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/ 28 October 2004
Judgement was reserved on Thursday in Mark Thatcher’s Cape High Court bid to avoid answering questions from Equatorial Guinea prosecutors. Lawyers involved in the three-day hearing said that given the complexity of the case and the judges’ other commitments, judgement is unlikely to be handed down in the near future.
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/ 28 October 2004
As the country holds its breath for confirmation of a fuel hike on Friday, economist Mike Schussler believes it will not break the R5 barrier this year. Preliminary figures released this week show that motorists should expect to pay an additional 19c a litre from next Wednesday. This means Gauteng drivers will be paying R4,87 a litre for petrol.
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/ 28 October 2004
Boeremag members had prayed and assured each other they were doing the right thing before planting bombs in Soweto in October 2002, the treason trial in the Pretoria High Court heard on Thursday. Self-confessed coup plotter Deon Crous said he and five of the Boeremag accused had planned and planted 10 bombs in the Soweto area.
Bombers did it for ‘Boer nation’
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/ 28 October 2004
The Cape High Court hearing of Mark Thatcher’s bid to avoid answering questions from Equatorial Guinea prosecutors entered its third day on Thursday. State advocate Michael Donen is expected to finish his argument by lunch on Thursday, and Thatcher’s senior counsel, Peter Hodes, will reply after lunch.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=124499">E Guinea on ‘fishing expedition'</a>
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/ 28 October 2004
Food retailer Shoprite Holdings is expecting an "exciting" and much-improved second half of 2004 compared with the same period in 2003, with its turnover in the three months from July to September rising by 9,3% on a like-for-like basis, continuing the upward sales trend it experienced in the latter part of its financial year to the end of June 2004.
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/ 27 October 2004
The Pan Africanist Congress has cheered the decision by Harare to boot out a Congress of South African Trade Unions fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe. But Mosiuoa Lekota, chairperson of the African National Congress and Minister of Defence, said his party was ”a bit” embarrassed by the deportation.
Cosatu member tells of Zim eviction
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/ 27 October 2004
A member of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) delegation to Zimbabwe, which was thrown out of the country on Tuesday night, has talked of the group’s seven-hour ordeal at Harare International airport. ”They [Zimbabwean police] attempted to beat us when we asked for food,” Simon Boshielo said.
‘Mbeki should rebuke Mugabe’
Cosatu leaves Zimbabwe
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/ 27 October 2004
Johannesburg residents who have applied for boom-gate access control in their streets will hear from Thursday if their applications were approved or not, mayor Amos Masondo told reporters. A total of 324 applications were received — 309 for existing closures and 15 for new closures.
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/ 27 October 2004
De Beers Consolidated Mines (DBCM), the South African division of global diamond giant De Beers, has concluded the sale of Dancarl Diamonds, a mine in the Northern Cape, to a black-owned partnership consisting of Sedibeng Mining and Meepong, a women’s grouping, together with Australia’s Crown Diamonds NL.
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/ 27 October 2004
Equatorial Guinea authorities are being given a chance to go on a fishing expedition by questioning Mark Thatcher, a Cape High Court judge said on Wednesday. Thatcher is hoping to overturn a subpoena ordering him to answer questions on an alleged coup bid in Equatorial Guinea.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=124471">Tough questions in Thatcher case</a>
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/ 27 October 2004
An inquiry into the cause of an explosion at Sasol’s ethylene plant in Secunda, Mpumalanga, last month — which left 10 people dead and more than 100 injured — began on Wednesday, the Department of Labour said. Spokesperson Page Boikanyo said 40 witnesses, including workers and subcontractors, will be questioned during the inquiry.
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/ 27 October 2004
A 37-year-old police officer convicted of killing a Germiston hotelier was sentenced to 10 years in prison by the Johannesburg High Court on Wednesday. Inspector Sibongakonke Ndlovu, found guilty on Friday of shooting dead Petrus Jooste — the owner of the Republic hotel in Elsburg — on New Year’s Day, apparently became ill when the sentence was passed.
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/ 27 October 2004
A sum of R2-million that former president Nelson Mandela gave to Deputy President Jacob Zuma in October 2000 was used to pay the debts of Zuma and Schabir Shaik’s Nkobi Holdings, the Durban High Court heard on Wednesday. At that stage, Zuma experienced huge financial problems.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=124444">Company used ‘creative accounting'</a>
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/ 27 October 2004
The judges hearing Mark Thatcher’s Cape High Court application on Wednesday subjected the state’s legal team to some tough questioning on Thatcher’s constitutional rights. Thatcher is seeking to overturn a subpoena ordering him to answer questions on an alleged coup bid in Equatorial Guinea.
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/ 27 October 2004
A 500-day campaign, aimed at turning Johannesburg into a safer environment, will be launched next month, mayor Amos Masondo said on Wednesday. Operation Token Days — which forms part of the city’s broader safety strategy — will kick off on November 8 and run for 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
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/ 27 October 2004
The Democratic Alliance believes the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) was shockingly treated in Zimbabwe, party chairperson Joe Seremane said on Wednesday. Seremane was referring to Tuesday’s summary deportation of a 13-strong Cosatu fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe.
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/ 26 October 2004
Grocers Shoprite Checkers have launched a chain of discount pharmacies called MediRite, joining the growing number of retailers adding pharmacies to their portfolio, the group confirmed on Tuesday. The group successfully applied to the Department of Health for a pharmacy licence.
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/ 26 October 2004
The South African Police Service (SAPS) may be disarmed of its service pistols if no police officer is killed over a two-year period, said National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi on Tuesday. Selebi also said he will shortly turn schools into gun-free zones where not even police officers will be allowed to enter with their weapons.
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/ 26 October 2004
Self-confessed coup plotter Deon Crous testified on Tuesday in the Boeremag treason trial in the Pretoria High Court that he and five of the Boeremag accused had decided to assassinate Mandela with a home-made bomb after reading in a newspaper that he would open a school near Tzaneen in Limpopo.
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/ 26 October 2004
Politicians and economists have reacted to Tuesday’s Medium Term Budget Policy Statement, tabled by Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel in Parliament on Tuesday. George Glynos, market analyst at Econometrix Treasury Management, said: "One has to say that it was a relatively optimistic and fair speech."
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/ 26 October 2004
The attorney general of Equatorial Guinea lied when he applied to the South African government for Mark Thatcher to undergo questioning, the Cape High Court heard on Tuesday. Advocate Peter Hodes was arguing Thatcher’s bid for the overturn of a subpoena ordering him to answer questions on an alleged coup plot in Equatorial Guinea.
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/ 26 October 2004
Medicine pricing was thrown into further confusion on Tuesday when the Pharmacy Council confirmed it is scrapping its guidelines for fees charges on top of legislated dispensing fees. The fees were introduced on October 15 in a bid to cover operating costs not covered by the maximum R26 dispensing fee.
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/ 26 October 2004
Investigators have found that allegations of matric examination papers leaked in Gauteng were ”baseless and unsubstantiated”, the provincial education department said on Tuesday. It was alleged on Monday that a business economics paper was leaked in Lenasia, south of Johannesburg.
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/ 26 October 2004
Zimbabwe home affairs officials expelled 13 members of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) on Tuesday, the day after they arrived in the capital, Harare. The Cosatu delegation was present for discussions with its Zimbabwean counterparts in the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions.
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/ 25 October 2004
In a precedent-setting judgement, a full bench of the Cape High Court ruled on Monday in favour of the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) request to televise Mark Thatcher’s civil case on Tuesday. Thatcher has been implicated in a botched coup in Equatorial Guinea and is scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday.
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/ 25 October 2004
Only 200 of an expected 5 000 residents marched on the Natalspruit hospital in Katlehong on Monday afternoon to demand a response to a memorandum handed to the hospital’s management last month. One of the marchers, Patricia Mkani, said nothing seems to be going right at the hospital.
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/ 25 October 2004
A self-confessed Boeremag coup plotter told the Pretoria High Court on Monday he felt ”uncomfortable” with plans to annihilate the ”enemy”, who had been identified as all blacks, coloureds and Indians. He said the Boeremag had plans to shoot holes into electricity transformers, causing them to blow up and leave people without electricity.
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/ 25 October 2004
A witness told the Schabir Shaik trial in Durban on Monday that Shaik believed his political connections would enable his company to get a slice of the multibillion-rand arms deal. He said French firm Thomson CSF regarded political connections as important in the adjudication process of the arms deal.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=124329">Shaik trial tracks ‘the tailor'</a>
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/ 25 October 2004
Provision of anti-retroviral therapy to people living with HIV/Aids in Botswana is progressing at a steady rate, resulting in fewer deaths, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday. ”The overall mortality of patients on treatment is less than 10%,” says a report compiled by Botswana’s Health Ministry and WHO experts.
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/ 25 October 2004
The most important issue that Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel should address in his medium-term Budget policy statement — to be delivered in Parliament on Tuesday afternoon — is economic growth, says South Africa’s opposition leader Tony Leon.
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/ 25 October 2004
General Bantu Holomisa’s United Democratic Movement says Deputy President Jacob Zuma should ”vacate” his position and thereafter he should be prosecuted. At the party’s national council in Pretoria at the weekend, the party passed a resolution noting the trial of Zuma’s business adviser Schabir Shaik.
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/ 22 October 2004
Two more South Africans will be released from prison in Zimbabwe on humanitarian grounds due to ill health, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Friday. Pius Kanjowa and Lenatu Eselumu were convicted in a trial relating to an alleged plot to overthrow the leadership of Equatorial Guinea earlier this year.