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/ 26 January 2008
Residents of the impoverished Skielik community on Saturday buried three loved ones who were gunned down last week, allegedly by 18-year-old Johan Nel. Enoch Tshepo Motshelanoka (10), three-month-old Keditlhotse Elizabeth Moiphitlhi and her 31-year-old mother, Anna, were buried at the Swartruggens cemetery.
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/ 24 January 2008
Zambia’s Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the deportation of a British writer who described President Levy Mwanawasa as a ”fool”, saying the punishment sought was ”disproportionate” to the offence. The full Bench of the court said Roy Clarke should be allowed to stay in Zambia.
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/ 12 January 2008
A suicide bomb attack that killed 19 people in Lahore, which had been a haven from violence, demonstrates an intensifying show-down with militants at a time when Pakistan is in a volatile political flux. The blast in the country’s political nerve centre on Thursday carried an ominous message ahead of February’s national election.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) on Tuesday asked that acting National Director of Public Prosecutions Mokotedi Mpshe be called to Parliament to explain the delay in making public the decision on whether or not to charge police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi.
Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Brigitte Mabandla on Monday rejected as ”untrue” reports that she had delayed the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) decision on whether or not to charge police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi. The NPA ”does not have to get any permission from the minister”, said Mabandla’s spokesperson.
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/ 20 December 2007
A Kenyan Court of Appeal dismissed a suit seeking to stop the flotation of the country’s leading mobile operator Safaricom on Thursday, clearing the way for the government to go ahead with the offer. Three opposition legislators had sought to block the country’s biggest initial public offering, saying it had not been done transparently.
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/ 17 December 2007
Uncertainty over the prosecution of police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi was not in anyone’s best interest, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said. The National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) spokesperson Tlali Tlali said on Sunday that a decision had been made on whether Selebi ”has a case to answer”.
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/ 6 December 2007
The South African Police Service (SAPS) was not involved in reviewing the arrest warrant for its National Commissioner, Jackie Selebi, Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula said on Thursday. However, he confirmed that the warrant was indeed the subject of review.
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/ 30 November 2007
Dina Rodrigues — jailed for life for the murder of six-month-old Jordan Leigh Norton — on Friday filed papers at the Supreme Court of Appeal for leave to appeal her conviction and sentence. The Cape High Court in June this year handed down life sentences to 26-year-old Rodrigues and two accomplices for the contract murder of baby Jordan.
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/ 30 November 2007
Israel’s top court has upheld a government decision to reduce the Gaza Strip’s fuel imports, but postponed planned electricity cuts to the Hamas-ruled territory, Israeli officials said on Friday. Israel began reducing the amount of fuel oil, diesel and petrol allowed into Gaza last month as part of economic sanctions.
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/ 20 November 2007
Ben Mafani never met Piet Koornhof, who died this week at the age of 82. But he hopes to come face to face with Koornhof in the life hereafter, because he has a question for the apartheid-era Cabinet minister. Mafani wants to know why he, his family, and thousands of other people were forcibly removed from ”white” South Africa three decades ago.
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/ 7 November 2007
Former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto threatened on Wednesday to lead a mass protest march to the capital unless President Pervez Musharraf quits as army chief, holds elections and restores the Constitution. Bhutto, the politician most capable of mobilising street power, gave Musharraf until Friday to comply.
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/ 7 November 2007
Police torture and brutality are rife and High Court orders are openly disregarded in Zimbabwe, pointing to a ”grave constitutional crisis”, according to a report released on Wednesday. The most worrying aspect is open attacks on members of the legal profession, said advocate Andrea Gabriel.
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/ 7 November 2007
Estate planning is not only about the accrual and use of your assets during your lifetime — it also involves the final division of your assets at your death for the benefit of your family. To ensure that you successfully transfer your wealth from one generation to the next, it is important that you plan appropriately and by means of professional advice.
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/ 6 November 2007
Pakistan’s opposition grappled for a united response on Tuesday to President Pervez Musharraf’s imposition of emergency rule, leaving lawyers to protest alone for a second day and bear the brunt of a police crackdown. Ousted Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry said ”the people should rise up and restore the Constitution”.
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/ 6 November 2007
A Kenyan judge has ordered an investigation of a United States children’s charity accused in a civil suit of exploiting and trafficking children, a court official said on Tuesday. The court on Monday extended an order first issued on October 9 barring Kids Alive Kenya from operating in the country until the suit filed against it has been resolved.
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/ 6 November 2007
Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court, regarded as a handpicked ally of President Robert Mugabe, has backed controversial legislation that allows the government to take farm equipment belonging to white farmers, in the name of the regime’s often-violent campaign to seize white-owned land.
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/ 6 November 2007
Pakistani police beat and arrested lawyers protesting for a second day on Tuesday against President Pervez Musharraf’s emergency rule, while officials under United States pressure said an election would be held in early 2008. Opposition politicians, including Benazir Bhutto, have spoken out but there has been no real action on their part so far.
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/ 5 November 2007
An Eastern Cape man was on Monday convicted of indecently assaulting and murdering his aunt because she owed him R20. Grahamstown High Court Judge Jeremy Pickering found that Caswell Nkanunu, of Emasimini, murdered Nomanci Taliwe (47), of Elliot, in her house on December 11 2004.
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/ 5 November 2007
Pakistan police used tear gas and batons on Monday against lawyers protesting at President Pervez Musharraf’s imposition of emergency rule and detentions mounted, prompting Washington to postpone defence talks. Musharraf cited spiralling militancy and hostile judges to justify Saturday’s action, and slapped reporting curbs on the media.
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/ 5 November 2007
Pakistan police baton-charged lawyers protesting against President Pervez Musharraf’s emergency rule on Monday, as police continued to detain his opponents in the face of United States pressure to hold elections in January. Declaring an emergency on Saturday, General Musharraf cited spiralling militancy and hostile judges to justify his action.
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/ 26 October 2007
A judge on Thursday blocked a British decision to deport a South African former police officer who claims he would face violence from gang members if he returned to his homeland. Former sergeant David Andreason, who stopped working as a police officer in 2001 due to stress, fled Durban for Britain after an attempt on his life in 2005.
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/ 22 October 2007
The Zimbabwe government has intensified a drive to expel white farmers issuing eviction orders to more farmers and threatening to arrest those who have not vacated their properties after the expiry of a September 30 deadline to do so. Fewer than 600 white commercial farmers remain in Zimbabwe.
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/ 21 October 2007
Several weeks ago the Constitutional Court ruled in a landmark case on religious and cultural expression in public schools. In 2004, Sunali Pillay, then a learner at Durban Girls’ High School, pierced her nose and inserted a small gold stud. The school objected to the stud on the basis that it contravened the school’s code of conduct.
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/ 15 October 2007
The South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef) has expressed outrage at alleged political and police action regarding Sunday Times editor Mondli Makhanya and deputy managing editor Jocelyn Maker, likening it to apartheid-era conduct.
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/ 13 October 2007
For years, former United States vice-president Al Gore and a host of climate scientists were belittled and, worst of all, ignored for their message about how dire global warming is. On Friday, they were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their warnings about what Gore calls ”a planetary emergency”.
Jurors in the British coroner’s inquest into the death of Princess Diana on Monday started retracing her final, ill-fated journey from the Paris Ritz to the underpass where her chauffeur-driven Mercedes crashed. Travelling under heavy police escort, the 11 jurors set off from the Ritz Hotel on Paris’s Place Vendome.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) on Friday called for a broader political inquiry into the suspension of the director of the National Prosecuting Authority, advocate Vusi Pikoli. ”This has now become more urgent than ever,” spokesperson Patrick Craven said.
Acting National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) Mokotedi Mpshe has taken steps to cancel both an arrest and search warrant for police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi. The National Prosecuting Authority said in a statement it would like ”to clarify the status of the arrest and search warrants”.
An inquest into the death of Princess Diana finally opened on Tuesday, 10 years after she and Dodi al-Fayed were killed in a Paris car crash, with her lover’s father still convinced the two were victims of an establishment plot. Mohamed al-Fayed, owner of London’s luxury Harrods store, fought a long legal battle to have the inquest heard by a judge and jury.
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/ 11 September 2007
The National Treasury has stepped in to ensure better protection for minors’ assets and avoid future Fidentia-type scandals. As early as the end of this year, it is proposed that death benefits be paid into a new vehicle called beneficiary funds, which will be regulated by the Pensions Fund Act.
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/ 1 September 2007
After all the drama of the court cases that preceded it, the floor-crossing window got off to a low-key start on Saturday. The only excitement was provided by a senior African Christian Democratic Party politician in the Western Cape, Johan Kriel, who accompanied his move to the Democratic Alliance (DA) with a blistering attack on ACDP leader, Kenneth Meshoe.