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/ 19 January 2005
The National Press Club in Pretoria has awarded Charlize Theron its Newsmaker of the Year title for 2004. Theron is the first African to win a best-actress Oscar award. The Benoni beauty received the Oscar for her lead role in Monster. Press club chairperson Ben Rootman said the Olympics swimming relay team and the 2010 Soccer World Cup bid were also strong contenders for the title.
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/ 18 January 2005
Examination quality-assurance body Umalusi denied on Tuesday that it has cleared education department officials of involvement in alleged irregularities in last year’s Mpumalanga matric exams. The council rejected a finding, attributed to it by the Mpumalanga education department, that no officials had been involved.
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/ 18 January 2005
”Matrics, join the military!” was the call Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota made on Tuesday to last year’s matric class. Lekota told journalists that he wants more matrics to consider the military as a career, saying defence is about more than warfare, it is also about developing a skilled and disciplined citizenry.
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/ 17 January 2005
The South African government was mum on Monday on the fate of a suspected spy arrested in Zimbabwe in a trap laid by one of his ”informants”. The Department of Foreign Affairs referred enquiries to the intelligence services, while the Presidency directed reporters to the department. Media reports said the South African agent is being held by Zimbabwean authorities.
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/ 16 January 2005
Mamelodi Sundowns gave Ajax Cape Town a hiding to remember when they beat them 4-0 at the Odi Stadium in Pretoria on Saturday night. The home team controlled the game from the start and failed to capitalise on many of their goal-scoring opportunities. They took the lead in the 37th minute.
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/ 14 January 2005
The director and two curators of the South African National Museum of Military History were arrested on Thursday night for stockpiling working weapons and military vehicles, the museum said. ”Police … have accused us of stockpiling weapons as if we were preparing for a war,” said acting museum director Sandy Mckenzie.
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/ 14 January 2005
Any staff found to have been involved in cheating in last year’s Mpumalanga matric examinations will be punished appropriately, Minister of Education Naledi Pandor said on Friday. ”Minister Pandor is committed to ensuring that where criminal conduct and fraud is committed, the full might of the law is applied,” her ministry said.
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/ 14 January 2005
An MP of the ruling Zimbabwean Zanu-PF party spied for a ”South African agent” and was paid 000 (about R60 000) a month to provide political and economic information, media reported on Thursday. This emerged when the court case against Phillip Chiyangwa was moved from Harare’s Magistrate’s Court to the High Court on Thursday.
Cosatu: Return to Zimbabwe
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/ 13 January 2005
One more South African has been confirmed dead after the December 26 tsunami in Thailand, bring the total of dead South Africans to 11, the Department of Foreign Affairs said in Pretoria on Thursday. The number of people missing, feared dead, dropped to four as a result, a spokesperson at the department’s operations centre said.
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/ 13 January 2005
The president of world soccer governing body Fifa, Sepp Blatter, on Thursday accepted on behalf of the body one of South Africa’s highest awards. Blatter, in the country to meet members of the 2010 World Cup organising committee, met President Thabo Mbeki before accepting the Order of the Companions of OR Tambo.
Jordaan ‘perfect’ for 2010
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/ 13 January 2005
A Pretoria High Court judge on Thursday questioned why ”obviously intelligent” Boeremag trialists had never debated predictions by Boer prophet Siener van Rensburg that there would be a large-scale attack on whites by blacks. The judge remarked that historical events in South Africa did not point to the feared large-scale attack.
Boeremag trialists apply for bail
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/ 12 January 2005
Three of the alleged masterminds behind a right-wing coup plot to overthrow the government were described on Wednesday as responsible, non-violent men who are not a danger to society. A psychology professor said the results of a series of psychological tests gave no indication that any of the three men are prone to violence.
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/ 11 January 2005
The sectoral education and training authority (Seta) for the services industries denied on Tuesday it is in a financial crisis, or asking the government to bail it out.
”From a solvency point of view, we don’t have any problems,” CEO Ivor Blumenthal told reporters in Pretoria.
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/ 11 January 2005
Although South Africa has not made any promises to send direct aid to the Seychelles after the tsunami disaster, it will ensure African countries are not overlooked by relief efforts, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Monday. The island state sustained losses of R179-million in damage to its roads, bridges and ports.
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/ 11 January 2005
A total of 106 South Africans remained unaccounted for on Tuesday following the December 26 Asian tsunami, the Department of Foreign Affairs said in Pretoria.
The figure dropped from more than 300 at the weekend as people who had been in the area at the time of the disaster alerted the department that they are unharmed.
Road users considered to be risk takers and repeat offenders are to be targeted by the use of technological and legal measures this year, the Department of Transport said on Thursday. Risk takers as typically males between the ages of 18 and 35 who drove luxury German sedans, the department noted.
Two South African opposition parties have expressed concern at their exclusion from the South African government’s observer delegation to this week’s Palestinan presidential poll. However it appears that there is still an 11th-hour chance for opposition representation on the mission.
A total of 740 South Africans were still unaccounted for after last week’s tsunami disaster in South Asia, says the foreign affairs department. Another six, who were reported to have been in the direct path of the giant waves, were feared dead.
The bodies of two more South African victims of last week’s tsunami disaster in south-east Asia have been identified — bringing the number of confirmed South African deaths to nine. Meanwhile, South Africans have donated R2,5-million towards the tsunami Asia appeal.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-InternationalNews&ao=177407">Scale of disaster still grows</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-InternationalNews&ao=177409">Criminals may target orphans</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-InternationalNews&ao=177396">Tsunami aid flights back on track</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-InternationalNews&ao=177374">Sumatra aid efforts hampered</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-InternationalNews&ao=177380">Remarkable tales of survival</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-InternationalNews&ao=177352">World’s largest forensic operation</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=177354">SA volunteers start work in Sumatra</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/content/l3_fl2.asp?cg=tsunami%20disaster&o=194303"><b>Tsunami disaster special report</b></a>
South Africa is to send an 11-member team to observe the Palestinian presidential elections. ”It is hoped that South Africa’s participation in the election monitoring would contribute to ensuring the freeness and fairness of elections in Palestine,” says Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad.
A trailer carrying 15 000 litres of hazardous sulphuric acid overturned on the N1 outside Pretoria on Monday, disrupting peak-hour afternoon traffic. Tshwane Emergency Management Services spokesperson Johan Pieterse said traffic officers advised north-bound motorists to close their windows and turn off their air conditioning.
Neither South Africa nor Sudan has yet been able to establish societies acceptable to all their people, South African President Thabo Mbeki has told Sudan’s National Assembly. Mbeki was in Sudan after attending the signing of a peace deal between the Khartoum government and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement in Kenya.
The announcement by the Mpumalanga education MEC of planned disciplinary action against the whistleblower who revealed cheating in the province’s matric exams was outrageous, the Democratic Alliance said on Sunday.
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/ 31 December 2004
Helping other countries on the continent solve their political, economic and social problems will be a focus area of South Africa’s foreign policy in 2005, says President Thabo Mbeki.
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/ 30 December 2004
Examination controlling body Umalusi has agreed to speed up its probe into claims of widespread fraud committed by Mpumalanga matriculants in a bid to hasten the release of pupils’ results, the provincial education department said on Wednesday.
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/ 28 December 2004
More than 2 000 South Africans were travelling in the region of South East Asia hit by tsunamis, the South African department of foreign affairs said on Tuesday. Foreign affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said they had established that about 2 034 South Africa were in the region, of which four had been listed dead in Phuket, Thailand.
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/ 28 December 2004
Allegations of fraud involving at least 2 000 papers written in this year’s matric year-end examinations were under investigation, Mpumalanga police said on Tuesday. ”Information is streaming in, and the figure could rise,” said Superintendent Izak van Zyl.
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/ 28 December 2004
President Thabo Mbeki is to visit Sudan later this week, coinciding with the expected finalisation of a peace deal between the Sudan government and rebels by a Friday deadline. Mbeki will hold discussions on the peace process with his counterpart Omar Hassan Ahmed el-Bashir.
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/ 25 December 2004
Amid allegations of examination fraud, Mpumalanga’s matric results are to be withheld when those of the rest of the country are announced next Wednesday, examination controlling body Umalusi said on Friday. Mpumalanga matric candidates may only know their results by the second week of next year.
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/ 23 December 2004
Police on Thursday morning seized every last examination script written by this year’s Mpumalanga matrics as part of an investigation into suspected exam fraud in the province. ”We seized the scripts of all pupils, in all subjects in all schools in the province,” said police spokesperson Superintendent Izak van Zyl.
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/ 22 December 2004
Year-on-year consumer inflation less mortgage costs (CPIX) rose to 4,6% last month from 4,2% in October, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) reported on Wednesday. The headline inflation rate for November — the percentage change in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the historical metropolitan area — was 3,7%.
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/ 20 December 2004
The Pharmaceutical Society of South Africa welcomed a Supreme Court of Appeal judgement on Monday that set aside government medicine-pricing regulations. ”What the judgement means in effect is that the pricing regulations are no longer in operation,” spokesperson Lorraine Osman said.