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/ 22 November 2006
Over five million South African pupils and 13Â 000 schools will be exempt from school fees from January, the Department of Education said on Wednesday. ”The Department of Education wishes to announce that all the nine provincial departments of education have submitted their lists of the number of learners and schools [that] would benefit,” the department said in a statement.
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/ 14 November 2006
A new women’s magazine will finally bridge the gap between religion and sex — at least for religious Afrikaans women in South Africa. Intiem — meaning ”intimate” — is a new, glossy, A5-size magazine targeting the national religious Afrikaans community that will be launched at the end of November.
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/ 6 November 2006
While President Thabo Mbeki will only give up his Union Buildings office in 2009, the next president will effectively be chosen in just over a year’s time at the ANC’s watershed elective conference in Polokwane, Limpopo. How will it happen? And how are the cards stacked? Zukile Majova and Mbuyisi Mgibisa investigated to bring you this exclusive report, taking you into the mechanics of an elective conference.
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/ 5 November 2006
The South African Communist Party (SACP) is outraged at planned retrenchments at De Beers Kimberly Mines, an official said on Saturday. ”We are particularly angered by the company’s decision to close down without proper consultation with the unions, especially the National Union of Mineworkers,” a spokesperson said.
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/ 2 November 2006
The Karoo Array Telescope (Kat) will focus on leading-edge astronomic discoveries and help boost South Africa’s Nobel prize hopes in physics, Science and Technology Minister Mosibudi Mangena said on Thursday. ”The Kat will focus on such leading-edge discoveries and push our understanding of the space frontier even further.
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/ 2 November 2006
Over 8Â 000 health practitioners have been struck off the roll after failing to pay their annual fees, the Health Professionals’ Council of South Africa (HPSCA) said on Thursday. ”A total of 8Â 593 health professionals have been struck off the roll after failing to meet the deadline,” said HPCSA spokesperson Tendai Dhliwayo.
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/ 26 October 2006
OR Tambo International airport is one of hundreds of South African place names that have been officially changed since 2000. The airport’s new name and a bust of Tambo are due to be unveiled on Friday by President Thabo Mbeki. The South African Geographical Names Council lists 833 new names approved since 2000, including at least 145 names that were completely changed.
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/ 26 October 2006
The South African Cabinet has given its approval to the proposal to create six regional electricity distributors (REDs) which will be established as public entities under the auspices of the Electricity Distribution Industry. This was confirmed on Thursday — after the Cabinet’s meeting on Wednesday.
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/ 23 October 2006
Defending champions the Diamond Eagles defeated the Dolphins by 52 runs in a high-scoring MTN Domestic Championship cricket fixture played at the De Beers Diamond Oval, Kimberley, on Sunday. Also, the Titans cruised to a seven-wicket victory over the Highveld Lions in their limited-overs match at Supersport Park.
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/ 19 October 2006
The end of the marathon Richtersveld land-claim dispute is in sight, with news on Thursday that agreement has been reached on a settlement with the state. At a series of meetings this week, members of the Richtersveld community gave their approval to a draft memorandum of understanding.
South Africa is set to seize two more white-owned farms, one of them run by a church, to fast-track land reforms to rectify apartheid-era imbalances, a top land official said on Monday. ”The minister [of agriculture and land affairs] has signed the notices of expropriation and they have been sent,” chief land claims commissioner Tozi Gwanya told the media.
Parts of the Western Cape can expect heavy rain and snow on Monday, Weather SA warned on Monday. ”Heavy falls of rain are possible in the Overberg, Breede River Valley, Ruens, Garden Route and the Little Karoo,” said Weather SA. ”Very cold, wet and windy conditions are expected on the high-ground areas of the Western Cape province and western parts of the Northern Cape province.”
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/ 13 September 2006
Thirteen people — among them two alleged rapists and an alleged robber — were freed when a magistrate refused to work after 4pm, a media report said on Wednesday. It said Kimberley Magistrate K Padayachee scrapped 13 cases off the court roll on Monday and allowed the accused in custody to go free.
South Africa’s dams are 92% full, according to the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry’s records. The department reports on its website that the dams were only 65% full this time last year. This week, dam levels in the provinces ranged from overflowing in the Northern Cape to 72% full in Limpopo.
South Africans have become vegetally preoccupied with the ramblings of Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, on HIV/Aids. As she tosses her mad Greek salad, we have lost sight of the crumbling of the broader health system. We have visited 26 public hospitals across the country and found a system in crisis.
Rainfall has eased in the sodden southern Cape but more is expected, said the South African Weather Service on Thursday. In the 24 hours to 8am on Thursday, the weather service recorded 11,6mm in Riversdale, compared to 28mm the day before, 4mm in George (71,5mm on Wednesday) and 18mm in Heidelberg (25mm on Wednesday).
Roofs of houses and businesses were in danger of collapsing under the weight of snow in Barkly East and Elliot in the Eastern Cape, Arrive Alive said on Wednesday. Disaster teams and traffic authorities were using graders to clear snow off the road. ”But it is very, very cold and the snow is very thick,” said an Arrive Alive spokesperson.
This week South Africa experienced weather extremes starting with a berg wind and a tornado, and ending with snow and floods. A report by South African Weather Service meteorologists Luis Fernandes and Lee-Ann Clark — from the National Forecast Centre in Pretoria — detailed the week’s strange weather.
Fourteen people were rescued from a truck in a flooded river in Plettenberg Bay using a front-end loader, the National Sea Rescue Institute said on Wednesday. A massive cold front has brought freezing conditions and flooding to the country. Four bodies were recovered after a car was washed away in floods in George.
A massive cold front sweeping across South Africa has brought freezing conditions to much of the country, with snow reported as far north as Bloemfontein in the Free State and parts of Gauteng, as well as reports of serious flooding in the southern Cape and a tornado in Dullstroom in Mpumalanga.
South Africa’s population was estimated at approximately 47,4-million at mid-year 2006, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said on Tuesday. In addition, Stats SA said the estimated overall HIV-prevalence rate is approximately 11%, from less than 9% in 2001, with the HIV-positive population estimated at approximately 5,2-million.
Whip out your winter woollies, put on thick socks and boots and stock up on firewood — it is going to be cold and wet in the entire country this week. The South African Weather Service said on Tuesday a strong cold front was moving in over the interior with snow already being reported in the Western Cape.
Labour unions embroiled in a wage dispute with mining company Kumba will continue strike action until their demands are met, the unions said on Tuesday. The workers are demanding a 9% wage increase for higher earners and 10,5% for lower earners. Kumba has countered with an offer of 7% for higher earners and 8% for lower earners.
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has been on strike since 6pm on Sunday at Kumba Resources and the union will be consulting its members at 6pm on Monday regarding Kumba’s latest offer, NUM Kumba representative Jackie Tshimanegape said.
<i>Mail & Guardian</i> editor Ferial Haffajee took top honours at the MTN Women in the Media 2006 awards ceremony in Johannesburg on Friday, claiming the overall award. The awards honour women in the South African media industry who have excelled in their careers.
Mining company Kumba hopes to avert a massive strike planned for Sunday by several trade unions, the company said on Thursday. The unions, however, were adamant that the strike will have a severe impact, with more than 6 000 of Kumba’s 9 000 workers taking part.
A multibillion-rand manganese empowerment deal is on the brink of collapse because a Chinese-led company has attempted to monopolise the deal through shareholder misrepresentation, sources close to the transaction have claimed. The Department of Minerals and Energy will invoke Section 47 of the Minerals and Petroleum Resources Development Act to cancel the lucrative manganese prospecting rights.
The conservative Afrikaner enclave of Orania in the Northern Cape is to launch two support groups abroad, a spokesperson said on Thursday. Eleanor Lombard said an Orania member in The Netherlands, Koos Kooy, recently registered an association called the Buitelandse Vriende van Orania (Friends of Orania Abroad).
The government’s plan to establish a seventh regional electricity distributor (RED) to take care of the power-supply distribution for all non-metro municipalities may end up "fixing" non-existent problems, says the official opposition Democratic Alliance.
The FF Plus said on Thursday that it would ask Finance Minister Trevor Manuel to investigate the constitutionality of an intended provincial fuel levy. The party’s minerals and energy spokesperson, Willie Spies, said he would ask Manuel to investigate whether the planned fuel levy for the Western Cape would be justifiable in terms of Section 228(2) of the Constitution.
A ”frightening” number of police officers have died in Gauteng so far this year, with almost as many slain in the first six months of 2006 as in the whole of last year, said the office of National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi. The deaths of four police officers in a bloody siege in Jeppestown last Sunday brought the tally to 19 since the start of the year.
An attempt to set a new land-speed record at Verneukpan in the Northern Cape ended tragically after an accident during a test run on Tuesday, a local newspaper reported. Pretoria racing driver Johan Jacobs (40) died in the accident when his jet-propulsion vehicle turned sideways at a speed of about 500kph and started rolling, the Volksblad reports.