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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.
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/ 22 October 2004
The spat between President Thabo Mbeki and the Democratic Alliance over his reply to a question in the National Assembly on Thursday continued on Friday, with both Mbeki and DA leader Tony Leon referring to the matter in their respective weekly newsletters.
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/ 22 October 2004
Defending the government’s recent signing of trade deals with Israel, Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad said on Friday they are designed to benefit the entire Middle East region. Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with South African President Thabo Mbeki briefly on Friday at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.
Tony Leon welcomes Israeli visit
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/ 22 October 2004
Five minerals and energy ministers from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region have reaffirmed their commitment to ensure sufficient capacity within the region, South African government news agency BuaNews reported on Friday.
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/ 22 October 2004
Foreign business chambers falling under the Bilateral Chamber Consultative Committee — an umbrella body representing 21 private-sector business groupings — have a high level of confidence in the South African economy. This was the message delivered on Friday to the National Assembly trade and industry committee.
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/ 22 October 2004
Adverse weather conditions continued to delay the start of oil-transfer operations from the BBC China, the cargo vessel stranded off the Eastern Cape Coast, authorities said on Friday. The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism said the ship has about 120 tonnes of oil on board.
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/ 22 October 2004
Below-normal rainfall is likely until February next year, Rand Water said on Friday. It said the Vaal Dam is 37% full. Under normal conditions, a 37% water level would not be a problem. The South African Weather Service, however, has warned that rainfall will be below average over the next four months.
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/ 22 October 2004
The Durban High Court heard on Friday that Deputy President Jacob Zuma accompanied Nkobi group director Schabir Shaik on a visit to Malaysia in 1995. This is according to a report by forensics expert Johan van der Walt from the KPMG accounting and auditing firm.
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/ 22 October 2004
The man suspected of abducting and killing Johannesburg student Leigh Matthews will remain behind bars more than a month after his bail application was postponed indefinitely in the Wynberg Regional Court on Friday. The case itself was postponed to December 3. This follows the termination of the services of Donovan Moodley’s lawyer.
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/ 22 October 2004
The South African Presidency is not yet ready to make an announcement on the salary adjustments for judges and MPs, said President Thabo Mbeki’s spokesperson Bheki Khumalo on Friday. This comes amid speculation that the president will not accept the advice of a 7% increase recommended by the Moseneke Commission.
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/ 21 October 2004
A witness in the Boeremag treason trial, former Bela-Bela farmer Deon Crous, described on Thursday preparations for a coup attempt, including renting cars for car bombs, stockpiling ammunition and making petrol bombs with beer bottles and government-issue condoms.
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/ 21 October 2004
The lawyer representing the man accused of kidnapping and killing Johannesburg student Leigh Matthews has withdrawn from the case, the prosecution confirmed on Thursday. Randburg senior prosecutor Pieter Erasmus said he had received a fax from Louis Weinstein on Wednesday indicating that he had withdrawn from the case.
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/ 21 October 2004
Almost two years after the diamond industry committed itself to preventing trade in conflict diamonds, retailers in the world’s biggest markets are failing to live up to their promise, according to two international NGOs. A new report is based on a survey of the diamond jewellery retail sector’s implementation of self-regulation in line with the Kimberley Process.
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/ 21 October 2004
Small retail pharmacies will soon be extinct in South Africa unless new regulations governing medicine pricing and dispensing margins are changed, according to the group leader of listed health and beauty retailer New Clicks Holdings, Trevor Honneysett. He also said the legislation has not succeeded in reducing medicine prices.
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/ 21 October 2004
President Thabo Mbeki deflected a question about the relationship of rape and the spread of HIV/Aids by accusing a Democratic Alliance MP of not understanding the scourge of racial oppression. In a lively debate in the National Assembly on Thursday, Mbeki repeatedly accused DA health spokesperson Ryan Coetzee of not listening.
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/ 21 October 2004
Health and beauty retailer New Clicks Holdings is confident that its model for including pharmacy dispensaries and related health services across its Clicks chain of stores will prove profitable, even if the current regulations fixing dispensing fees and establishing single exit prices for medicines prove to be permanent.
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/ 20 October 2004
A group of handicapped South Africans has threatened legal action against a local airline for charging extra fees to passengers who need assistance boarding, an MP said on Wednesday. The South African-based Nationwide Airlines will answer to complaints of discrimination before the Equality Court, a Cape Town-based tribunal.
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/ 20 October 2004
South Africa’s employment rate has grown 3% over the past four quarters but that is not enough to halve unemployment by 2010, said economist Mike Schussler in Pretoria on Wednesday. Addressing journalists at a Solidarity union meeting, Schussler nevertheless painted a rosy picture of the South African economy.
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/ 20 October 2004
A school bus was torn open in a freak accident on a Johannesburg highway on Wednesday, killing one person and injuring 42, many of them children. The bus was taking the children back to Grayston Preparatory after a school outing when its wheel got caught in an open storm-water drain.
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/ 20 October 2004
Conservationists, scientists and animal-rights campaigners from around Southern Africa gathered on Wednesday at the start of a three-day conference to discuss ways of controlling the region’s expanding elephant population. Debate around the elephants has been characterised by sharply conflicting views and high emotion.
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/ 20 October 2004
Former Bela-Bela farmer Deon Crous told the Boeremag treason trial on Wednesday how he was brought in to drive rented cars — in which bombs were to be planted — from Johannesburg International airport. Crous also said he had built petrol bombs on the instructions of the accused Herman van Rooyen.
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/ 20 October 2004
Minister of Communications Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri announced on Wednesday the names of two of the three potential bidders for the unallocated equity in the second national telephone operator (SNO). They are Old Mutual Asset Managers and Tata Africa Holding.
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/ 20 October 2004
French arms-company executive Alain Thetard had an explosive temper and threw things at his staff, the Durban High Court heard on Wednesday. This was testimony from the fourth witness to be called in the Schabir Shaik fraud and corruption trial.
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/ 20 October 2004
New data suggest economic activity has increased, but this may not translate directly into similar increases in the gross domestic product (GDP), Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said in Pretoria on Wednesday. Criticised for large revision figures of final GDP results, Stats SA admitted they are not on par with global adjustments to such figures.
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/ 20 October 2004
All Southern African countries need to outlaw money laundering because it is costing their economies several billion dollars a year, says a specialist researcher. Angola, Malawi and Lesotho are some of the countries in the region that still do not have in place legislation criminalising money laundering.
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/ 20 October 2004
Absa Corporate and Merchant Bank, corporate advisers to Matlapeng Strategic Investments, has assisted with the acquisition of a 25% shareholding in the share capital of Raubex Construction. The transaction, which was closed on October 2, gives Matlapeng the opportunity to expand on Raubex’s national presence in the civil construction industry.
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/ 19 October 2004
Although ”elements” of al-Qaeda have been detected in South Africa, the terrorist organisation has established no networks here, Minister of Intelligence Ronnie Kasrils said on Tuesday. Speaking at a Cape Town Press Club luncheon, he described al-Qaeda as ”a huge international threat”.
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/ 19 October 2004
An estimated R13-billion will have to spent by the government to complete land restitution in South Africa, Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Thoko Didiza said on Tuesday. She was speaking to reporters after attending the commercial agriculture working group meeting at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.
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/ 19 October 2004
Deputy President Jacob Zuma gently chided the religious on Tuesday for not doing enough to challenge the portrayal of violence and sex in the media. ”There is something wrong in society if religious people are afraid to challenge things,” said Zuma, delivering the inaugural Desmond Tutu Peace Lecture.