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/ 17 October 2005
Three men appeared in the Vereeniging Magistrate’s Court on Monday charged with the kidnapping of 10-year-old Liam Aspeling last week, Gauteng police said. The boy was snatched from the front of his mother’s home in Ennerdale on Tuesday. He was reunited with his family on Wednesday.
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/ 17 October 2005
About 400 people gathered outside the Gauteng legislature on Monday where they formed a human chain around the building to mark International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. Representing a variety of NGOs, the demonstrators called for a basic income grant for all.
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/ 16 October 2005
Shouting and swearing at the Zimbabwean government will not help resolve problems there, President Thabo Mbeki said on Saturday. South Africa’s approach — and that of the region — is to work together to find solutions to problems, he said at the launch of the African Editors’ Forum in Kempton Park, Gauteng.
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/ 14 October 2005
The draft preliminary design report for the Gautrain Rapid Rail link was released for public comment on Friday. The report, released by the Gauteng department of public transport, roads and works, provides details of some of the stations planned between Johannesburg and Pretoria.
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/ 14 October 2005
Mike van Graan asks if we can move on to real transformation, now that we have generally replaced white people with black people at the trough of public funds.
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/ 13 October 2005
The government was to make its first commercial farm expropriation for the purposes of restitution in Lichtenburg on Thursday. North West farmer Hannes Visser would be given 21 days to respond to the notice of expropriation to be served by the Commissioner for Restitution of Land Rights in Gauteng and North West, said spokesperson Mvusiwekhaya Sicwetsha.
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/ 12 October 2005
Ten-year-old Liam Aspeling, who was kidnapped on Tuesday morning, arrived home to a hero’s welcome in a police car at his Ennerdale, Johannesburg, home on Wednesday evening. Still in his school uniform, he was lifted on to the shoulders of an adult and waved at well-wishers in the street.
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/ 12 October 2005
The multimillion-rand hijacking trial in which kidnapped schoolboy Liam Aspeling’s father is to testify for the state is scheduled to start in the Cape High Court on Monday. This is according to advocate William Booth, defence counsel for two of the 11 accused, brothers Selwyn and Virgil de Vries, both from Ennerdale, where Liam was snatched on Tuesday.
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/ 10 October 2005
Workers marching for an end to unemployment and job losses warned the ruling African National Congress on Monday to ignore them at its peril. ”We cannot simply be election fodder,” Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) president Willie Madisha told protesters who converged at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.
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/ 10 October 2005
The wage strike at retail chain Clicks, owned by listed health and beauty group New Clicks Holdings, entered its fourth day on Monday with all Clicks stores open and operating as usual, Clicks said. Michael Harvey, brand leader of Clicks, estimated that 70% to 80% of staff within the bargaining unit in Gauteng remained away from work through Monday.
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/ 10 October 2005
Several promising young black gymnasts showed their mettle at the weekend’s acro-gymnastics nationals, which were held at Ermelo in Mpumalanga. Elizke Blofield, a 12-year-old pupil at Laerskool Delmas, and Alexander Demianenko stole the show with brilliant routines to finish with a world-class score of 55,182 (out of 60).
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/ 10 October 2005
Workers in Gauteng and the North West stayed off work and held demonstrations on Monday to protest unemployment and job losses. Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) spokesperson Patrick Craven said demonstrations were being held in Pretoria, Rustenburg, Klerksdorp and Mafikeng.
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/ 10 October 2005
A 46-year-old Swiss lawyer was arrested at a top Sandton hotel on Sunday for sexually exploiting young boys as a ”sex tourist”, Gauteng police said. Superintendent Mary Martins-Engelbrecht said the high-profile corporate lawyer was caught ”in the act” while having sexual intercourse with a 14-year-old Alexandra boy.
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/ 10 October 2005
Fifty people arrested on Saturday following protests sparked off by the murder of a six-year-old girl in Eldorado Park, Johannesburg will appear in the Protea Magistrate’s court on Monday, according to the police. Gauteng spokesperson Senior Superintendent Mary Martins-Engelbrecht said the 50 were all adults and included both men and women.
Eldorado Park residents promised to continue protesting over the murder of a six-year-old girl on Saturday after a day of violent demonstrations in the township. The residents, who threw stones, broke windows and damaged cars outside of the Eldorado Park police station, dispersed on Saturday afternoon but promised to come back to protest about the death of Gairoenisha Ganchi.
Community members handed over a man to the Eldorado Park police station, south of Johannesburg, on Saturday in connection with the murder of six-year-old Ghairoenisha Michaela Lee Canchi. The girl went missing on Thursday afternoon and her body was found close to her home on Friday morning. She was buried on Friday afternoon.
Gauteng community safety MEC Firoz Cachalia urged Eldorado Park residents to stay calm on Friday and let police investigate the disappearance of a six-year-old girl who was later found murdered. He made his appeal in response to their outrage at the police’s alleged tardiness in handling the case.
Comedian Marc Lottering plans to become a walking, talking condom dispenser, to ”encourage all Capetonians to protect themselves and to survive”, he said in a statement announcing the launch of an innovative nationwide HIV/Aids pledge campaign this weekend. Pledges will be not for money, but rather for action.
The massive HIV/Aids campaigns that South African society is constantly bombarded with has no effect on reducing the pandemic’s prevalence rate. This is according to Warren Parker, a researcher and director of the Johannesburg-based Centre for Aids, who was addressing the Gauteng Aids conference in Midrand on Friday morning.
Recently the Pension Funds Adjudicator (PFA), Vuyani Ngalwana issued rulings on a further 22 retirement annuities (RAs). Life companies have chosen to settle 15 of these rather than face the negative publicity. This brings to 54 the total number of RA rulings since March. The life companies are appealing seven of these in the High Court.
An indigent burial support programme was needed to cope with the rising number of HIV/Aids deaths in South Africa, a researcher said on Thursday. Shirley Ngwenya, a public health researcher in Johannesburg, was addressing a Gauteng Aids conference at Gallagher Estate.
There is a steady increase in HIV prevalence in South Africa, a professor from the University of KwaZulu-Natal said at the opening of the Gauteng Aids Council conference in Johannesburg on Thursday. The life expectancy in the country would soon plummet from 63 years to 46, Professor Alan Whiteside said.
Cape High Court Judge President John Hlophe has dismissed as ”utter rubbish” allegations that he racially abused a top white lawyer and told him to go back to The Netherlands. Hlophe said on Wednesday night he had no idea where the allegations came from. ”It is absolute rubbish,” he said.
Cool and conditions moving over the northern parts of the country brought some relief on Wednesday for firefighters still battling veld fires in Mpumalanga. Earlier in the day, a fire that raged through the North West veld overnight was brought under control near the Vredefort Dome. However, the fire risk remains high in the northern parts of the country.
It is ”patently obvious” that the rights of patients in state hospitals are not being respected and that urgent action is needed, the Democratic Alliance said on Wednesday. DA MP and health spokesperson Dianne Kohler-Barnard released a damning report on the country’s ”five worst hospitals” during a press conference at Parliament.
Former deputy president Jacob Zuma’s attorney Mike Hulley will not lodge an application in the Durban High Court on Wednesday for the return of documents seized during recent raids by the Scorpions, according to his secretary. On Monday, Hulley said the application would probably be lodged on Wednesday.
M&G Media, owner of the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> newspaper, announced on Wednesday that Jason Zeelie has been appointed as the group’s managing director of publishing with effect from November 1. Most recently, Zeelie has worked at Independent Newspapers, where he was Gauteng retail and special projects advertising manager.
A solid final-round 66 in the Vodacom Origins of Golf Tour at Erinvale reignited Eugen Marugi’s career after a rather non-descript 2004 season. Last week, Marugi underlined his comeback at the Seekers Travel Pro-Am. With back-to-back top-10 finishes, the 21-year-old Johannesburg golfer is finally back on the Sunshine Tour fairways.
The South Africa Foundation on Tuesday launched a new report that focuses on 12 specific proposals for ways to lower telecommunications costs and widen access. The report comes a week ahead of the telecommunication-pricing indaba. The second round of the government-hosted two-day colloquium will take place in Gauteng.
Two months in state hospitals in North West and Gauteng changed a healthy pensioner of Lichtenburg into an ”empty shell”, News24 reported on Tuesday. Des Farrell (72) was admitted to hospital on July 23 with a broken leg. On September 21, he was discharged with mild brain damage and many bedsores.
If coach Stuart Baxter expected a transformation in old habits, with all Bafana Bafana 20 players assembling en masse at the squad’s training camp in Durban on Monday prior to the critical African Nations Cup match against the Democratic Republic of Congo, it was a case of Bafana’s leopards simply not changing their spots.
Firefighting teams are battling to extinguish 15 forest and veld fires that continue to burn out of control in Mpumalanga, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal, Working on Fire (WF) said on Monday. WF spokesperson Val Charlton said about 26 WF firefighting teams are battling the blazes across the northern parts of the country.