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/ 26 October 2004
Fraud and corruption accused Schabir Shaik threatened to withdraw his Nkobi group from Thomson-CSF operations in 1996, the Durban High Court heard on Monday. The court also heard about a tailor who appeared to act as a go-between for parties interested in acquiring a stake in the government’s multibillion-rand arms deal.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=124349">Shaik thought connections would help</a>
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/ 25 October 2004
A witness told the Schabir Shaik trial in Durban on Monday that Shaik believed his political connections would enable his company to get a slice of the multibillion-rand arms deal. He said French firm Thomson CSF regarded political connections as important in the adjudication process of the arms deal.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=124329">Shaik trial tracks ‘the tailor'</a>
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/ 25 October 2004
KwaZulu-Natal police have found the bodies of four men who were murdered in two separate incidents over the weekend at Ngudwini. Police spokesperson Superintendent Jay Naicker said Mkhombeni Ntanzi (41) was shot several times in the early hours of Sunday morning when he went out to herd his cattle into the valley below the Mbizana store.
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/ 25 October 2004
Family members, friends and members of the African National Congress will plan the funeral of controversial KwaZulu-Natal MEC Dumisane Makhaye who died on Sunday. Makhaye died of lung cancer in the Parklands hospital in Durban. IFP MP Vedlaphi Ndlovu said he would remember Makhaye as a ”political animal” who loved his party and didn’t care about other parties.
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/ 24 October 2004
Nine people were killed and 55 were seriously injured in a bus accident near Vryheid in KwaZulu-Natal late on Saturday night, South African Broadcasting Corporation radio news reported. A case of culpable homicide has been opened. It is suspected that the driver lost control. Police said the bus was travelling from Madadeni, near Newcastle, to a wedding at Mandini.
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/ 23 October 2004
Documents show that Jacob Zuma tried to secure Schabir Shaik’s Nkobi group a share in the Durban Waterfront’s abortive Point development, the Durban High Court heard on Friday.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=124222">Zuma and Shaik went to Malaysia</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=Insight-National&ao=124174">Did Zuma lie to Parliament?</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=Insight-National&ao=124176">A poor deputy president</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=Insight-National&ao=124175">Revenge of the secretaries</a>
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/ 22 October 2004
The Durban High Court heard on Friday that Deputy President Jacob Zuma accompanied Nkobi group director Schabir Shaik on a visit to Malaysia in 1995. This is according to a report by forensics expert Johan van der Walt from the KPMG accounting and auditing firm.
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/ 21 October 2004
Tourism in northern KwaZulu-Natal will be boosted by a new airport, able to accommodate modern jet liners, the province’s tourism minister said on Thursday. The existing airstrip at Mkuzi, a small town near St Lucia, would be upgraded into a regional airport, which would provide almost instant access to the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park, said Narend Singh.
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/ 19 October 2004
No one could have accused the British Conservative government of breaking its promise to bring back Victorian values. When, in 1992, it permitted private water companies to install pre-paid meters in Birmingham, the people who couldn’t afford to flush their toilets started defecating into pots, which they then emptied out of the windows of their tower blocks. It made one quite nostalgic.
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/ 18 October 2004
Sectoral education and training authorities (Setas) are here to stay, Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana said on Monday about the oft-criticised learning institutions. ”We are not going to scrap the Setas. On the contrary, we are going to do what we can to strengthen them,” Mdladlana said.
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/ 18 October 2004
Schabir Shaik’s former personal assistant told the Durban High Court on Monday of a phone call in which Shaik asked Deputy President Jacob Zuma for help securing a slice of the arms deal. Bianca Singh said that at one point late in 1998 she was in Shaik’s office when his cellphone rang. She gathered that the caller was his brother Chippy, then head of acquisitions in the Department of Defence.
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/ 16 October 2004
Schabir Shaik’s Nkobi group paid almost a quarter of a million rand to woo Zulu King Goodwill Zwelethini from the Inkatha Freedom Party to the African National Congress, according to a document handed to the Durban High Court. The document is the transcript of an interview Scorpions investigators conducted with Shaik’s former business associate, Professor Themba Sono.
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/ 14 October 2004
Deputy President Jacob Zuma’s name came up repeatedly as the corruption and fraud trial of his financial adviser Schabir Shaik got under way in earnest in the Durban High Court on Wednesday. Prosecutor Billy Downer explained in how the state planned to explore the complex web of financial relationships between Zuma and Shaik.
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/ 13 October 2004
Deputy President Jacob Zuma still owes more than R1-million for costs incurred in the construction of his Nkandla village in KwaZulu-Natal, the Durban High Court heard on Wednesday. Prosecutor Billy Downer said the state will prove that the source of the funding for Nkandla was a bribe from arms company Thomson CSF.
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/ 13 October 2004
State prosecutor Billy Downer made a slide presentation to the Durban High Court on Wednesday showing the link between Schabir Shaik and Deputy President Jacob Zuma.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=123676">NPA believes Woods may testify</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=123640">MPs need OK for Shaik trial</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=123605">’What was Mbeki’s role in arms deal?'</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=123595">TV station loses bid to film Shaik trial</a>
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/ 13 October 2004
Famine in Africa could worsen unless action is taken to tackle the continent’s HIV/Aids pandemic, according to a senior United Nations official.
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/ 12 October 2004
The prevalence of HIV among health workers in South Africa is ”very high” and they need to be targeted with anti-retroviral treatment as part of a multipronged approach to augment the sector, the South African Medical Journal warns. The journal said the high prevalance of HIV in the health sector had serious implications for the health system, with increased absenteeism and non-infected workers becoming overloaded with work.
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/ 11 October 2004
No discrepancies or irregularities involving the first day of the matric exams had been reported by noon on Monday, Minister of Education Naledi Pandor said in Pretoria. Demanding a daily report on matric exams from each province, Pandor said so far all matters concerning logistics, delivery and security had been attended to.
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/ 11 October 2004
Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi has told traditional leaders that he has long been concerned that the South African government lacks the resolve to address ”the issue of the obliteration of the powers and functions of amakhosi [traditional leaders]” through the imposition of municipalities.
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/ 11 October 2004
The New National Party held its 86th provincial conference in KwaZulu-Natal at the weekend at which its provincial leader Renier Schoeman was unanimously re-elected and former provincial legislature member Brian Edwards became provincial chairperson.
The former senior public prosecutor of the Pietermaritzburg Magistrate’s Court was convicted of fraud and corruption and sentenced in the Durban Regional Court on Friday. Stanley Ngubane was paid R70 000 in order for a murder accused to be detained at local police cells, instead of in prison.
A second person has been gored by a black rhino in the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve, KwaZulu-Natal nature conservation authorities said on Thursday.
Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife’s Jeff Gaisford said that in the latest incident Mandlenkosi Magubane (33), one of a group of contract workers clearing alien vegetation in the reserve on Monday, stumbled upon a black rhino which attacked him.
The Treatment Action Campaign — a South African ant-Aids lobby group –and its leader, Zackie Achmat, are joint nominees for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize, to be announced on Friday. ”There could not be a better recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize than somebody who has contributed to save about 20 million people,” said Dr Eric Goemaere, head of Medicins Sans Frontieres South Africa.
A man accused of killing a woman and cooking her body parts has died from possible gastroenteritis although a case of murder has been opened, KwaZulu-Natal police said on Wednesday. Superintendent Jay Naicker said Elvis Matenjwa died in the Ngwelezan hospital on September 27. He was apparently admitted on September 22 suffering from gastroenteritis.
A cold front will hit the Western Cape province from Wednesday evening and should continue moving over South Africa, while at the same time bringing rain, until Tuesday next week, said South African Weather Service (Saws) forecaster Evert Scholtz. There should be heavy showers over parts of the Western and Eastern Cape up until Friday.
Barclays Bank’s potential purchase of a controlling stake in Absa puts into perspective parochial talk of ”big empowerment deals”. The R20-billion bandied about as the price is almost the total spent on black economic empowerment (BEE) deals in 2003. That a foreign bank wants to put such serious money into a South African operation supports the view that BEE does not necessarily deter foreign direct investment.
A Muldersdrift man arrested on child pornography charges was on his way to the Krugersdorp Magistrate’s Court for his first appearance on Monday following his arrest last week, police said. Police started investigating the man when they were given a video tape about two months ago.
Three people were arrested in connection with child pornography in KwaZulu-Natal on Friday when provincial government offices and houses of suspected employees were raided, police said. Police spokesperson Superintendent Vishnu Naidoo confirmed that a man was arrested in Ladysmith on Friday afternoon while two other ”very senior” officials were arrested in Nqutu and Umdloti.
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/ 29 September 2004
Two South African daily papers, and one weekly, still have a majority of white readers, ten years after apartheid was abolished. Four other papers have higher ratios of white readers in 2004 than was the case in 1994. This can be gleaned from the latest All Media Products Survey (Amps). Surprising? Scary? Evidence, yet again, of the reluctant pace of racial transformation? Not quite.
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/ 28 September 2004
President Thabo Mbeki has strongly criticised those intent on continuing political assassinations reminiscent of the apartheid regime, vowing that perpetrators will be brought to book. Writing in his weekly newsletter on Monday, he referred to last week’s murder of the former speaker of the Estcourt Municipal Council, Stanley Chetty, who had switched to the ANC during the recent floor-crossing period.
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/ 27 September 2004
The British government has been imposing privatisation on developing countries, often with disastrous results, as a condition for granting aid, according to a report to be published this week. The study, undertaken by War on Want, says private sector consultants are earning ”immense sums” from the arrangement.
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/ 24 September 2004
Twice a year the Chrissiesmeer shop owners put up signs on their doors that say, "Gone Frogging". Instead of preparing for World Tourism Day on September 27 by publishing a set of platitudes about the most prominent places to visit, we decided to abide by the spirit of these intrepid merchants and prepare a portfolio of the country’s more unpredictable and out-of-the-ordinary travel destinations.