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/ 14 October 2005
If the Diamonds Amendment Bill currently before Parliament is passed in its present form, it will damage the entire industry, from mining houses to jewellery stores, warns Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon. Even more alarming, he says, is the haste with which the African National Congress is trying to push through the measure.
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/ 14 October 2005
South Africa’s ruling African National Congress exists to serve the people of South Africa, and to serve the people today means that it must concentrate on achieving a higher economic growth path and the eradication of poverty, says President Thabo Mbeki.
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/ 14 October 2005
Two people in a Toyota were slightly injured when a man in a white BMW opened fire on them while they were stationary at a robot on Friday, Johannesburg police said.
Captain Schalk Bornman said the incident occurred in Marlboro Drive. Police have established that the Toyota was transporting money for a financial institute.
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/ 14 October 2005
Rapid urbanisation is causing the demand for housing to grow faster than the government can deliver it, Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu said on Friday. ”At this rate, we are not going to get very far. We have a serious problem,” she told the annual conference of the Black Management Forum in Johannesburg.
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/ 14 October 2005
A 50-year-old foreigner died in the domestic hall of Johannesburg International airport on Friday when he plunged off the banister of a moving walkway into the arrivals hall 10m below, said the Airports Company South Africa. He had climbed on the banister to move around an obstruction on the walkway.
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/ 14 October 2005
The Pretoria High Court has refused an application by Pretoria advocate Dirk Prinsloo to separate his sex-crimes trial from that of his former girlfriend and co-accused Cezanne Visser. Prinsloo had failed to prove that the continuation of a joint trial would cause him to suffer real prejudice, Judge Essop Patel ruled on Friday.
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/ 14 October 2005
South Africa’s National Industrial Participation (NIP) programme has generated investment and sales credits valued at $3,5-billion during the past eight years, says the Department of Trade and Industry. This translates into about R23-billion at the current exchange rate.
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/ 14 October 2005
There was a time not so long ago when talk of the country’s big three meant Orlando Pirates, Kaizer Chiefs and Moroka Swallows. How times have changed. Mamelodi Sundowns, who lost 1-2 to Swallows on Wednesday, have replaced the once-mighty Dube Birds as part of the troika ruling the roost in the local game.
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/ 14 October 2005
The Pretoria High Court is to hand down judgement on Friday in an application by one of two city advocates for a separation of their sex-crimes trial. On Thursday, Dirk Prinsloo accused his former girlfriend Cezanne Visser of having ulterior motives in seeking to implicate him in indecent acts with two children.
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/ 14 October 2005
A South African relief mission has arrived in Pakistan and will be deployed to Bagh on Friday to give medical assistance following a massive earthquake in southern Asia. ”Our flight over was quite difficult, but we are ready to start working,” said Rescue South Africa chief executive Ian Scher.
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/ 14 October 2005
Inquiries about the investigation into Brett Kebble’s murder drew a blank on Friday with the police unwilling to comment. ”I’m not allowed to talk to the media,” said Director Charles Johnson, head of the Johannesburg task team investigating the murder of the mining magnate.
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/ 14 October 2005
The government was confident of meeting its objective to raise economic growth levels, President Thabo Mbeki said on Thursday. ”There is a sense of confidence in government about the target we are setting ourselves with regards to… raising growth, that they are realistic,” he told foreign diplomats.
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/ 14 October 2005
United States Ambassador to Zimbabwe Christopher Dell has been caught trespassing in Harare, Zimbabwe’s Herald Online reported on Friday. It said security forces found him entering a restricted security zone in the National Botanical Gardens in Harare.
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/ 13 October 2005
Owners of bed and breakfasts (B&Bs) in Soweto are struggling to make a living because most tourists prefer to stay in their Sandton hotels. Mail & Guardian Online journalist Elvira van Noort spends a night at a Soweto B&B and investigates why tourists still steer clear of these hospitable establishments.
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/ 13 October 2005
Police have not echoed the willingness shown by the Scorpions to work together and create mechanisms to do so, it emerged on the final day of public hearings at the Khampepe Commission in Pretoria. ”We believe no number of committees can solve the problems until the institutional and constitutional problems have been solved,” said advocate Philip Jacobs for the South African Police Service.
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/ 13 October 2005
The South African Communist Party does not believe that South Africa has two economies, Blade Ndzimande said at the Black Management Forum national conference in Johannesburg on Thursday. ”It is a single economy which, like all capitalist economies, has dualistic poles, the rich and the poor,” he said.
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/ 13 October 2005
Murder convict William Nkuna on Thursday said politicians had influenced the judgement which found him guilty of missing Constable Frances Rasuge’s murder. Nkuna was pronounced guilty by Judge Ronald Hendricks in the GaRankuwa Circuit Court.
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/ 13 October 2005
The SA Reserve Bank kept interest rates unchanged on Thursday, but warned of risks posed by rising inflation. ”The deterioration in the inflation outlook cannot be ignored,” the central bank’s Monetary Policy Committee said in a statement. ”The increased risk of possible pass-through leading to pronounced second-round effects on CPIX inflation must inform policy going forward.”
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/ 13 October 2005
Botswana’s Foreign Minister Mompati Merafhe on Thursday denied claims by Britain’s Survival International that it had launched an "ethnic cleansing" of San Bushmen from their ancestral land in the Kalahari. "Nothing could be further from the truth than those malicious allegations being marketed around by a one-issue organisation called Survival International," he said in Pretoria.
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/ 13 October 2005
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Thursday said it was investigating the source of Zimbabwe’s surprise -million loan payback in September. ”The executive board of the IMF has asked the staff to verify the sources of these funds. We are in the process of doing that,” said Michael Nowak, the deputy director of the IMF’s African department.
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/ 13 October 2005
A Cameroonian delegation, representing three government ministries, will arrive in South Africa on Saturday to take home four of their gorillas residing at the Pretoria Zoo. Week-long talks are scheduled to secure their repatriation. The four young Western Lowland gorillas were illegally captured in Cameroon in 2002 and sent to the Taiping Zoo in Malaysia with forged documentation.
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/ 13 October 2005
Sex-crimes accused Dirk Prinsloo claimed on Thursday that his former girlfriend Cezanne Visser had ulterior motives in seeking to implicate him in indecent acts with two children. ”There is an attempt by [Visser] to drag [Prinsloo] under the water,” his advocate Philip Loubser told the Pretoria High Court.
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/ 13 October 2005
The government was to make its first commercial farm expropriation for the purposes of restitution in Lichtenburg on Thursday. North West farmer Hannes Visser would be given 21 days to respond to the notice of expropriation to be served by the Commissioner for Restitution of Land Rights in Gauteng and North West, said spokesperson Mvusiwekhaya Sicwetsha.
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/ 13 October 2005
Growth rates of between five and six percent were achievable for South Africa over the long term, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Thursday. ”It is a bold and ambitious target but achievable,” IMF senior representative for SA and Lesotho, Vivek Arora, said at the release of surveys on its world and regional economic outlooks.
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/ 13 October 2005
The JSE remained in the red at midday on Thursday, but platinum mining stocks bucked the trend, reflecting a strong platinum price. The JSE’s softer tone was on the back of weaker world markets and came despite the rand moving above the 6,60 per dollar level.
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/ 13 October 2005
Zimbabwean and South African parliamentary committees have agreed visas for travel between the two countries should be scrapped, Zimbabwe’s Herald Online reported on Thursday. It said the portfolio committee on home affairs and defence from the two countries met in Harare on Wednesday.
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/ 13 October 2005
The Cape Bar Council has referred to Chief Justice Pius Langa allegations of racism against the Judge President of the Cape Division John Hlophe. ”If these allegations are indeed true, they are most disturbing,” said advocate Ashton Schippers, chairperson of the Cape Bar Council.
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/ 13 October 2005
Never one to mince his words, multi-honoured Highlands, Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates coach Joe Frickleton says even the celebrated Jose Mourinho could not save Bafana Bafana — or his own skin if he came to South Africa to coach the national team. The outspoken Scot says he is not intent on defending current Bafana coach Stuart Baxter either.
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/ 13 October 2005
Thousands of children in Ravensmead in the Cape Town area are to be photographed and fingerprinted in a bid to curb child abductions, the Cape Argus website reported on Thursday. It said a campaign will begin soon at 17 schools and crèches in the area.
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/ 13 October 2005
A charge relating to allegations of racism has been laid by the Cape Bar Council against Cape Judge President John Hlophe, Beeld newspaper reported on Thursday. Hlophe was recently accused of calling a Cape Town lawyer Joshua Greeff a ”piece of white shit” and telling him to go back to The Netherlands.
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/ 13 October 2005
The Democratic Alliance has called on the Judicial Services Commission to intervene in the ongoing controversy over Cape Judge President John Hlophe. Hlophe was recently accused of calling a Cape Town lawyer a ”white shit” — a claim that he has denied.
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/ 13 October 2005
The Cabinet voiced concern on Wednesday at public displays of anger at President Thabo Mbeki at the corruption court appearance of his dismissed deputy Jacob Zuma this week. Concern was expressed about the burning of T-shirts displaying Mbeki’s picture and insults directed at him, a government spokesperson said.