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/ 22 November 2002
Oom Schalk just showed Lemmer a story in the Bosveld Herald about the government wanting South Africans with dual nationalities to give up one of them. Magtig, this is just like the old days when Pieter Willem in his krokodilskoene wanted foreigners not to vote here.
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/ 8 November 2002
The seventh annual Southern African International Film and Television Market (Sithengi) will this year, for the first time, hold a children’s festival, writes Maria Kurian.
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/ 18 October 2002
One might think from the hullabaloo around the maize deal announced by the government last week that the problems of rising staple food prices have been solved at a stroke. This is very far from true — indeed some commentators see the announcement as little more than a public relations exercise.
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/ 20 September 2002
The Cabinet’s April 17 statement on HIV/Aids policy — widely hailed as a crucial change of heart — is looking increasingly threadbare. Was it, as some maintain, merely a tactical manoeuvre to deflect international condemnation in advance of the G8 meeting in Canada.
A Kenyan study has found that HIV-positive men with low CD4 counts are at a higher risk of reinfection with bilharzia.
The government’s websites are a source of constant amusement to the manne at the Dorsbult, and a rich source for material for this column. But sometimes the gems are buried. Take a tender announcement from the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology last week.
The boys at the bar could not help chuckling at former SABC news head Snuki ”Moyo” Zikalala’s article on the Mail & Guardian in the Sowetan this week. Moyo wrote the article, he assures us, ”in his personal capacity as a journalist”. This is a very flattering self-assessment.
While we wait for next month’s Constitutional Court decision on the defection law, the manne have been entertained by the increasing level of bitchiness between estranged KwaZulu-Natal partners the Inkatha Freedom Party and the African National Congress…
The late African National Congress stalwart, Oliver Tambo, once said: ”The nation that does not look after its youth has no future.” At the funeral of the late Peter Mokaba, ANC Youth League president Malusi Gigaba called for the youth of this country to boycott the Mail & Guardian for allegedly having written unfavourably about Mokaba (”Two faces of Mokaba”, June 14). Unfortunately, Gigaba did not say whether the story was true or false.
Being a king is a tough task and you can’t even quit. A quick glance through history shows there are some awful ways to lose your job — most often by losing your head. But in the olden days no one questioned what you wanted to do.
A policeman and three suspected robbers were killed in a shootout after a high speed chase north of Durban on Thursday. This brings the number of policemen killed since Saturday to at least four.
<b>REVIEW:</b> <i>Love Child</i> (University of Natal Press) is a joyful collection of short stories and poems by self-styled praise poet Gcina Mhlophe, writes Lynda Harvey.
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/ 28 February 2002
The UN International Narcotics Control Board says that the number of people injecting heroin in SA has risen by 40% over the past three years.
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/ 24 January 2002
The minister of health was sruprised by KZN Premier Lionel Mtshali’s announcement that ARV nevirapine would be administered as an emergency measure.
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/ 12 January 2002
Police raided the homes of several rightwingers on Friday in the wake of recent bombings blamed on the far right and threats of more violence.
The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) is now widely expected to withdraw from the national cabinet in the next few weeks after being given an ultimatum from the African National Congress (ANC) to stick to its coalition agreement.
Nigerian media group <i>ThisDay</i> (Pty) Ltd, which is to launch a national daily newspaper in South Africa early next year, has purchased CNA Entertainment, a company consisting of 71 retail stores in the CNA chain.
The pending settlement of a land dispute case in northern KwaZulu-Natal could become an example for the rest of South Africa, which, like its neighbour Zimbabwe, is faced with a need to conduct land reform.
The ANC said it had lost one of its stalwarts, Comrade Justice Maqina Mpanza, best known as Gizenga, who died on Tuesday after two days of illness.
A Tongaat man was shot dead and his son injured on their sugar cane plantation in northern KwaZulu-Natal on Saturday morning, police said.
About 75% of children younger than 17 lived below the poverty line of R400 per month in 1999, the Institute for Democracy in South Africa said on Tuesday.
Poet, playwright and song-writer Mbongeni Ngema said he stood by the issues raised in his controversial song ”AmaNdiya”, about the oppression of blacks by Indians.
Three political parties on Monday called on the Justice Department to release the details of the 33 prisoners who were granted a presidential pardon over the weekend.
In the application to have the ”crossing-the-floor” legislation declared unconstitutional, the Constitutional Court was told the defection law in question diminishes the Constitution and ”devalues the vote”.
Six people were rushed to a Richards Bay hospital in
KwaZulu-Natal after a Puma helicopter crashed on the deck of the Jolly Rubino trawler on Saturday morning, government officials said.
The ANC in KwaZulu-Natal indicated on Friday it intended to pressure its national leaders to seek changes to the Constitution as soon as possible to allow floor-crossing at provincial and national level.
KwaZulu-Natal has historically been one of South Africa’s more volatile provinces. With political tensions on the rise again, some analysts fear there may be potential for renewed conflict.
A programme to provide a basic amount of free water to every household in South Africa has now reached an estimated 27-million people.
South Africa’s first Beer Route was launched on Wednesday by the KwaZulu-Natal tourism department in conjunction with five independent micro breweries.
The lawyers of thousands of South Africans suffering from asbestos-related diseases said on Monday they would return to the United Kingdom High Court in an effort to force mining company Cape Plc to pay overdue settlement claims.
DEFENCE Minister Mosiuoa Lekota has stated publicly that the government’s attempts to end the economic and political crisis in Zimbabwe had failed, his representative said on Saturday.
The cause of Saturday’s fire at the Empangeni Road Traffic Inspectorate was arson, the KwaZulu-Natal department of transport has confirmed.