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/ 23 September 2004
Victorious political parties reacted with glee on Thursday to 19 municipal by-elections held around the country the day before. In KwaZulu-Natal, the African National Congress was in a jubilant mood after gaining victories in three by-elections in rural areas, previously regarded as Inkatha Freedom Party strongholds.
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/ 23 September 2004
Deputy President Jacob Zuma has encouraged young women to take part in the virginity-testing programme of the OR Tambo district municipality. Speaking at the AmaMpondomise heritage celebrations held at Emdibanisweni Great Place near Umtata in the Eastern Cape, Zuma said the ancient practice of virginity testing is a viable solution to curbing the spread of HIV/Aids and teenage pregnancy.
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/ 22 September 2004
Five convicts who escaped from Westville prison on Monday and were recaptured on Wednesday will face new charges and be moved to a place ”with higher security”. KwaZulu-Natal safety and security minister Bheki Cele said: ”it would be amazing if there was no collaboration” with prison officials in the escape.
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/ 21 September 2004
The madness of the floor-crossing period for municipal government councillors is over and once again the ruling African National Congress has snatched up swathes of support from the opposition. In the period of September 1 to 15, it reaped 326 councillors and only lost four to the opposition — two of them to Patricia de Lille’s Independent Democrats.
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/ 16 September 2004
More than 700Â 000 public service workers were on strike on Thursday, making this the biggest strike in South Africa’s history, the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union claimed. Schools appeared to have been the hardest hit. Health services were mostly functioning without disruptions.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Business&ao=122284">Strikers told to stay home next week</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Business&ao=122301">Jury out on strike impact in W Cape</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Business&ao=122277">Blow the vuvuzela: Strikers are ‘gatvol'</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Business&ao=122266">How strike will impact on economy</a>
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/ 16 September 2004
Congress of South African Trade Unions secretary general Zwelinzima Vavi has called on public servants to stay home on Monday and Tuesday next week. As Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi arrived to address a massive protesting crowd in Pretoria, Vavi told the public servants the department was robbing them.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Business&ao=122277&t=1">Strikers are ‘gatvol'</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Business&ao=122266">How strike will impact on economy</a>
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/ 15 September 2004
Black economic empowerment company Akani Leisure Investments has taken over the Halcyon Hotels Group — which includes in its portfolio the prestigious Bay hotel and Blues restaurant in Camps Bay. The acquisition represents the first major empowerment transaction at the top end of the Western Cape hospitality industry.
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/ 15 September 2004
Two more cycad species have become extinct in the past two years, data from the South African National Biodiversity Institute showed on Wednesday. This means at least three, and possibly more, of these fascinating plant species have been lost to South Africa, said John Donaldson, director of research at the institute.
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/ 14 September 2004
The African National Congress in KwaZulu-Natal on Monday said 27 new councillors had joined its ranks since the start of the floor-crossing period on September 1. Most of the councillors were from the New National Party, Democratic Alliance and Inkatha Freedom Party.
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/ 14 September 2004
They originally came as indentured workers but almost 150 years later, South Africa’s million-plus people of Indian origin have carved out a special place in the country’s political and economic landscape. The community of about 1,2-million people is made up largely of descendants of labourers who worked in sugarcane plantations, most of whom were herded onto ships to South Africa by British colonial rulers.
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/ 13 September 2004
The department of health is being taken to court again by Aids pressure group the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), which is demanding the department release its detailed anti-retroviral rollout programme. Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has already filed notice of her intention to oppose it.
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/ 13 September 2004
Billboards that encourage travellers to "Sho’t Left" (taxi slang for "jump off just there or around the corner") litter the Mpumalanga countryside. The mystical, medieval African city of Mapungubwe is preparing to host thousands of visitors when the subcontinent’s latest transfrontier park is launched at the end of the month.
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/ 9 September 2004
When examining the Fair Trade movement it is important first to understand the concept of social consciousness. Becoming socially conscious does not require a paradigm shift in lifestyle — joining a commune, hugging trees or lying down in front of bulldozers. What it does require is lateral thinking and that you ask a few earnest questions about the products you buy, and, in this case, the places you go to on holiday.
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/ 4 September 2004
A media briefing called by the Independent Democrats (ID) to welcome eight new councillors into its ranks turned into a public spat with members of the Democratic Alliance (DA). ID Leader Patricia de Lille lost her temper when DA members repeatedly questioned her about her party’s policies.
While schools are under pressure to distribute condoms at schools, not one of the 12 African countries represented at a high-level meeting in Durban is doing so and most education officials felt this would be inappropriate. A number felt that schools should nonetheless help sexually active secondary-school students to get access to condoms.
Sardine frenzy hit the KwaZulu-Natal south coast on Monday as the tiny silver fish headed back home towards the Eastern Cape. Mike Anderson-Reade from the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board said a huge crowd was gathered at Shelley Beach and that at least 150 baskets had been filled with fish.
Three people, including two children, burnt to death when their home was set alight by a mob in Esikhawini, north of Durban, over the weekend, KwaZulu-Natal police said. The mob poured petrol on two rondavels and a six-roomed house and set them on fire. The group then started shooting occupants of the houses through the windows.
Deputy president Jacob Zuma on Saturday launched the extended public works programme, and said the greatest challenge was to mobilise all municipalities, provincial departments and other public sector bodies to implement the programme. After the Northern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal is the second province to launch the programme.
On a national tour ahead of the floor-crossing window for councillors, Inkatha Freedom Party national chairperson Ziba Jiyane is stressing its ”centre-right” position and its standpoint on family values. He also criticised the appointment of women with wealthy husbands in jobs above breadwinners.
Plans to establish a Great Limpopo Transfrontier Area — almost trebling the area of land currently protected by the transfrontier park of the same name — are moving ahead, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk said on Thursday. He was speaking at the launch of this year’s National Tourism Month.
The mother of former South African and now Australian rugby player Clyde Rathbone was recovering from injuries sustained during a burglary at her home on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast on Wednesday morning. This comes less than a week after a newspaper article quoted her son as saying that since he had moved to Australia, he had a ”total lack of stress” and never worried about the safety of his fiancée.
Three municipal by-elections that will test the resilience of South Africa’s key opposition parties, are to be held on Wednesday. With the United Democratic Movement having recently lost control of the city of Umtata — as a result of the loss of municipal by-elections — General Bantu Holomisa’s party will be looking to poll well in a seat in Kokstad in KwaZulu-Natal, where it is standing for the first time.
The South African Navy’s fourth and last patrol corvette, the SAS Mendi, will set sail from Kiel, Germany, on Friday, the navy said in Pretoria on Wednesday. The ship, a German-built Meko A200SAN patrol corvette, will be joining her three sisters — the SAS Spioenkop, the SAS Amatola and the SAS Isandhlwana — in Simon’s Town.
A total of 118 South African women have discovered since the beginning of the month that they had been married without their knowledge, the Home Affairs Department said on Wednesday. This emerged from a campaign urging women to check their marital status on the department’s records in a bid to curb the problem of fraudulent marriages, the department said in a statement.
Despite living on a continent devastated by millions of deaths because of poverty, wars and HIV/Aids, there are, sadly, few dramas that grip our attention as much as the so-called War on Terror and its various twists and turns. Empire, to borrow from the title of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s latest work, continues to fascinate and infuriate.
The government must tackle muti killings and ritual murders even though some might want this problem to remain hidden, an expert said on Monday. Professor Thias Kgatla, professor of religious studies at the University of the North, said a repeat of a successful campaign in 1994 against the practice is needed.
A group of youngsters brought a hush to Parliament chamber this week when they spoke about their lives of poverty and hardship and how they think the Children’s Bill could create a happier future for them. They call themselves Dikwankwetla, meaning heroes, and this is how they see themselves in the face of the Aids epidemic.
Let’s start with some assertions, all of which can be supported. Everybody knows that quality jobs are better than social grants. We also know that fast, job-creating economic growth is required. The problem is, it is elusive and looks set to remain so. Social grants are the quickest way to alleviate chronic poverty, reckons Charles Meth.
The Boeremag wanted to throw poisoned oranges in the streets of Soweto as part of its strategy to create chaos in the country, the Pretoria High Court heard on Wednesday. Free State potato farmer Henk van Zyl testified about events leading up to "Operation Popeye", a trigger for a Boeremag plan to take over the government.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=120126">Boeremag had breeding plans</a>
South African mobile operator MTN and the South African National Taxi Council on Tuesday launched the Ring’uvaya (phone while you travel) initiative, which will equip South African taxis with pay phones, enabling commuters to make phone calls in the taxi. KwaZulu-Natal is the first province that will get Ring’uvaya phones.
The party that built apartheid and turned South Africa into a pariah State completed its march to oblivion on Saturday by deciding to merge with its one-time nemesis, the African National Congress. The New National Party, heir of a mighty movement that jailed Nelson Mandela and built nuclear bombs, said its shrunken membership would dissolve and fight future elections under the banner of the black ruling party.
FF+: Don’t join the ANC, join us