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/ 9 November 2006
The Director General of Correctional Services, Linda Mti, has resigned, a government statement said on Thursday. It said the national commissioner quit at the beginning of the month. Johannesburg police on Tuesday confirmed that Mti had recently been arrested for drunken driving.
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/ 7 November 2006
From the world’s longest string of bras to a mass smooch, people around the globe will try to smash all sorts of weird and wacky records later this week, organisers said on Tuesday. The second annual Guinness World Records Day on Thursday sees zany attempts being planned worldwide.
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/ 6 November 2006
The Supreme Court of Appeal dented former deputy president Jacob Zuma’s chances of becoming the next president on Monday when it confirmed corruption convictions against his former financial adviser Schabir Shaik. Meanwhile, the Shaik family have dropped their earlier criticism of the National Prosecuting Authority.
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/ 6 November 2006
A nuclear reactor at Koeberg in Cape Town automatically shut down on Sunday night but risk of power interruption was minimal, Eskom said on Monday. "The initial indication is that the fault is on the turbine control system, which is currently being investigated," it said in a statement.
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/ 31 October 2006
A new dispensing fee for medicine will come into effect from Wednesday, the Department of Health announced in Johannesburg on Tuesday. The new fees were set by the department’s pricing committee, ordered by the Constitutional Court last year to reconsider a fee of 26% of the single exit price, capped at R26.
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/ 23 October 2006
A two-day transport indaba held in Soweto ended on Monday, with Minister of Transport Jeff Radebe hailing it as a success. "This was a very robust, constructive and historic indaba to improve the transport system in South Africa," the minister told reporters at the conclusion of the indaba, which was held at the University of Johannesburg’s Soweto campus.
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/ 19 October 2006
The Eastern Cape provincial administration was unable to account for R30,2-billion out of R34,1-billion (88,5%) it spent during 2005/06, the Public Service Accountability Monitor said on Thursday. The Eastern Cape auditor general issued five provincial departments with disclaimers for the 2005/06 financial year. These include the four major service-delivery departments.
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/ 18 October 2006
Johannesburg police on Wednesday promised pupils at a Booysens high school they would monitor their safety following the fatal stabbing of a pupil on the premises. "I will be here all the time with the principal," said newly appointed Booysens Commissioner Rex Qabanisa Mochabi, speaking to pupils at Forest Hill High.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) admitted on Thursday that there were rifts in its leadership. "On the matter of leadership, there are cracks and there are cracks in every union," Cosatu president Willie Madisha told reporters at a briefing on the resolutions adopted by Cosatu’s ninth national congress. Madisha said that these problems were all being confronted this week.
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/ 1 September 2006
More than 2 000 workers congregated in Beyers Naude Square in Johannesburg on Friday morning, the most recent demonstration in the month-long wage strike undertaken by contract cleaning workers around the country. Simultaneous marches were under way in towns throughout South Africa.
Zodwa Phiri witnesses young South Africans being educated every day. But Zodwa may never witness the education of her own children. This is because, as a cleaner for the University of Johannesburg, Zodwa earns R8,57 an hour and a meagre R1Â 300 a month.
<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.
As tens of thousands of foreigners and Lebanese fled the country by air, sea and land this week, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora lashed out at Israel, saying it was "opening the gates of hell and madness" on his country. In a BBC interview, he urged Hizbullah to release two captured Israeli soldiers, but said Israel’s response to the crisis had been disproportionate.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) will ask the government to withdraw its ambassador from Israel in solidarity with the people of Palestine, its president, Willie Madisha, said on Wednesday. He was speaking after Cosatu held a meeting with Palestinian activist Leila Khaled in Johannesburg.
The South African Medical Association has called for an investigation into the release — by the director general of health — of a consignment of anti-Aids food supplements from the Dr Rath Health Foundation. The <i>Mail & Guardian</i> reported on Friday that the consignment allegedly contained a scheduled substance.
The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) defended its withdrawal of an "unauthorised" documentary on President Thabo Mbeki in a full-page newspaper advertisement on Saturday. "At no stage was any pressure, political or otherwise, exerted on our editorial or legal staff," read the public broadcaster’s advert.
This week the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> reveals National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi’s links to shadowy figures associated with slain businessman Brett Kebble. Our investigation, which began before Kebble’s death, has revealed a web of relationships connecting Selebi to Clinton Nassif, a Kebble security operative, and Glenn Agliotti, who worked with Kebble on a series of hush-hush projects.
An ammonia leak at a Vito ice-cream factory in Crawford resulted in more than 210 factory workers and schoolchildren being rushed to hospitals in Cape Town on Wednesday morning. Children from two primary schools in the area suffered discomfort to the eyes and experienced difficulty breathing, said principal Abubakr Jardine, from the Belthorn Primary School.
A huge earthquake with a magnitude of 8,0 on the Richter scale hit Pacific islands in the Tonga region early on Thursday, the United States Geological Survey reported. US authorities issued a tsunami warning for New Zealand and Fiji, officials said, and a tsunami watch for the rest of the Pacific.
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/ 27 February 2006
R&B sensation Tsakani "TK" Mhinga was on Monday found dead in a Bryanston hotel, northern Johannesburg, police said. "We didn’t find any physical injuries on her body, but we will wait for the post-mortem report and the medical report" to establish the cause of death, a police spokesperson told the <i>Mail & Guardian Online</i>.
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/ 17 February 2006
The Minority Front (MF) will only accept responsibility "for the conduct" of its member responsible for writing an MF advertorial described as "racist", said party leader Amichand Rajbansi on Friday. The controversial MF advertorial was published in the <i>Durban Chatsworth Tabloid</i>.
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/ 20 January 2006
Most South Africans come from backgrounds that frown on homosexuality, says the African Christian Democratic Party. "That is a fact. We cannot support a situation where a minority is attempting to impose its will on the majority," the ACDP’s mayoral candidate for Cape Town, Pauline Cupido, said on Friday.
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/ 17 January 2006
The Presidency is to issue clarification on Tuesday on Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka’s controversial trip to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) over Christmas, media reports said. Presidency spokesperson Murphy Morobe promised late on Monday afternoon everything would be clearer on Tuesday.
Primary-school pupils will more intensely study road safety this year as part of the school curriculum, education ministry spokesperson Tommy Makhode said on Thursday. Road-safety awareness has always been taught in grade one, said Makhode, but now road-safety lessons will be more comprehensive.
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/ 14 December 2005
Zimbabwean immigration authorities on Wednesday handed back a passport seized from <i>Mail & Guardian</i> owner and publisher Trevor Ncube six days ago under a new measure to punish government critics. "It appears I am winning. My passport is now in the hands of my lawyers," Ncube said.
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/ 28 November 2005
Health officials in the Eastern Cape are still searching for 19 boys believed to be at an illegal initiation school in the bush near Flagstaff, said a spokesperson for the provincial department of health on Monday. Also, one boy died after falling ill at another circumcision school in the area.
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/ 18 November 2005
Scientists have blasted a plan to cull thousands of elephants in the Kruger National Park, instead recommending contraception to reduce numbers. "This cull is abhorrent and needs to be stopped," Southern African Association for the Advancement of Science president Ian Raper said in Johannesburg on Friday.
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/ 24 October 2005
Afrikaans singer Janita Claassen died of a long illness on Monday morning, news reports said. The popular singer had been battling cancer that affected her lungs and throat. Radio reports said she was 58 when she died. She was recently honoured at a concert in Centurion, Pretoria.
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/ 19 October 2005
A journalist working for the British newspaper <i>The Guardian</i> is missing, believed kidnapped, in Iraq, the daily said on Wednesday. Rory Carroll, a 33-year-old Irishman, was on assignment in Baghdad when he disappeared, according to a statement from the newspaper, which said he could have been kidnapped.
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/ 10 October 2005
South Africa is dispatching doctors, medicines and food to earthquake-ravaged Pakistan, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Monday. The department told the <i>Mail & Guardian Online</i> on Monday that it does not know of any South Africans who died or were injured in the quake.
An immediate investigation by the Department of Health and the Medicines Control Council into the activities of anti-Aids-drug lobbyist Matthias Rath in the Western Cape township of Khayelitsha is needed, says the University of the Witwatersrand. "What he does is actually against the law," said a director at the university.
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/ 28 September 2005
Many corrupt police officials believe nothing serious will happen to them if they are caught — and police corruption often goes unchecked because it is not reported. Almost half of police disciplinary hearings in 2003/04 resulted in no action against accused officers, giving rise to the perception that "absolutely nothing" will happen to corrupt officers.