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/ 13 December 2004
An attempted escape at Boksburg prison, which resulted in warders being taken hostage, has been brought under control, a warder said on Monday. By 3pm, the held warders had been freed and the group of prisoners had been reincarcerated, said a warder at the prison, who did not want to be named.
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/ 13 December 2004
Minister of Arts and Culture Pallo Jordan has dissolved the board of the National Arts Council (NAC) with effect from December 14, he announced on Monday. He said the NAC as presently constituted has lost the confidence of the arts community and is not in a position to carry out the responsibilities assigned to it.
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/ 13 December 2004
Citizens who received social grants to which they are not entitled have until the end of March to apply for indemnity. Those who fail to do so will face ”drastic measures”, Minister of Social Development Zola Skweyiya said in Pretoria on Monday. He said about 37Â 000 people are apparently illegally enjoying benefits.
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/ 12 December 2004
Three people burnt to death in a shack fire that broke out in Nyanga, Cape Town, shortly after midnight on Saturday. Western Cape police spokesperson Inspector Elliot Sinyangana said 68 shacks burnt down before emergency services workers put out the fire.
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/ 12 December 2004
The brother of Laura Walker, the South African found dead in a Thailand hotel this week, said his sister was ”a highly talented, intelligent, compassionate and loyal person”. Walker was working for the World Bank at the time of her death, and the bank’s security team is working with Thai authorities in the investigation.
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/ 12 December 2004
A new Guinness world record was set when an electrical-engineering student solved the most Rubik’s cubes to date in one hour in Johannesburg on Saturday. Mitchell Brom (21) solved 42 cubes at Sandton City Camera Land, his sponsor, Prima Toys, said in a statement.
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/ 12 December 2004
Nine occupants of a minibus taxi burnt to death when the vehicle rolled and caught fire on the M1 South near the Corlett drive offramp on Saturday. Six other occupants of the vehicle were critically injured, another four seriously, Johannesburg Emergency Services spokesperson Malcolm Midgley said.
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/ 11 December 2004
The International Bar Association has accused Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe of conducting a reign of terror and said he should not be allowed to elude international justice. In neighbouring countries, human rights groups protested the Zimbabwe Parliament’s approval of legislation seeking to curb the activities of NGOs there.
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/ 11 December 2004
Cape Town’s water-resource situation remains of crisis proportions, despite the city’s water-restrictions campaign entering its third month. The city will be intensifying measures to ensure that the targeted water savings are achieved through measures including heightened awareness and media campaigns.
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/ 11 December 2004
The South African National Blood Service (SANBS) has unconditionally apologised to President Thabo Mbeki for infringing his dignity and that of his office. ”The breakdown of procedures to protect the confidentiality of donor and medical information is deeply regretted,” the SANBS chairperson said on Friday.
Apology for Mbeki blood slip-up
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/ 10 December 2004
Resolution of South Africa’s ”national question”, centred on building a democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous South Africa, is essential to avoid conflict, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday. The controversy relating to the operations of the South African National Blood Service has highlighted the racist legacy that continues to blight South Africa.
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/ 10 December 2004
Less than 100 people carrying placards gathered outside the Zimbabwean embassy in Pretoria on Friday to protest against ”human-rights abuses and repressive legislation” in that country. The group sang protest songs such as We Shall Overcome and Sangena (We Are Arriving).
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/ 10 December 2004
Mark Schmidt came home last week. He is back in Tzaneen, Limpopo, after being in prison in Equatorial Guinea for eight-and-a-half months.
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/ 10 December 2004
South Africa ranks low in the bribery stakes, according to an international survey published by Transparency International — but it joins the majority of surveyed countries in the consensus that political parties are most affected by corruption. The survey was conducted among 50 000 respondents from 62 countries.
South Africa will sign a deal for a fleet of new military aircraft worth R8-billion before Christmas. The Department of Transport released a press statement on Thursday afternoon confirming the deal, after the Mail & Guardian had already gone to print with its report on the acquisition.
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/ 9 December 2004
In a ceremony redolent with irony, former struggle icon Abram Fischer received a posthumous honorary doctorate from the University of Stellenbosch in a packed DF Malan hall on Thursday. The controversial award to Fischer, an Afrikaner communist, was a culmination of events that had divided the university.
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/ 9 December 2004
The South African Police Service (SAPS) and the South African Security Association both came out in defence on Thursday of the SAPS’s decision to employ private security companies for guard duties at police premises. ”It is much cheaper and cost-effective to utilise private security services,” said SAPS communications head Joseph Ngobeni.
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/ 9 December 2004
If the power station at Koeberg in the Western Cape were coal-fired and not nuclear, it would have needed to burn more than 105-million tonnes of the black stuff over the past two decades to equal the power it has produced from just 621 tonnes of uranium, says Minister of Minerals and Energy Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.
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/ 9 December 2004
The Cape Bar Council has entered the fray over the medicine-pricing case with a firm rebuke to Cape Judge President John Hlophe. Hlophe in a judgement last week rebuked a senior member of the Cape Bar, senior counsel Jeremy Gauntlett, for allegedly going over his head in approaching the Supreme Court of Appeal on the matter.
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/ 9 December 2004
The bodies of two more boys were found in Bruma Lake on Thursday afternoon after they were swept down the Jukskei River on Wednesday. The popular Johannesburg lake was drained on Thursday as rescue workers searched for the two boys. Earlier on Thursday, emergency personnel found the body of a third boy.
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/ 9 December 2004
KwaZulu-Natal women who lay charges of domestic violence and then withdraw them could face prosecution this festive season, provincial minister for safety and security Bheki Cele said on Thursday. Unveiling his festive-season security strategy, Cele said domestic violence usually increases considerably during this time.
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/ 9 December 2004
The six-year-old boy struck by lightning on a Pretoria golf course on Wednesday is still in a very critical and unstable condition, the Pretoria East hospital said on Thursday. His internal organs have suffered from the heat and electricity that surged through him in the lightning strike that killed his father, paramedic Roger Owen-Ellis.
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/ 8 December 2004
Despite the 10th disclaimer in a row from the auditor general (AG), the City of Johannesburg is improving its financial reporting, the mayor’s office said on Wednesday. The auditor general’s draft opinion (which has not yet been signed) awarded nine of the 15 operating entities a clean audit report — four more than last year.
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/ 8 December 2004
Disciplinary action will be taken against school principals who withhold end-of-year reports, the Western Cape education minister vowed on Wednesday. He said his office has been receiving calls from anxious parents saying some principals are refusing to hand out reports because the parents have not paid some or all of their school fees.
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/ 8 December 2004
Crime will continue to be a lucrative business in South Africa until the massive shortages of personnel and resources in the South African Police Service’s detective service are addressed, the Democratic Alliance said on Wednesday. The average case load per detective in South Africa is about 100 dockets.
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/ 8 December 2004
State-owned South African transport group Transnet has reported an interim pre-tax profit for the six months to the end of September of R774-million, resulting from a 5,3% rise in turnover to R22,4-billion, after posting a loss of R1,06-billion in the year-earlier period.
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/ 8 December 2004
British Nuclear Fuels Limited is a ”partner from hell” and should not be involved in the proposed pebble-bed modular reactor, says environmental lobby group Earthlife Africa. ”This bankrupt British company, wasting billions of British taxpayers’ pounds, is not welcome in South Africa,” said spokesperson Mashile Phalane on Wednesday.
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/ 8 December 2004
Radio Pretoria’s application to have its plea for renewal of its broadcasting licence heard in the Constitutional Court was refused on Wednesday. The court ruled that the dispute over the granting of a four-year licence to the community broadcaster is ”not yet ripe for hearing” because the full facts of the issue are not yet on record.
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/ 8 December 2004
Five police officers are among 48 people arrested for dealing in drugs on Wednesday, after a year-long investigation in the Northern Cape. The inspector, two sergeants and two constables were arrested with the other suspects in pre-dawn raids. A female civilian employee of the police was also taken into custody.
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/ 8 December 2004
A draft black economic empowerment (BEE) scorecard for South Africa’s tourism industry was launched in Cape Town on Wednesday. The draft BEE scorecard commits the tourism sector to attaining an overall level of ownership by blacks of tourism enterprises to the tune of 21% by the end of December 2009.
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/ 8 December 2004
GlaxoSmithKline has granted a fourth voluntary licence to a South African generics firm to market its anti-Aids medicines.