The Pretoria High Court has reserved judgement in an application by a Gauteng chef to change intestate legislation that prevents him from inheriting his gay partner’s estate. Henley-on-Klip chef Mark Gory sought an order declaring unconstitutional a Section of the Intestate Succession Act of 1987.
Her next stop could be the Union Buildings, incoming Tshwane Metropolitan City Mayor Gwen Ramokgopa said on Friday. Speaking to the National Press Club in Pretoria only hours before she was due to be elected new mayor of the capital city, Ramokgopa joked that she was ”very close to the Union Buildings”.
The Tshwane metropolitan municipality has more than halved the number of customers with municipal-account difficulties in the past three months, its chief financial officer said on Wednesday. ”Of the 36 438 customers affected with billing issues, 15 379 still remain to be fixed, ” said Renier du Toit.
The South Africa women’s soccer team, Banyana Banyana, hammered Mozambique 6-2 in their first African Women’s Championship qualifier in front of a capacity crowd at the free-entry Caledonian Stadium in Tswane on Saturday afternoon. Banyana Banyana led 3-0 at half-time.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan is due to arrive in South Africa on Monday for his first official visit to the country since he took the post at the helm of the world body in 1997. Annan is scheduled to address the national Assembly, during which he is expected to make a key statement on his tenure as secretary general.
Although South Africa was the biggest importer of poultry in Africa, it was also the country best prepared against avian flu, a Southern African Development Community (SADC) workshop on the epidemic heard in Pretoria on Thursday. ”South Africa is in a very good place. You are used to fighting bird flu.”
The SA Army has unveiled a vision for the next 15 years that will require major changes in the way it thinks and fights. The chief of the army, Lieutenant-General Solly Shoke, said in Pretoria on Tuesday that his Vision 2020 would determine the future direction of the army and also influence what equipment it would buy.
Continental ministers of energy and water affairs were to co-operate at a conference on developing hydropower’s potential to provide affordable energy to Africans, Minerals and Energy Minister Lindiwe Hendricks said. The two-day conference is taking place in Johannesburg.
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The African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) has called for a multi-party governance system in the Western Cape after Wednesday’s local government elections. The party’s leadership made the call on Friday after no single party won an absolute majority in Cape Town, paving the way for political parties to form coalitions.
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The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) hopes to have posted 90% of the local government election results by sunset, its chairperson Brigalia Bam said on Thursday. A 47% voter turnout had been recorded by 10.45am, Bam said in a briefing at the IEC’s national operations centre in Pretoria.
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Provisional results show a 46,72% poll with just more than 14-million votes cast from a pool of 21Â 054Â 957 registered voters. The African National Congress had swept the board in the Northern Cape by 9.45am on Thursday, and the DA’s worst fear seemed to have come true in the Western Cape.
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The Democratic Alliance was trailing the African National Congress in most wards as municipal election results were trickling in on Thursday morning. The African National Congress had captured 14 of the 20 counted Western Cape municipalities by 8am on Thursday.
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South Africans have become used to voting, a political analyst said about Wednesday’s quiet and uneventful local government elections. ”We are used to voting by now and local elections have always been ‘lower temperature’ elections than national elections,” political analyst Hennie Kotze said on Wednesday.
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/ 28 February 2006
South Africa on Tuesday said the European Union’s plans to send a security force to back United Nations peacekeepers during upcoming elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) were unwarranted as troops from the region could provide the necessary support.
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/ 28 February 2006
The damage to the Koeberg nuclear plant was done deliberately and was not an accident, Minister of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin said on Tuesday. One of the two generators at Koeberg was damaged in December in what Erwin now described as sabotage, causing severe outages in the Western Cape over the past month.
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/ 28 February 2006
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The Pretoria High Court has dismissed an urgent application by the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union to allow 60Â 000 officers special votes or ballots at voting stations where they are not registered. Judge NM Mavundla said allowing police to leave their posts to vote could lead to chaos.
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/ 27 February 2006
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The Pretoria High Court on Monday gave the go-ahead for the election to take place in Khutsong. The court turned down an application by a group calling itself the Merafong community to have the election postponed pending an application to contest the constitutionality of the municipality’s redemarcation.
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/ 26 February 2006
A century by Graeme Smith led South Africa to victory by six wickets in the first Standard Bank one-day international at Supersport Park on Sunday. After Australia had made 229 for eight in 47 overs in a rain-affected match, South Africa wasted no time in getting runs on the board.
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/ 24 February 2006
Three hundred South African soldiers are returning from Burundi this week, after completing their protection mission in that country, the defence ministry said on Friday. The Burundi peace mission was subsequently taken over by the African Union, whose mandate for the protection force expired this month.
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/ 23 February 2006
The Pretoria Magistrate’s Court has postponed the case against an IT consultant accused of withholding information about hoax e-mails mentioning senior African National Congress officials. The state and defence had agreed to postpone the case for both parties ”to discuss the status of the case”, chief prosecutor Matric Luphondo said.
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/ 23 February 2006
Mamelodi Sundowns finally broke their four-year winless streak against Kaizer Chiefs when they beat them 3-1 in a pulsating Castle Premier Soccer League match played at Loftus on Wednesday evening. The win catapulted Sundowns back to the top of the premiership, keeping their championship aspirations alive.
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/ 22 February 2006
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The violent protests in Khutsong prior to the municipal elections on March 1 are an exception and not the rule, Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) chairperson Brigalia Bam said on Wednesday at the opening of the IEC’s 12Â 000-square-metre national operations centre in Pretoria.
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/ 22 February 2006
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The African National Congress is slipping through the gaps left by the fighting between the Freedom Front Plus and the Democratic Alliance, FF+ leader Pieter Mulder said on Wednesday. ”With the DA playing confusing politics and threatening voters to vote for them, we have to defend ourselves,” he said.
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/ 22 February 2006
Exiled Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide defended on Wednesday his decision to return home in the face of US reluctance, saying it was his right as a citizen of the Caribbean nation. ”I have the right to be back,” Aristide said in an interview with international news agencies in Pretoria.
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/ 22 February 2006
Haitian leader Jean Bertrand Aristide, who is living in exile in South Africa, on Wednesday defended his decision to return home, saying it is his right as a citizen of the Caribbean nation. ”I have the right to be back,” he said in an interview with international news agencies in Pretoria.
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/ 21 February 2006
An armed robber was shot dead on Tuesday when three men tried to rob a store manager near a shopping complex in Pretoria. At around 11.30am three men followed a store manager from a bank in East Lynne near his store and attempted to rob him.
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/ 21 February 2006
The current strike by Transnet workers was misguided and had no clear objectives, Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin said on Tuesday. He said there had been ”more than enough opportunity” for consultation on the structure of Transnet.
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/ 21 February 2006
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Even if there is a problem at midnight, people should be able to go to their councillors’ houses and wake them up to sort it out, President Thabo Mbeki told supporters at an African National Congress election rally in Soshanguve, north of Pretoria, on Monday.
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/ 20 February 2006
Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu launched a R400-million housing project at Olievenhoutbosch, south-west of Pretoria, on Monday. ”This project will provide decent homes for many low-income people and the poor. We will build on this partnership until all informal settlements are eradicated by 2014,” Sisulu said.
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/ 20 February 2006
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It is not every day that the president visits your house, but for Sandra and Beauty Maluleka the moment was so big they believe he ”cured” Beauty’s sickness. President Thabo Mbeki was electioneering in Soshanguve, north of Pretoria, where introduced voters to the African National Congress candidates in their wards.
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/ 20 February 2006
A man suspected of murdering a Pretoria woman whose corpse was found in a car boot earlier this month was rearrested on Monday after his case was struck off the roll in the city’s regional court earlier in the day. Danie van der Walt, from Meyers Park, was rearrested him within an hour of the case being struck off.
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/ 17 February 2006
An escort-agency owner who murdered his sister-in-law and her husband, and then carried on with his life for three years before his wife exposed him, was sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment on Friday. Abraham Carel Koekemoer (49) did not show much emotion after being sentenced for the December 2002 murders.