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/ 20 December 2004
Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher arrived in South Africa at the weekend to spend Christmas with her son Mark who cannot travel as he is charged with bankrolling an alleged coup plot in Equatorial Guinea. This is Thatcher’s 10th annual visit to Cape Town since her son bought his plush Cape Town home.
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/ 19 December 2004
The government is trying to blame everyone else for its decision to use nevirapine in its mother-to-child HIV prevention programme, the Treatment Action Campaign said on Saturday. It was responding to biting commentary in the African National Congress’s weekly newsletter regarding nevirapine trials in Uganda.
‘Africa’s people used as guinea pigs’
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/ 19 December 2004
The inquest into the cause of pop diva Brenda Fassie’s death earlier this year was finalised in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court last week, Afrikaans newspaper Beeld reported on Saturday. The inquest found that she had collapsed into a coma after smoking cocaine, and did not die of an asthma attack, as was earlier reported.
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/ 19 December 2004
Police have closed down an Edenvale nightclub where they found children under the influence of alcohol on Friday night. North Rand police spokesperson Eugene Opperman said there were six under-age children at the Revolutions club in Isando Road. He expressed concern over the attitude of the parents when their children were returned to them.
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/ 18 December 2004
Mpumalanga police will thoroughly investigate a possible cover-up over a traffic official’s driving accident. The conduct of police who allegedly refused to provide a blood-testing kit to the Nelspruit Medi-Clinic will be investigated, said Captain Benjamin Bhembe, Lowveld police spokesperson.
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/ 18 December 2004
Two South African men detained in Pakistan on suspicion of belonging to a terrorist organisation were deported to South Africa on Wednesday, the office of the South African national police commissioner said on Friday. Feroz Ganchi and Zubair Ismail were questioned by the South African Police Service upon their arrival in South Africa.
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/ 18 December 2004
The African National Congress published a stinging attack on Friday on top United States health officials, accusing them of treating Africans like guinea pigs and telling lies to promote the sales of a key Aids drug. The article reinforces the fears of doctors and activists that new questions about the testing of nevirapine could halt use of the drug.
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/ 18 December 2004
The Table Mountain rapist licked his victim’s private parts in the belief that she would enjoy it, the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court heard on Friday. Jeremia Lebogang Bhengi (25), of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty to one charge of indecent assault, one of rape and one of attempted murder when he appeared in court.
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/ 18 December 2004
Rebels from Côte d’Ivoire wrapped up two days of talks with South African President Thabo Mbeki on Friday, pledging they will not stand in the way of peace in their war-divided West African country. Mbeki now plans to consult with other concerned parties, including the government and the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Côte d’Ivoire.
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/ 17 December 2004
KwaZulu-Natal police on Friday declared a media blackout on details surrounding the deportation of convicted child molester Alan Pyle from New Zealand to South Africa. This follows media reports that Pyle, a South African convicted of abusing three girls in New Zealand, was to be arrested at Johannesburg International airport on Friday morning.
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/ 17 December 2004
The police destroyed more than 20 500 firearms in Kempton Park on Friday in a bid to fight the proliferation of guns in the country. ”The police are winning the war on the proliferation of illegal firearms,” Gauteng police’s acting spokesperson Senior Superintendent Mary Martins-Engelbrecht said.
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/ 17 December 2004
Media group Primedia has made a firm offer to buy New Africa Investments Limited (Nail) for R45,1-million, or R0,356 a share. William Kirsh, CEO of Primedia, said: "The conclusion of the Nail deal is another milestone for Primedia and brings to conclusion Primedia’s successful bid for Nail’s key media assets."
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/ 17 December 2004
The Mental Health Care Act has been promulgated by President Thabo Mbeki and comes into effect immediately, the Department of Health said on Friday. The measure seeks to realign mental health-care service with the National Health Care Act by emphasising the protection of patients’ rights, equity, affordability and access to quality health care.
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/ 17 December 2004
Former president Nelson Mandela and the Nelson Mandela Foundation were granted an interdict in the Pretoria High Court on Friday to prohibit Investgold from importing and selling gold coins bearing his image and name. Investgold sought permission from the foundation in October to import 24-carat gold coins minted in the United Kingdom.
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/ 17 December 2004
A woman was killed in Johannesburg on Thursday when a Steers fast-food sign fell on her, police said. Police spokesperson Inspector Amanda Roestoff said on Friday the incident happened at 6.50pm when a storm hit the city. A post-mortem will be conducted on the 20-year-old woman on Monday.
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/ 17 December 2004
Vice-chancellors of South Africa’s universities have rejected reports that prospective students must write compulsory entrance exams in 2009. Several newspapers said the South African Universities Vice-Chancellors’ Association decided that students must write entrance exams because the proposed new grading system will be unreliable.
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/ 17 December 2004
Smuts Ngonyama, the African National Congress’s head of presidency, originally stood to be one of the biggest individual beneficiaries from the possible sale of a R6,6-billion stake in Telkom to a consortium led by former director general of communications Andile Ngcaba. A leaked document lays bare the Telkom conflicts and questions.
Elephants in SNO country?
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/ 17 December 2004
Several investors in the Second National Operator (SNO) appear to be hedging their bets, using the Elephant Consortium to buy into Telkom, the monopoly service provider with which the SNO was designed to compete. Their involvement raises new competition concerns.
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/ 16 December 2004
President Thabo Mbeki gave South Africa’s reconciliation process a glowing report card on Thursday, saying black and white citizens are standing up for freedom together. ”We have begun to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood and sisterhood,” he said at Reconciliation Day celebrations in Pretoria.
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/ 16 December 2004
In the past two weeks, two controversial issues hit the South African National Blood Service hard.
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/ 16 December 2004
The safety of single-dose nevirapine is not in question, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) reiterated on Wednesday, following comments by the Department of Health. The Aids action group was concerned that ”misleading” comments by the department could result in people discontinuing their treatment, and suffering harm.
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/ 16 December 2004
A dispute over non-payment of the rental of a refrigerated container with medical waste inside on Wednesday caused a hospital group in East London, Afrox Healthcare, to end its medical waste-removal contract with a nationally based company. Last Friday, an electrician cut the power supply to a container in which medical waste had been stored.
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/ 16 December 2004
Survivors of this week’s horror smash in Flagstaff were still in shock on Wednesday after a runaway truck cut a swathe of destruction through the town, killing five and injuring at least 13 people. Speaking from his bed in the St Elizabeth hospital in Lusikisiki, Mphikelwa Mgoduka, a father of four, said he still cannot believe that he survived.
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/ 16 December 2004
Robin McGregor, former chief executive of well-known South African businessman Tony Cotterell’s Kempston Group, will finally face fraud charges four years after he was first arrested. McGregor is currently dealer principal of the Johannesburg-based Peugeot Commercial Centre, a division of Cotterell’s Ancott Trust.
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/ 16 December 2004
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has been the subject of a heated debate in the United States and Europe in recent weeks, accused of an oversight in handling the Iraq oil-for-food programme. Allegations of conflict of interest in the Annan family concerning the initiative have also been made. Annan’s critics allege that he should take responsibility for the matter, as it happened on his watch.
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/ 15 December 2004
Shoddy service at the Yeoville police station in Johannesburg — experienced first-hand by a Gauteng provincial minister last month — is being attended to, the department of community safety heard on Wednesday. The minister had to intervene personally before a nine-year-old rape victim was helped, and her rapist arrested.
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/ 15 December 2004
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said it has been excluded from the investigation into the deaths of seven miners at the Hernic Ferrochrome mine at Brits on Tuesday. The company is unwilling to engage with the union on details of the disaster, NUM spokesperson Moferefere Lekorotsoana said in a statement on Wednesday.
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/ 15 December 2004
The number of road deaths so far this December appears about the same as last year, the Department of Transport said in Pretoria on Wednesday. ”This is incredibly disappointing for us,” said the department’s chief director of land transportation regulation, Wendy Watson.
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/ 15 December 2004
Lawyers in South Africa for Mark Thatcher have appealed against a decision that would force the Briton to answer questions about his alleged role in a coup plot in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, his legal counsel said. His lawyers have repeatedly denied his involvement in the alleged coup.
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/ 15 December 2004
Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk told delegates to an international conference in Buenos Aires on Wednesday that temperatures could rise between 1% and 3% by 2050 in South Africa. He was speaking at the 10th conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
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/ 14 December 2004
The body of the woman who was swept away by a swollen Braamfonteinspruit in Parkhurst on Monday was recovered in Bryanston, Johannesburg, early on Tuesday afternoon. Two police sniffer dogs located the body of 36-year-old Jennifer Manale 15km down the spruit a day after she was overwhelmed by floodwaters.
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/ 14 December 2004
The Democratic Alliance, the official opposition, has asked that Parliament be reconvened in a special session to debate what it calls the ”secret arms deal”. On Tuesday, DA leader Tony Leon said: ”DA chief whip Douglas Gibson, MP, has written to the Speaker of Parliament to ask that Parliament be reconvened.”
Suspend ‘secret’ arms deal, says DA