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/ 13 October 2004
Any person in Iraq runs a very high risk of being killed, said the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in Pretoria on Wednesday. Responding to the death of two more South Africans who were gunned down on Tuesday in a roadside attack on their convoy, ISS analyst Henri Boshoff said more deaths should be expected.
Two more South Africans killed in Iraq
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/ 13 October 2004
Deputy President Jacob Zuma still owes more than R1-million for costs incurred in the construction of his Nkandla village in KwaZulu-Natal, the Durban High Court heard on Wednesday. Prosecutor Billy Downer said the state will prove that the source of the funding for Nkandla was a bribe from arms company Thomson CSF.
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/ 13 October 2004
South African transport utility Transnet is not a job creation agent and the best contribution it can make is not to grow its number of jobs, says Transnet CEO Mario Ramos. She was addressing the National Assembly public enterprises portfolio committee on Wednesday.
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/ 12 October 2004
The Noupoort Christian Care Centre (NCCC), the controversial drug rehabilitation facility, is to ask the High Court to review a decision by Director General of Social Development Vusi Madonsela to close it down. The NCCC’s attorney said the NCCC has been treated unfairly by the department and will oppose its closure ”all the way”.
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/ 12 October 2004
South Africa’s most famous township, Soweto, synonymous with the struggle against apartheid, kicked off centenary celebrations on Tuesday with a tree-planting ceremony symbolising a new era of freedom and growth. An African pine tree was planted as organisers geared up for weeks of celebrations to mark the founding of Soweto.
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/ 12 October 2004
A Soweto man was woken up from a nap on Tuesday by the sound of a bulldozer crashing through his house, Johannesburg emergency services said. The bulldozer had been carrying out roadworks in Doornkop, on the western border of Soweto, when the driver experienced brake failure, spokesperson Malcolm Midgley said.
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/ 12 October 2004
The judge in the Schabir Shaik corruption trial on Tuesday turned down an application by e.tv to televise proceedings, but left the door open for broadcast of the closing stages of the case. E.tv said it will study the judgement and consider whether to launch a Constitutional Court challenge.
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/ 12 October 2004
Interpol resources will be moved to where they are needed, said the newly appointed president of the international policing organisation, Jackie Selebi, in Pretoria on Tuesday. His priority will be to redirect resources to weaker countries. This will include the establishment of a centre in Africa to pool information on international terrorism.
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/ 12 October 2004
Black economic empowerment (BEE) financial services group Arch Equity is rapidly building up its asset base to become one of the largest BEE players in the Western Cape, with plans to list on the JSE Securities Exchange before year-end. CEO Desmond Lockey said the company has already started the process to list the company on the JSE.
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/ 12 October 2004
Capitec Bank and MasterCard Southern Africa on Tuesday announced a pilot of the world’s first pre-authorised debit card based on the EMV standard, in the town of Phuthaditjhaba in the Free State. The new debit card is specifically designed to provide a straightforward, low-cost banking product with easy access to the mass market.
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/ 12 October 2004
Operations at Impala Platinum (Implats) will return to normal at 9pm on Tuesday after the company and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) agreed to an 8% pay increase, backdated to July 1. As part of the settlement, the NUM has agreed to support initiatives to improve productivity through technological advances.
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/ 11 October 2004
No discrepancies or irregularities involving the first day of the matric exams had been reported by noon on Monday, Minister of Education Naledi Pandor said in Pretoria. Demanding a daily report on matric exams from each province, Pandor said so far all matters concerning logistics, delivery and security had been attended to.
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/ 11 October 2004
The share price of financial services group PSG Group jumped as high as 14,2% or 57 cents in afternoon trade on Monday after the group reported a 19,6% rise in its headline earnings per share for the six months to the end of August 2004, to 36,9 cents from 33,1 cents a year earlier.
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/ 11 October 2004
Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi has told traditional leaders that he has long been concerned that the South African government lacks the resolve to address ”the issue of the obliteration of the powers and functions of amakhosi [traditional leaders]” through the imposition of municipalities.
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/ 10 October 2004
One in three South Africans believes that Deputy President Jacob Zuma is innocent of allegations of fraud related to the arms deal, while one in five believes he is linked to corruption in some way, a new Markinor survey has found. The survey showed that 34% of South Africans ”strongly agreed” Zuma is innocent of the allegations of corruption.
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/ 10 October 2004
At least 10 children were raped in Mpumalanga in a space of four days, police reported on Saturday. Among them was an eight-year-old girl who was allegedly raped by her stepfather (21) at the Emjidini hostel near Barberton, and a 12-year-old boy who was indecently assaulted by a 63-year-old man.
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/ 10 October 2004
Deputy President Jacob Zuma on Saturday warned that knowledge of Aids could lead to people becoming complacent and expecting infection. Speaking at a function marking the sixth anniversary of the launch of the Partnership against Aids, Zuma said there is a danger that people will take Aids as a ”given”.
A third of SA thinks Zuma is innocent
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/ 10 October 2004
Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Thoko Didiza handed over land to four communities in Limpopo on Saturday, according to a television news report. The report said the Koka Matlou, Mabjaneng, Legata and Lebelo communities were forcibly removed from their lands in the 1800s.
The editor of the Financial Mail (FM), Caroline Southey, has resigned with immediate effect, Moneyweb reported on Saturday. Southey will remain editor of the business magazine until a successor is appointed. She will then assume the position of deputy editor.
The run-up to the Schabir Shaik corruption trial starting in Durban on Monday has seen the media sharply focusing on the main players in the upcoming drama — even the judge. On Friday, it emerged that Squires also served as a politician and tough justice minister in the then Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in the 1970s under Ian Smith.
The former senior public prosecutor of the Pietermaritzburg Magistrate’s Court was convicted of fraud and corruption and sentenced in the Durban Regional Court on Friday. Stanley Ngubane was paid R70 000 in order for a murder accused to be detained at local police cells, instead of in prison.
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/ 24 September 2004
A challenge for the African renaissance is to empower Africans, including Afrikaans- and English-speaking Africans, to be proud of their traditions and to take their place as equals with all the people of the world, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday at national Heritage Day celebrations.
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/ 23 September 2004
Free-to-air television station e.tv did not broadcast footage of the beheading of an American hostage in Iraq as reported on Thursday, the station said. The station’s editor-in-chief, Joe Thloloe, said on Thursday reports that stated his station had aired footage of the beheading in the manner that SABC1 did were not entirely correct.
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/ 23 September 2004
The South African government on Thursday welcomed the decision by the United States to lift sanctions against Libya and the European Union’s provisional approval for a partial lifting of sanctions. On Monday, US President George Bush released ,3-billion in frozen Libyan assets.
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/ 23 September 2004
Despite an outcry from the National Council of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA), South Africa’s first National Fireworks Competition is set to go ahead, NSPCA spokesperson Christine Kuch said on Thursday. ”It makes me sick to the teeth,” Kuch said
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/ 23 September 2004
Residents of a village in Limpopo marched to the Chamber of Mines in Johannesburg on Thursday, protesting against being ”forcibly removed” to make way for an Anglo Platinum mine. The community of GaPila, near Mokopane, was moved to Sterkwater to allow an Anglo Platinum mine to use the area, the protesters said.
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/ 23 September 2004
Week after week, a Durban Daily News reporter stole massive chunks of copy from a website in the United States and passed it off as his own. And the reporter, Keeran Sewsunker, who is probably South Africa’s worst serial plagiarist, is still at his desk. The American magazine is now threatening legal action.
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/ 23 September 2004
Victorious political parties reacted with glee on Thursday to 19 municipal by-elections held around the country the day before. In KwaZulu-Natal, the African National Congress was in a jubilant mood after gaining victories in three by-elections in rural areas, previously regarded as Inkatha Freedom Party strongholds.
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/ 22 September 2004
The Public Services Coordinating Bargaining Council stalled on Wednesday when the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) felt it had not gathered enough of a mandate to sign the government’s proposed agreement. However, the wage dispute ”technically” came to an end after the minister of public service and administration signed an increase proposal.
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/ 22 September 2004
The executive producer of the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) Xhosa news has been suspended pending the outcome of a probe into video footage showing the beheading of an American hostage in Iraq on Tuesday night. ”We don’t show gruesome pictures of people being killed,” an SABC spokesperson said.
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/ 22 September 2004
South Africa recorded its first trade account deficit in 22 years during the second quarter of this year, according to the South African Reserve Bank’s quarterly bulletin released on Wednesday. It also recorded a current account deficit of nearly 4% of gross domestic product.
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/ 22 September 2004
A senior Eastern Cape government official and an accomplice were arrested on Wednesday morning for alleged fraud and corruption involving R1,2-million. The National Prosecuting Authority said the official allegedly received a R50 000 bribe for fraudulently advancing payment of R1,2-million to the accomplice’s company.