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/ 12 September 2005
George du Rand saved the best for last on the final day of the Telkom South African Short-Course Championships on Sunday. The 22-year-old from Bloemfontein bettered his own national and continental record on his way to winning the 100m backstroke. Terence Parkin and Suzaan van Biljon proved their status as top breaststrokers.
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/ 2 September 2005
Expelled Inkatha Freedom Party MPL Jabulani Maphalala should be reinstated as a full member of the party and the legislature, the Pietermaritzburg High Court ordered on Friday. Meanwhile, the United Democratic Movement lost its finance spokesperson on Friday when the MP crossed the floor to the Democratic Alliance.
A 48-year-old schoolteacher was shot dead in Ekhombe, in the Nkandla area, KwaZulu-Natal police said on Thursday. ”Teressa Mbanjwa was found dead in her cottage around 8am on Wednesday with her head smashed beyond recognition. It is suspected that she was shot at close range the previous night,” Captain Vusi Mbatha said.
The Inkatha Freedom Party was ”delighted” on Friday when the Pietermaritzburg High Court overturned a conviction and 10-year sentence for rape handed down to its national organiser Albert Mncwango. ”The political enemies of Mr Mncwango had contrived to bring these accusations against him,” said IFP spokesperson Musa Zondi.
Comrades Marathon Association chairperson Dave Dixon on Tuesday announced the appointment of Renee Smith to the position of race manager, with effect from May 3. She will start her duties alongside acting CEO Cheryl Winn, with just six weeks to go until the 80th running of the Comrades Marathon on June 16.
Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang again stressed the importance of nutrition in regard to HIV/Aids at a Pietermaritzburg gathering on Friday of organisations dealing with the pandemic. The minister said there is scientific proof that lemon, olive oil and garlic can work wonders for people with Aids symptoms.
A teacher was found stabbed to death on the grounds of Swayimane High School in Wartburg on Wednesday, apparently after an argument over school fees, KwaZulu-Natal Midlands police said on Thursday. The 47-year-old teacher had been stabbed in the neck, said police spokesperson Superintendent Joshua Gwala.
KwaZulu-Natal police officers have discovered a large cache of arms hidden in a shallow grave in the Midlands on Monday. Some of the ammunition included 43 M26 hand and rifle grenades and 60mm mortar barrels and magazines of various types, Superintendent Vishnu Naidoo said on Tuesday morning.
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/ 17 February 2005
The Sharks played a brand of running rugby that thrilled the 10 000-strong Woodburn crowd as they amassed 10 scintillating tries on their way to a 70-17 drubbing of the Leopards in a Super 12 warm-up match on Wednesday night. The first half produced just three tries, with a 24-14 lead at the break.
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/ 14 February 2005
There were some sterling performances in the second-day events for individuals at the 32nd Halfway Telkom Midmar Mile at the popular Midlands resort on Sunday. Keri-Anne Payne of the United Kingdom — who was the junior champion in 2001 before her family relocated to Sheffield, England — brilliantly defended the senior women’s title she won last year.
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/ 4 February 2005
Eleven children were seriously injured when a bus on its way to a local school overturned between Wartburg and Dalton on Friday, KwaZulu-Natal police said.
About 32 children were slightly injured and were taken to hospital for treatment. Approximately 10 children were unharmed.
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/ 24 January 2005
A man and a woman are being questioned at the Tugela Ferry police station following the murder of five children at Msinga near Greytown in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, South African Broadcasting Corporation news said on Monday. The suspects are reportedly being questioned in connection with the murder of four girls and one boy.
The Pietermaritzburg High Court has found a 14-year-old girl guilty of murder and theft following the death of her grandmother two years ago. Judgement was given in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Thursday, and the case adjourned for sentencing on December 13.
The Pietermaritzburg High Court has reserved judgement in an urgent application by French arms dealer Thint for the withdrawal of criminal charges linked to South Africa’s multibillion-rand arms deal. After hearing legal argument on Tuesday, Judge Nick van der Reyden said he will make a decision as soon as possible.
The urgent application by French arms dealer Thint to have criminal charges against it dropped is to be argued in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Tuesday. Counsel for the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions argued on Friday that the application should either be struck from the roll or adjourned as non-urgent.
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Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille received a movie star welcome in a Pietermaritzburg suburb while campaigning for the April 14 elections. Children swarmed around De Lille begging for her autograph which she signed on pamphlets outlining what her party was about.
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The most critical challenge facing South Africa in its next 10 years of democracy is the issue of poverty, President Thabo Mbeki said on Thursday night. ”These [general] elections are about what we need to do in our second decade of freedom,” Mbeki told a gathering at the Pietermaritzburg city hall.
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The talk of violence in KwaZulu-Natal would cease if the African National Congress took the province in the upcoming general election, President Thabo Mbeki said on Thursday. He told the community of Mafunze, near Pietermaritzburg, they should vote for the ANC to free themselves of people who ”intimidate them with spears”.
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President Thabo Mbeki was turned away by a chief in rural KwaZulu-Natal on Thursday in a bid to avoid possible tension between supporters of the Inkatha Freedom Party and the African National Congress. Mbeki was on his way to pay his respects to Chief Ngcobo in Mafunze when he was asked not visit the chief.
Zimbabwe will solve its problems quickly once formal negotiations get underway in that country, President Thabo Mbeki said on Thursday. He said the ruling Zanu-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change would go into formal talks with an agenda currently being set in informal negotiations.
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/ 12 January 2004
The African National Congress (ANC) launched what promises to be a bitter election campaign on Sunday by promising to tackle the poverty and unemployment that plague South Africa 10 years after apartheid. Unveiling a sweeping election manifesto, President Thabo Mbeki declared his party’s intention to loosen its conservative economic policies by ramping up public spending.
Mbeki ill
Nine long-term prisoners who want to have their own spending money in jail had an urgent application for their case to be heard allowed by the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Thursday.
KwaZulu-Natal Premier Lionel Mtshali agreed on Monday to give back two seats in his provincial cabinet to the African National Congress in a bid to end the latest row between the ANC and Mtshali’s Inkatha Freedom Party.
KwaZulu-Natal Premier Lionel Mtshali on Monday scotched rumours that he would again reshuffle his Cabinet and dissolve his party’s co-operation pact with the African National Congress in the province.
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/ 29 January 2003
An intruder was killed when three men attempted to break into the home of African National Congress KwaZulu-Natal chairman S’bu Ndebele outside Pietermaritzburg on Wednesday morning, police reported.
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/ 23 January 2003
Police have deployed a special task team to investigate the massacre on Tuesday of eight members of a family at their home in KwaMaye near Bergville in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, police said on Thursday.
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/ 22 January 2003
Eight members of a family — including five children –- were shot and set alight by gunmen in their home in KwaMaye in the Upper Tugela district of the KwaZulu-Natal midlands on Tuesday night, police said.
The Inkatha Freedom Party is expected to put KwaZulu-Natal on the path to fresh elections on Wednesday when it leads a vote to dissolve the province’s legislature.
Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon has denied claims by German fugitive Jurgen Harksen that the DA leader knew about financial donations allegedly made to the party by Harksen.
KwaZulu-Natal Midlands police said there had been no arrests or developments following the murder of a couple and the kidnapping of their 13-year-old son by gunmen in Wartburg, New Hanover.