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/ 21 September 2004
Closing off public spaces with boom gates is putting up a laager and reinstating apartheid — and it is also illegal, the South African Human Rights Commission heard on Tuesday. The commission is hearing submissions on whether communities should be allowed to restrict access to public areas to feel safer.
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/ 20 September 2004
Face paintings, wigs and men wearing dresses will be allowed at Saturday’s 14th annual Gay Pride march in Johannesburg, as long as it is ”decent”, city police said on Monday. Spokesperson Chief Superintendent Wayne Minnaar said: ”People will be able to wear masks, but the mask must be of such a nature that the wearer is identifiable.”
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/ 20 September 2004
National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) president Mtutuzeli Tom has reproached members who, he said, use the media to discredit the union.
”It is our revolutionary duty to defend and protect the integrity of the union from reckless and careless negative media publicity,” he told Numsa’s congress in Midrand.
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/ 20 September 2004
Nine miners died at the Northam Platinum mine near Thabazimbi after a fire broke out underground early on Monday, the company said. A spokesperson said 46 workers, who were working on the 13th level of the mine about 2 100m underground, were safely evacuated after the blaze was detected.
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/ 20 September 2004
South Africa has launched an ambitious policy for biotechnology, according to the Science and Development Network. The Department of Science and Technology document has identified the main beneficiaries as health services, agriculture, industry, mining and the environment.
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/ 20 September 2004
Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel has called for an end to the management failures and ”lunacy” in the country’s public sector, saying the finances channelled to government have to be translated into concrete improvements in poverty, education and services.
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/ 20 September 2004
About 500 residents of Zamani in Memel were blocking the access road to the township in protest over service delivery, eastern Free State police said on Monday morning. Captain Veronica Ntepe said schoolchildren were among the protesters. The group were using old car wrecks and dustbins to block the road.
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/ 20 September 2004
In the Nguni languages, an indlavini is a violent and reckless man who disrespects elders and tradition. The tough cities also produced the utsotsi, a street-wise petty criminal who asserts his masculinity through violence. Amplified by the media, such notions have now become entrenched. With the introduction of HIV into the social equation, their consequences are also deadlier than ever before.
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/ 20 September 2004
"Give me a child until he is seven, and I will show you the man," goes the old Jesuit saying — an advertisement, if ever there were one, for the virtues of preprimary education. Yet, a decade after the advent of democracy, South Africa appears to spend more on keeping convicted criminals in their cells than on keeping children off the streets and in preschool.
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/ 19 September 2004
The Public Service Coordinating Bargaining Council will meet on Sunday to consider a draft agreement drawn up on Friday evening in an attempt to resolve the public-service pay-rise impasse. The working group was set up by the government and labour unions on Friday morning to explore ”all possible options” for a resolution.
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/ 19 September 2004
Thousands of mourners, of all races and creeds, packed the Aasvoëlkop Dutch Reformed Church in Northcliff on Saturday to pay their final respects to Afrikaans anti-apartheid activist Beyers Naude in a moving ceremony. ”Oom Bey” — once rejected by his own people for rejecting his church’s justification of apartheid — died on September 7 at the age of 89. President Thabo Mbeki said it was because of Naude that black and white South Africans could walk together.
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/ 19 September 2004
The former African National Congress Youth League secretary in Mpumalanga who linked three prominent ANC members to a plot to topple President Thabo Mbeki, has admitted to lying, the Sunday Times reported on Saturday evening. James Nkambule sparked a top-level police investigation in 2001 with his claims.
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/ 18 September 2004
Dutch airline KLM is concerned about the security situation at Johannesburg International airport following Thursday’s attempted robbery near one of its aircraft. On Thursday night, a gang of armed men tried to intercept a cargo as it was being loaded on board with a police escort.
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/ 18 September 2004
The mutilated body of a newborn baby boy apparently eaten by a dog was found near an informal settlement on the farm Rietvlei near Sundra, Mpumalanga police reported on Friday. Inspector Leonard Hlathi said farm residents spotted the baby’s body and informed police on Thursday.
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/ 18 September 2004
South African students at a high school in a township outside Durban were treated to a special science lesson on Friday, delivered by Indian President Abdul Kalam. The Indian statesman later wrapped up his visit — the first ever by a head of state from the subcontinent — by travelling to Chatsworth.
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/ 17 September 2004
A working group set up by the government and labour unions on Friday morning to explore ”all possible options” for a resolution to the public-service pay rise impasse had compiled a document by late afternoon. The document was due to be tabled in the Public Service Coordinating Bargaining Council urgently.
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/ 17 September 2004
Work stopped at the South African Reserve Bank in Pretoria and a nearby branch of Absa bank for about an hour on Friday as police searched both buildings for bombs. The police’s dog unit and bomb disposal unit were sent to both scenes shortly after midday, said spokesperson Inspector Percy Morokane.
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/ 17 September 2004
South Africa’s trade negotiations with China should be suspended until their effect on the local economy had been studied, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said on Friday. Cosatu president Zwelinzima Vavi was addressing the Southern African Textile and Clothing Workers’ Union in Cape Town.
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/ 17 September 2004
A Randburg engineer charged under weapons of mass destruction and nuclear energy laws has already told international authorities that he had no business dealings with Libya, the Vanderbijlpark Regional Court heard on Friday. Gerhard Wisser was questioned by German authorities last month.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=122333">’Death threats’ in WMD case</a>
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/ 17 September 2004
The African National Congress is scaring away prospective investors from South Africa with ”outlandish tirades” against so-called white capital, not seeming to realise that money knows no colour, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said on Friday in his weekly newsletter on the DA’s website.
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/ 17 September 2004
The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) on Thursday presented an application to split its radio and television services into public and commercial broadcasting. The split would see three radio stations (Metro FM, 5fm and Good Hope FM) and television channel SABC3 broadcasting commercially.
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/ 16 September 2004
Jazz legend Dolly Rathebe (74) died at the Ga-Rankuwa hospital outside Pretoria on Thursday. Rathebe was admitted to hospital on Sunday after suffering a mild stroke and is survived by two daughters and a son. Former president Nelson Mandela was among many who paid tribute to Rathebe on Thursday.
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/ 16 September 2004
A Vanderbijlpark engineering company director has turned state witness in the case of two men accused of possessing uranium-enrichment equipment in the Vanderbijlpark Regional Court on Thursday, South African Broadcasting Corporation radio news reported.
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/ 16 September 2004
The Department of Correctional Services has promised to crack down on smoking at Cape Town’s Pollsmoor prison following a Labour Court challenge by a warder. The department and Minister of Correctional Services Ngconde Balfour have agreed to do ”whatever is required” to ensure that the law is ”strictly observed and complied with”.
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/ 16 September 2004
The jury was out on the effectiveness of Thursday’s public-service strike in the Western Cape as unions claimed a massive turnout while the provincial government sought to downplay its impact. In Cape Town, police estimated about 17 000 strikers snaked their way through the city.
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/ 16 September 2004
More than 700Â 000 public service workers were on strike on Thursday, making this the biggest strike in South Africa’s history, the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union claimed. Schools appeared to have been the hardest hit. Health services were mostly functioning without disruptions.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Business&ao=122284">Strikers told to stay home next week</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Business&ao=122301">Jury out on strike impact in W Cape</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Business&ao=122277">Blow the vuvuzela: Strikers are ‘gatvol'</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Business&ao=122266">How strike will impact on economy</a>
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/ 16 September 2004
It is illegal to caricature the Carling Black Label trademark for commercial gain, the Supreme Court of Appeal found on Thursday. Laugh It Off had been selling T-shirts emblazoned with the trademark but substituting the words ”Black Labour, White Guilt” for ”Black Label, Carling”. This was detrimental to the value of the trademark, the court held.
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/ 16 September 2004
Briefing the media at Parliament on Thursday, the Democratic Alliance accused the African National Congress of using opportunistic enticements to lure municipal councillors during the 15-day floor crossing period, and vowed to look into the possibility of amending the relevant legislation.
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/ 16 September 2004
Africans look to the Pan African Parliament (PAP) to help them escape from poverty and underdevelopment, South African President Thabo Mbeki on Thursday told the opening of the PAP’s second sitting at Gallagher Estate in Midrand. Earlier,
about 300 protesters arrived to press for democratic reform in Zimbabwe.
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/ 16 September 2004
Hundreds of guests and delegates gathered for the opening of the Pan African Parliament’s (PAP) second sitting at the Gallagher Estate conference centre in Midrand on Thursday morning. Delegates from 46 countries that have ratified the PAP protocol are to take part in deliberations from this Friday until October 7.
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/ 16 September 2004
SABMiller, the world’s second-largest brewer by volume, has declined to comment on Thursday on media reports that the group is in talks regarding a possible joint acquisition of Canada’s Molson. SABMiller spokesperson Nigel Fairbrass said the group couldn’t comment on Thursday’s report in the <i>Wall Street Journal Europe</i>,
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/ 16 September 2004
Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel has spoken out against the trend of exorbitantly high salaries and greed among professionals, and has called instead for them to give something back to help to reduce the growing levels of inequality and poverty in the country.