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/ 22 January 2008

Cabinet to study ANC’s Scorpions decision

The government will look at ways in which members of the Scorpions performing police functions can be absorbed into the police, a spokesperson said on Tuesday. The African National Congress has decided that such members of the Directorate of Special Operations should be absorbed into the South African Police Service.

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/ 22 January 2008

Govt: Mbeki still in control after losing ANC role

South Africa’s government said on Tuesday it remained firmly under the control of President Thabo Mbeki, dismissing concerns that his defeat in the battle to lead the party had made him a lame duck. Mbeki lost control of the African National Congress last month when delegates chose Jacob Zuma as the party’s new leader.

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/ 22 January 2008

Power cuts may spook investors

An electricity shortage that has led to frequent power disruptions in South Africa could chase away investors, denting growth and portfolio inflows and weakening the rand. Economists estimate the cost to the economy has run into hundreds of millions of rands, adding to the woes brought on by the falls in financial markets.

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/ 22 January 2008

Top Scorpions sleuth out on bail

Scorpions investigator Ivor Powell was granted R1 000 bail in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday. His case was remanded to April 29 pending the outcome of his blood alcohol tests. He was arrested on Tuesday night, apparently in the company of alleged Americans gang boss Igshaan Davids.

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/ 22 January 2008

Top Scorpion arrested for drunk driving

A top Scorpions investigator is expected to appear in court on Wednesday morning on charges relating to driving under the influence of alcohol, Talk Radio 702 reported on Tuesday. Senior Scorpion Ivor Powell was apparently arrested with fugitive gang boss Igshaan Davids in Woodstock, on Tuesday evening.

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/ 22 January 2008

Zuma takes trip to Davos

African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma will be spending the rest of this week at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. ”He has been invited there in his capacity as president of the ANC,” party spokesperson Tiyani Rikhotso said on Tuesday.

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/ 21 January 2008

Dark times ahead for South Africa

South Africa was set on Monday to ration electricity in a bid to stem a spiralling crisis that has dealt a severe blow to its status as the continent’s economic powerhouse. After mounting anger over daily power cuts that have cost business hundreds of millions of rands, the government said it was drawing up plans that could see consumers fined if they exceed set quotas.

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/ 21 January 2008

DRC peace conference prolonged amid dissent

A conference aimed at ending conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was prolonged on Monday as rival sides sought agreement, organisers said. The gathering at a university in Goma, the main town of Nord-Kivu province near some of the conflict zones, was due to end on Monday, but its president said another day would be needed.

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/ 21 January 2008

Scorpions’ disbanding ‘is to protect ANC’

The African National Congress (ANC) is getting rid of the Scorpions in order to protect ANC members from corruption charges, according to the leader of the Democratic Alliance, Helen Zille. Zille said on Monday that besides the seven convicted criminals on the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC), six NEC members are currently the subject of investigations.

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/ 20 January 2008

No ANC decision on Motlanthe

It has not been decided whether African National Congress (ANC) deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe will become South Africa’s deputy president, the party’s secretary general, Gwede Mantashe, said on Sunday at the close of the ANC national executive committee’s meeting in Midrand.

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/ 20 January 2008

Mahomed was an architect of the UDF

It is no accident that a meeting held to commemorate the life of Yunus Mahomed was attended by scores of luminaries from the African National Congress and the United Democratic Front (UDF). Current and former Cabinet ministers paid tribute to their comrade, who died of a heart attack on January 6.

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/ 20 January 2008

At least 10 die in KZN bus crash

At least 10 people were killed, 10 critically injured and another 23 seriously injured in a bus accident on the R34 near Ulundi on Saturday, KwaZulu-Natal emergency services reported. The accident, involving a Greyhoud bus, took place on the R34 between Melmoth and Vryheid at the turn-off to Ulundi.

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/ 19 January 2008

Skielik protest: MP accused of hate speech

AfriForum has laid a charge against an African National Congress MP and all other organisers of a demonstration held outside the Swartruggens Magistrate’s Court on Thursday, the organisation said on Friday. Johan Nel (18), who allegedly shot and killed three people in the Skielik informal settlement, was appearing in court on at the time.

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/ 18 January 2008

Zuma is hostile towards media, says Sanef

African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma’s attack on the print media on Friday, in his ANC Today online newsletter, reveals a ”hostile state of mind towards the media”, says the South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef). It contains ”wild generalisations encompassing the media as a whole”, Sanef said.

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/ 18 January 2008

Foreigners to eye SA’s ‘new faces’

Chief economist of Citigroup in South Africa Jean Mercier says foreigners see more political risk in South Africa now than they have over the past few years, and will be keenly monitoring any "new faces", especially in the key finance and Reserve Bank positions, as these people may be untested at high-level economic decision-making.

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/ 18 January 2008

Zuma gives up Mbeki’s weekly online column

Having taken it over last week from his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, newly elected leader of the African National Congress (ANC) Jacob Zuma is giving up his weekly pulpit in the ANC’s online newsletter, <i>ANC Today</i>. The weekly sermon was an opportunity, much prized by Mbeki, to deliver often literary admonishments to individuals or organisations.

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/ 17 January 2008

Zuma goes after Rapport — again

African National Congress president Jacob Zuma is claiming R5-million from Rapport for defamation and crimen injuria, his spokesperson Liesl Gottert said on Thursday — a day after he reached a R50 000 out-of-court settlement with the same paper for a previous defamation and crimen injuria claim.

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/ 17 January 2008

ANC does about-turn over Moseneke comments

The African National Congress (ANC) on Thursday made an about turn on its earlier concerns over comments made by Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke, issuing a statement confirming its confidence in the integrity of the courts. ”Having listened to Justice Moseneke’s account … the ANC accepts that no ill was intended,” an ANC statement said.

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/ 16 January 2008

Deputy chief justice to answer ANC critics

Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke will answer his critics in the African National Congress (ANC) in a statement to be issued on Thursday. The ANC’s national working committee has accused Moseneke of showing disdain for delegates to its national conference in December last year in remarks made at his recent 60th birthday party.

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/ 16 January 2008

Ngonyama gets ready to ‘move on with life’

The African National Congress’s (ANC) outgoing head of the Presidency and communications, Smuts Ngonyama, said on Wednesday he would continue doing work for the party, but in a lower profile. ”It’s more or less 10 years that I have been in this role and I accept that I have to move on with life and look at other challenges,” he said.

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/ 15 January 2008

Survivor: African National Congress

There is more than a touch of Ronald Reagan — or even, dare one say it, George W Bush — in Jacob Zuma. Apparently happily unencumbered by the need to demonstrate a towering intellectual faculty, he is an archetypal instinctive politician — streetwise, savvy and not to be underestimated.

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/ 15 January 2008

Lehman Brothers: Zuma’s plans sound expensive

<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=zuma_report"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/243078/zuma.jpg" align=left border=0></a>Global analysts Lehman Brothers said in a research note on Tuesday that African National Congress president Jacob Zuma’s high-growth policy plans sounded "rather expensive", with funding probably coming from the budget surplus.