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/ 19 September 2005

Living with Aids in the military

Private Andries Nhlengethwa jumps from planes and lifts 45kg weights. He also happens to have HIV. The 31-year-old parachutist and bodybuilder is one of the few South African soldiers living openly with the deadly virus, presenting a new face of the pandemic on a continent where Aids drugs are rare and infection is often a death sentence.

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/ 19 September 2005

Thousands of teachers absent from school

Teacher training will not disrupt Gauteng schools this week despite the absence of thousands of teachers, provincial education minister Angie Motshekga said on Monday. As many as 12 000 out of 49 000 teachers in the province will be attending a workshop on the new curriculum for grades 10 to 12.

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/ 19 September 2005

Hope for SA in Davis Cup

As expected, Moroccan Davis Cup captain Abdel-Rahim Moundir named a team without top players Younes El Aynaoui and Hicham Arazi for this weekend’s Euro/Africa zone group-one tie against South Africa, to be played at the Club Olympic de Tennis in Khemisset.

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/ 19 September 2005

South African Football Association’s debt shock

The South African Football Association (Safa) are in debt to the tune of R78-million said a report in Johannesburg’s Sunday Sun newspaper over the weekend. The figure, it is alleged, reflects the situation after the 2004/5 financial year. Neither Danny Jordaan, who was CEO of Safa during this period, nor current Safa CEO Raymond Hack were immediately available for comment on Sunday.

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/ 19 September 2005

UN group concerned about SA detention

Pre-trial detention conditions in South Africa do not meet international guarantees, a United Nations working group reported on Monday. ”Harsh” prison sentences, police brutality and the unjust treatment of asylum seekers were also raised as issues of concern following a two-week study by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

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/ 19 September 2005

SA school dropout rate ‘exceptionally high’

South Africa’s school dropout rate was ”exceptionally high”, the Democratic Alliance said on Sunday. ”According to the United Nations Human Development Programme (UNHDP), the proportion of grade one students reaching grade five declined from 75% in 1990/91 to 65% in 2001/02,” DA MP Helen Zille said in a statement on Sunday.

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/ 19 September 2005

Dlamini-Zuma signs accord with Argentina

Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has signed an accord with Argentina to regulate political, economic and trade relations between the two countries. She signed the Joint South African-Argentina Binational Commission Agreement with her Argentinian counterpart Rafael Bielsa on Sunday in New York.

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/ 19 September 2005

DA wants answers from Smuts Ngonyama

The ANC’s head of the Presidency must explain why he set up meetings between government officials and a fishing company in which his family holds interests, the Democratic Alliance said on Sunday. The Mail & Guardian reported on Friday that Smuts Ngonyama’s intervention broke a deadlock between the two parties over compliance with rules to prevent overfishing.

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/ 19 September 2005

Delmas hospital ‘lying’ about number of typhoid deaths

The actual number of deaths from typhoid at Delmas in Mpumalanga is higher than the official figure of three, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) said on Sunday. ”It has been alleged to the TAC by multiple sources that government is underestimating the number of deaths in the current outbreak of diarrhoea and typhoid in Delmas,” said TAC spokesperson Nathan Geffen.

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/ 18 September 2005

Chiefs’ Safa appeal postponed

The Kaizer Chiefs appeal to the South African Football Association (Safa) regarding the sentence imposed by the Premier Soccer League (PSL) following the rioting and vandalism of Chiefs’ supporters at the recent Supa8 game against Bloemfontein Celtic at the FNB Stadium was on Saturday postponed until Tuesday.

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/ 18 September 2005

Minister criticises US over Katrina response

A South African Cabinet minister has criticised the administration of United States President George Bush, saying its response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina was too slow. Essop Pahad, Minister in the Presidency, said the Bush administration ”failed in its leadership to help avert the devastating impact of the hurricane”.

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/ 18 September 2005

No word on cause of Caxton blaze

It will take a number of days to identify the cause of the blaze that gutted the offices of media group Caxton in Johannesburg on Friday night, an emergency-services spokesperson said on Saturday. Malcolm Midgley said police forensic experts will have to photograph the scene and investigate.

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/ 18 September 2005

ANC Youth League suspends deputy president

The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) on Saturday suspended its deputy president, Reuben Mohlaloga, over remarks he made disowning the organisation’s decision over the ”two centres of power” debate. The ANCYL national executive committee referred the matter to the national disciplinary committee.

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/ 17 September 2005

Bulls thrash Western Province

The Blue Bulls edged closer to guaranteeing themselves a home semifinal with a clinical 39-3 victory over traditional foes Western Province at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday evening. The dominance of the home team was superbly illustrated by the five-tries-to-none score line.

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/ 17 September 2005

Cheetahs fight for victory

The Free State Cheetahs had to fight for the spoils of victory at Wellington on Saturday to stay in the hunt for Currie Cup glory after coming from behind to beat Boland 29-21 in the final quarter of a lively premier-division contest. The Cheetahs looked a shadow of the side that beat the Sharks at King’s Park a fortnight ago.

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/ 17 September 2005

Sharks claim maximum points

It was mission accomplished for the Natal Sharks at the Absa Stadium in Durban on Saturday when they claimed the maximum five points from Griqualand West in their Absa Currie Cup rugby encounter. The Sharks eventually scored four tries to one in a 29-10 victory after leading 10-3 at the break.

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/ 17 September 2005

Tight victory for South African XI

The first Jacques Kallis benefit match ended in an exciting finish at Newlands on Friday night. Despite a century from Salman Butt and some big hitting from Lance Klusener, cool heads in the fielding team prevailed and Andrew Hall was particularly composed in a final spell of four overs.

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/ 17 September 2005

Speaker rejects DA bid to save seats

National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete has rejected the Democratic Alliance’s bid to reverse its loss of five seats in the House during the 15-day floor-crossing period. The DA contends the five MPs are now ”beached whales” because the defection law says not less than 10% of a party’s MPs must defect before even one may do so.

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/ 17 September 2005

Chiefs game off, ‘like it or not’

After protracted argument in the Johannesburg High Court on Friday, Judge Mohamed Jajbhay ruled in favour of Kaizer Chiefs and postponed their Premier Soccer League game against Mamelodi Sundowns, which was due to be played at FNB Stadium on Sunday behind locked doors.

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/ 17 September 2005

Caxton fire: ‘The whole roof has gone’

A firefighter was injured in a blaze that gutted the head office of Caxton Publishing in Craighall, Johannesburg, on Thursday night. The two-storey building was completely destroyed in the blaze, said Johannesburg Fire and Emergency Management Services spokesperson Malcolm Midgley. ”It’s a major fire in terms of the structural damage,” he said.

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/ 16 September 2005

New CCMA pay proposals to be taken to staff

Striking staff of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) will be asked to consider new proposals that emerged from the latest round of pay talks, the staff association’s secretary general said on Friday. ”We will also get feedback from national leadership,” said Lekau Dibakwane.