo Mbeki said.
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Voting got off to a good start despite a few problems, including flooding, at some voting stations, the Independent Electoral Commission said on Wednesday. By 9am, 99% of voting stations were open. Police used rubber bullets to disperse youths in Khutsong and extinguished burning tyres with a water cannon.
Nelson Mandela, the country’s first democratically elected president, voted in Houghton, Johannesburg, on Wednesday.
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Khutsong community stalwart Jomo Mogale on Wednesday called for a by-election in the troubled township where residents are boycotting the local government poll. He said the few voters who had trickled in to cast their ballots were mainly candidate councillors themselves.
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Voters were streaming to polling stations in Johannesburg on Wednesday morning. In Hyde Park, parking was a battle with cars stretching up and down the streets around voting stations. A woman who refused to be named had only one request: ”Politicians should just learn to apologise and admit when they are wrong or else they will discourage people from voting for them”.
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/ 28 February 2006
The Pretoria High Court on Tuesday dismissed urgent applications by four municipalities to stop the transfer of their assets and services to other provinces. The Merafong Demarcation Forum applied to restrain government from handing over at midnight on Tuesday their assets and service duties from Gauteng to the North West province.
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/ 28 February 2006
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The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) in the Western Cape is planning to conduct Wednesday’s municipal election as if there will be no power available in the province. ”We are planning for no electricity. That is the safest,” provincial electoral officer Courtney Sampson told a media briefing in Bellville on Tuesday afternoon.
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/ 28 February 2006
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The Merafong municipality, which includes Khutsong, says it is pleased that elections will take place there and hopes law enforcers will protect voters during and after elections. Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi has urged voters in the Merafong municipality to vote for the party of their choice on Wednesday.
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/ 27 February 2006
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The Pretoria High Court on Monday gave the go-ahead for the election to take place in Khutsong. The court turned down an application by a group calling itself the Merafong community to have the election postponed pending an application to contest the constitutionality of the municipality’s redemarcation.
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/ 24 February 2006
Would the masterful and mellifluous, near-genius skills of world number one Roger Federer have surfaced in all their glory had his parents decided to remain in South Africa instead of returning to Switzerland soon after their marriage in the late 1970s?
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/ 23 February 2006
When a primary-school teacher in the troubled Khutsong township asked her grade-one students what the word ”demarcation” means, one pupil answered: ”They want to move us somewhere poor.” The children think it’s ”just a game” to provoke the police by throwing stones and burning tyres in the streets, says the teacher.
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/ 23 February 2006
The historic town of Tulbagh is anxiously waiting to see if Eskom goes ahead with a proposed power line to supplement the electricity needs of the Western Cape. ”We are watching developments [in Cape Town] with concern,” said John Veschini, property developer and secretary to the Tulbagh Action Committee, on Thursday.
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/ 23 February 2006
The resistance Khutsong residents were showing towards incorporation into North West was often the result of genuine misunderstanding, African National Congress president Thabo Mbeki said on Wednesday. He told Metro FM listeners that party chairperson Mosiuoa Lekota had briefed him on his visit there at the weekend.
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/ 22 February 2006
The current Transnet workers’ strike will accomplish nothing that the company has not already committed to, management said on Wednesday. ”The strike merely affects the economy which, as the past few days illustrate, hurts the most vulnerable members of our society,” Transnet spokesperson John Dludlu said.
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/ 22 February 2006
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The violent protests in Khutsong prior to the municipal elections on March 1 are an exception and not the rule, Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) chairperson Brigalia Bam said on Wednesday at the opening of the IEC’s 12Â 000-square-metre national operations centre in Pretoria.
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/ 22 February 2006
The current Transnet workers’ strike will continue if management refuse to engage unions constructively, the United Association of South Africa (Uasa) said on Wednesday. ”We are receiving conflicting messages from the trade and industry minister [Alec Erwin],” said Uasa official Leon Grobler.
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/ 22 February 2006
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They resemble scenes from another era: angry crowds, clashes with police, shots, teargas and petrol bombs. Twelve years after apartheid ended, some townships are again burning. This time the target is not a racist white regime but the African National Congress, the liberation movement which swept to power in 1994 on a wave of euphoria and the promise of a better life for all.
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/ 21 February 2006
The current strike by Transnet workers was misguided and had no clear objectives, Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin said on Tuesday. He said there had been ”more than enough opportunity” for consultation on the structure of Transnet.