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/ 30 September 2007
The suspension of South Africa’s National Director of Public Prosecutions amid silence by President Thabo Mbeki has led to concerns of government meddling in the country’s justice system. Mbeki’s integrity came under fire as his suspension of National Prosecuting Authority chief Vusi Pikoli was linked to the alleged pending arrest of police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi.
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/ 29 September 2007
President Thabo Mbeki has appointed former National Assembly speaker Frene Ginwala to conduct the enquiry into whether National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli is fit to hold office, the Government Communication and Information System said on Saturday.
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/ 24 September 2007
President Thabo Mbeki has suspended Vusi Pikoli, the National Director of Public Prosecutions, it was announced on Monday. Mokotedi Mpshe was named as acting director. The move to suspend Pikoli — met with shock and disbelief by opposition political parties — comes amid a bitter turf war between the police and the Scorpions that has escalated to Cabinet level.
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/ 20 September 2007
The controversial Constitution 13th Amendment Bill was passed in the National Assembly on Thursday, despite opposition from the Democratic Alliance and the Inkatha Freedom Party, among others. The Bill seeks to realign certain provincial borders to avoid municipal boundaries straddling them.
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/ 20 September 2007
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) on Thursday rejected the proposed shortlist of candidates to the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) board. An emergency resolution was brought before the union body’s central committee in Kempton Park, Gauteng, by three member unions.
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/ 14 September 2007
The Independent Democrats (ID) came out winners on Friday in a last-minute flurry of applications to the Cape High Court by ID defectors to retain their seats. The party said bids by four former ID local councillors in the Western Cape to keep their seats were rejected by the court with costs. Two of the four were members of the Cape Town city council.
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/ 13 September 2007
Since the beginning of the year not a single illegal farm eviction has been reported to farming union AgriSA, it said in a statement on Thursday. The union was responding to remarks by Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Dirk du Toit that farmers who illegally evicted tenant workers would have their land expropriated.
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/ 13 September 2007
The African National Congress (ANC) in the Western Cape has accused the Independent Democrats (ID) of attempting to lure ANC councillors to cross the floor with job offers. ANC provincial secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha told a media briefing on Thursday the ANC was in possession of a letter in this regard, signed by ID provincial chairperson Sakkie Jenner.
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/ 13 September 2007
Despite loud and bitter protests from the opposition, the National Assembly on Thursday approved the slate of candidates for the board of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), which was proposed by the communications portfolio committee.
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/ 12 September 2007
Farmers who evict tenant workers illegally will have their land expropriated, Deputy Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Dirk du Toit warned on Wednesday. ”Those people who don’t want to hear, we are not only going to take them to court, we are going to also take their land away from them,” he told MPs in the National Assembly.
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/ 12 September 2007
In the latest twist in the current floor-crossing saga the African National Congress (ANC), despite all its previous protestations about taking firm action against members of Parliament convicted of fraud, on Wednesday accepted into their ranks Craig Morkel, who was convicted of fraud and theft in the Travelgate debacle.
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/ 11 September 2007
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s statement concerning dual-therapy HIV treatment was a ”gross distortion of the truth”, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) said on Tuesday. According to Tshabalala-Msimang, a 2001 court judgement limited her department to implementing only monotherapy nevirapine to HIV-positive pregnant mothers.
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/ 11 September 2007
Legislation providing for formal regulation and supervision of cooperative banks was adopted by the National Assembly on Tuesday. Introducing debate on the Cooperative Banks Bill, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said it seeks to create an appropriate regulatory framework for member-based deposit-taking, financial services cooperatives.
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/ 11 September 2007
The United Independent Front (UIF) lost both its representatives in the National Assembly on Tuesday when they crossed the floor to the African National Congress. Its single proportional seat in the National Council of Provinces could also be in danger after one of its two Western Cape MPLs also defected to the ANC.
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/ 11 September 2007
State-owned broadcast signal distributor Sentech is protesting that it simply does not have enough money to do its job properly. Writing in the company’s annual report, chairperson Colin Hickling points out that it has been proved impossible to roll out a national broadband radio network until extra funds are received from the government.
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/ 11 September 2007
The National Assembly’s communications committee on Tuesday recommended 12 names for the new South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) board, including six current board members. The six are Alison Gilwald, Andile Mbeki, Fadila Lagadien, Khanyisile Mkhonza, Christine Qunta and Ashwin Trikamjee.
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/ 10 September 2007
The Democratic Alliance (DA) had a ”lively” exchange of views with National Assembly speaker Baleka Mbete on Monday in a meeting held to discuss her suspension of DA MP Mike Waters. The meeting was also aimed at discussing Mbete’s ruling as out of order a question, asked by Waters, about Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s theft conviction.
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/ 10 September 2007
Pakistan’s former prime minister Nawaz Sharif launched another phase of his political career on Monday, returning home to challenge the army chief who ousted him eight years ago. Despite the possibility of arrest on graft charges as he steps off his aircraft in Islamabad, Sharif says he is determined to end his exile.
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/ 7 September 2007
Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad is not yet pursuing his opinion that the government should pull advertising from the Sunday Times, presidential spokesperson Mukhoni Ratshitanga said on Friday. He said that Pahad was only expressing a personal view and that it was not government policy.
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/ 6 September 2007
Democratic Alliance (DA) MP Mike Waters has been suspended from Parliament following his outburst in the National Assembly on Wednesday. At the start of proceedings in the House on Thursday afternoon, speaker Baleka Mbete described his conduct of the day before as ”outrageous, disrespectful and grossly disorderly”.
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/ 6 September 2007
The majority of the members of the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) walked out of the National Assembly on Thursday after speaker Baleka Mbete officially suspended one of them for five days. Health spokesperson Mike Waters upset the speaker on Wednesday when he challenged her ruling that a question directed to Manto Tshabalala Msimang was out of order.
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/ 5 September 2007
There was an uproar in the National Assembly on Wednesday when a Democratic Alliance MP was ordered to leave after a written question he posed to the health minister was ruled out of order. The question was whether the minister had been convicted of theft and whether she had disclosed this information to President Thabo Mbeki.
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/ 5 September 2007
Pakistan’s Supreme Court began hearing legal challenges to President Pervez Musharraf’s rule on Wednesday, adding to the woes the embattled United States ally faces as he prepares to secure another term. Musharraf hopes to get re-elected by the national and provincial assemblies between September 15 and October 15.
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/ 4 September 2007
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel has ruled out fixing the price of bread in South Africa. ”If we try and cap prices here we will create all manner of difficulties for ourselves,” he told MPs in the National Assembly on Tuesday. Manuel was responding to a call from Pan Africanist Congress MP Motsoko Pheko to fix the bread price.
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/ 4 September 2007
The embattled Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) has suffered a further blow with the defection of its deputy president Themba Godi and two MPLs to the newly formed African People’s Convention (APC). Godi’s move to the APC was announced by National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete at the start of proceedings on Tuesday.
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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.
The Independent Democrats (ID) were riding high on the eve of the floor-crossing window on Friday after Cape High Court judges rejected bids by four would-be deserters to hang on to their seats until midnight. Judge Dennis Davis turned down an application by former ID general secretary Avril Harding to have his summary expulsion from the party reversed.
A Cape High Court judge on Friday criticised what he called ”unseemly political horse-trading” ahead of the floor-crossing window, and said it resembled transfer season in the English Premiership. Dennis Davis made the remarks before rejecting an application by the former general secretary of the Independent Democrats to overturn his expulsion from the party.
Despite persistent incredulous questioning by opposition parties, President Thabo Mbeki insisted on Thursday that the Zimbabwean government, the two factions of the Movement for Democratic Change and representatives of civil society are engaged in talks that will produce conditions for holding free and fair elections next March in an atmosphere of peace and tranquillity.
Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi has rejected suggestions the government is seeking to create one public-service administration for all tiers of government. ”What the initiative seeks to do is to harmonise the conditions of service across government, so that government is able to work better,” she said on Tuesday.
Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi met municipal labour unions in Pretoria on Monday to discuss the government’s initiative for a single public service, the ministry said. The initiative seeks to create one public-service administration for all three tiers of government.