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/ 10 January 2005
South African banking group FirstRand reiterated on Monday that it will consider any takeover offers from foreign banks but declined to comment on reports that it was in talks with United Kingdom emerging-market specialist banker Standard Chartered. The news helped the rand to firm on Monday.
Barclays/Absa deal approval awaited
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/ 10 January 2005
The African National Congress’s ”judge-bashing” could be a bid to intimidate the Constitutional Court ahead of the medicine-pricing hearing, the Democratic Alliance said on Sunday. DA justice spokesperson Sheila Camerer said there is a ”strong suspicion” that this is the case. ”This is completely out of line,” she said.
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/ 10 January 2005
A female driver ignored police warnings and drove her luxury vehicle over a flooded bridge in Sunninghill on Sunday, Johannesburg police said. Police spokesperson Sergeant Sanku Tsunke said Barbara Ntshona’s BMW X3 was swept off the Braamfontein Spruit bridge in Witkoppen Road and found 1,5km down the river.
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/ 10 January 2005
Three men are expected to appear in the Kempton Park Magistrate’s Court on Monday after traveller’s cheques worth about R1-million were stolen while cargo was loaded at Johannesburg International airport. The theft does not appear to be linked to previous cargo robberies at the airport.
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/ 10 January 2005
Since the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) was launched about two years ago, less than half of the African Union’s 53-member states have acceded to the process. The APRM commits countries to opening themselves for inspection by a team of governance experts. A host of nations where standards of governance are regularly questioned remain conspicuously absent from the list of countries up for review.
The Merafong municipality, which includes Carletonville and Khutsong, may soon be incorporated into the North West province.
Liberals are engaged in a fight to ensure the dominance of their ideas in the debate about what constitutes political change in South Africa, but African National Congress supporters must fight an ”ideological struggle” to determine the dominant ideas for the transformation of South Africa, says President Thabo Mbeki.
DA hits out at Mbeki’s ‘mixed messages’
The South African Reserve Bank accumulated reserves over December, with its international liquidity position rising by -million to a new high of ,4-billion, it announced on Friday. Reacting to the central bank’s latest holdings, as on December 31 2004, Nedbank said there has been strong foreign interest in South African equities.
A team of divers, police and paramedics has descended on the small town of Daniëlskuil in the Northern Cape to recover a body. Located 30km from Daniëlskuil is Boesmansgat — the world’s third-deepest freshwater cave. In 1994, while diving in the cave with his father, Deon Dreyer, then 20, blacked out and sank to the bottom.
South Africa has many reasons to feel optimistic about 2005, with the economy gaining momentum, society becoming more unified and the country’s politics "returning to open dialogue", says Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon. "However, South Africans at home and abroad have received mixed messages from President Thabo Mbeki."
The Western Province Cricket Association (WPCA) is not considering a civil claim against the English cricket fan who scrawled swastikas and racist graffiti on seats at Newlands. ”The less we have to do with this person the better,” WPCA president Norman Arendse said on Thursday after Matthew Weller was fined R4 000 or six months in jail.
The South African Communist Party has launched a year-long programme to commemorate Joe Slovo’s life, South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) radio news reported on Thursday. Slovo, the SACP’s former chairperson and South Africa’s first housing minister, died on January 6 1995.
Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi paid tribute on Thursday to former president Nelson Mandela for his courage in announcing the death of his son to Aids. Makgatho Mandela (54) died in a Johannesburg clinic on Thursday. He was Mandela’s eldest child.
Mandela admits son died of Aids
Nelson Mandela’s son dies
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.
Former president Nelson Mandela’s only surviving son, Makgatho Mandela (54), has died of Aids. Makgatho had been in a critical condition in the Linksfield hospital in Johannesburg since late November, and Mandela had been spending time at his son’s bedside. ”It is a very sad day for the Mandela family,” said the Inkatha Freedom Party’s Musa Zondi.
In a letter of apology on Thursday to the Western Province Cricket Association, an English fan arrested for scribbling racist graffiti at the Newlands cricket ground said he regrets his actions and promised never to do it again. The racist graffiti cost Newlands cricket authorities more than R15Â 000 to remove.
South Africa’s official opposition Democratic Alliance has said Minister of Communications Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri is to blame for what has been described as exorbitant and monopolistic tariffs introduced by dual-listed Telkom. But the Communications Users’ Association of South Africa said the full blame should not be focused on Telkom.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Business&ao=177438">Telkom is ‘milking’ locals</a>
DNA tests will be conducted on two women claiming to be the biological mothers of twin baby boys found abandoned in a Johannesburg minibus taxi on December 10. The driver noticed them after he had dropped off all his passengers. Seven women then claimed to be the mother of the boys.
Property group Gilboa Properties plans to change its name to Absolute Holdings and transfer its listing from the main board of the JSE Securities Exchange (JSE) to the Alternative Exchange (AltX) in 2005, in line with its change in focus from a property-development company to tile wholesaling and retailing, as well as mining.
Air traffic at Cape Town International airport was delayed on Tuesday afternoon after an ex-military fighter jet jettisoned about 3 000 litres of fuel following an engine failure shortly after take-off. The drama unfolded at about 3pm when one of the two-seater aircraft’s two Rolls Royce engines failed.
Musica, the retail chain offering music and other gaming, DVD and lifestyle products that is owned by listed health and beauty retailer New Clicks Holdings, plans to open its first store selling only DVDs (excluding CDs) on a trial basis in Cape Town in early January, the company revealed in its 2004 annual report.
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>
At least five people were killed and hundreds left homeless when heavy storms swept through KwaZulu-Natal on Monday night. Five people in the Umhlahlani area in Ulundi died in a fire and six others were seriously injured when lightning struck their hut and caused a blaze that razed it.
A Bloemfontein man who allegedly relocated over the festive season left 14 dogs behind to fend for themselves, the local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) said on Tuesday. SPCA spokesperson in Bloemfontein Reinette Meyer said they found the dogs at a house in Pellisier after the owner allegedly moved to Durban.
South African health and beauty retailer New Clicks Holdings is forging ahead with its plans to include pharmacy dispensaries in many of its Clicks stores in the new year, as well as expanding its Hyperpharm brand, despite the current legal and regulatory uncertainties surrounding medicine pricing and pharmacy fees.
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.
A team of volunteers from the South African humanitarian organisation Global Relief was among the first relief workers to reach Meulaboh, on Indonesia’s island of Sumatra, one of the regions most devastated by last week’s tsunamis. More than half of Meulaboh’s 80 000 residents are estimated to have perished in the disaster.
Insurance company Old Mutual on Monday said it is willing to speed up claims resulting from the tsunami disaster in south-east Asia. In a statement, Old Mutual spokesperson Stephen Bowey said it normally takes two to three days to process a life-insurance claim once a death certificate is in the company’s possession.
The provincial department of education in Mpumalanga will not take any disciplinary action against the whistleblower who reported irregularities in the province’s matric exams to the police. The Sunday Times reported this week that the department planned to take actions against the whistleblower.
DA slams action against whistleblower
About 20 circumcision initiates in Port Elizabeth turned on their traditional nurse and killed him, an Eastern Cape health department official said on Monday. Sizwe Kupelo said the incident occurred on Friday, when the unnamed nurse was assaulted with sticks and died from his injuries.
As police hinted at withdrawing at least some of the over-stretched officers manning strike-hit prisons in the Eastern Cape, the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union on Sunday warned that the action is just the build-up to countrywide disruptions.