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/ 14 November 2003
The Department of Defence has allocated about R205-million to provide spares needed for the first three years of operation of the South African navy’s new corvettes — the first of which arrived in Cape Town last week from Germany. The four corvettes have been priced at just short of R6-billion.
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/ 14 November 2003
South Africa’s crime prevention system has undergone a radical transformation since 1994, effectively ending political violence, dealing with urban and right-wing terror and taking important steps to stabilise crime, the ruling African National Congress has reported. But aggravated robbery has persistently increased.
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/ 13 November 2003
The Democratic Alliance on Thursday said almost the entire provincial leadership of the Freedom Front Plus in Limpopo had decided to join it instead. However, the FF+ said all provincial structures had been disbanded after provincial leader Gerhard Venter had apparently appeared in court on a criminal charge.
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/ 13 November 2003
Rebels in south Sudan have launched a diplomatic offensive in Africa, ahead of November 30 peace talks in Kenya, as part of efforts to end Sudan’s 20-year civil war. More than two million people, most of them civilians, have died in Sudan since the fighting between rebels and the Islamic government in the north resumed in 1983.
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/ 13 November 2003
The Johannesburg High court heard closing arguments on Thursday by the state in the jurisdiction hearing of Israeli national Lior Saat, who is charged with murdering diamond merchant Shai Avissar, the estranged husband of socialite Hazel Crane who was shot dead in Abbotsford, Johannesburg, on Monday.
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/ 13 November 2003
The government and the Big Business Working Group have agreed to set up a joint working team to consider ways of managing the impact of the strong rand, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Valli Moosa said on Thursday. Nail CEO Saki Macozoma said the most important thing was the rand’s stability.
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/ 12 November 2003
Chris Hani-Baragwanath hospital is in a financial crisis because of a lack of a cost-allocation system and cost-monitoring measures, according to a National Labour and Economic Development Institute report released on Wednesday. ”There is high duplication of duties, wastage, corruption and theft at the hospital,” a researcher said.
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/ 12 November 2003
Journalist Ranjeni Munusamy intends to appeal against a High Court order that she testify before the Hefer commission, she said on Wednesday. Earlier this week, Bloemfontein High Court Judge President JP Malherbe upheld a decision by former judge Joos Hefer that Munusamy must testify before his commission.
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/ 12 November 2003
The South African government’s expansionary Budget policy for the next four years would not have an inflationary impact on the economy, according to South African Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni. He said that he was confident there would be no "fiscal dominance" arising out of the higher budget deficits projected through 2006-07.
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/ 12 November 2003
Total expenditure in response to HIV and Aids, including amounts directly spent by provincial health departments, will exceed R3-million in 2004/05, says Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel. In his mini-Budget speech in the National Assembly on Wednesday, Manuel said R1,1-billion of this would be in the national Department of Health.
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/ 12 November 2003
Two Impala MK1 fighter pilots died almost instantly on Wednesday morning when their jet crashed 10m from the N4 highway in Mpumalanga’s notorious Crocodile Gorge. One of the pilots was flung through the roof of a passing truck after an apparent attempt to eject from his burning plane.
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/ 11 November 2003
More than 60 witnesses are expected to be called by the prosecution in the corruption trial of politicians Peter Marais and David Malatsi, which gets under way next week. ”Everybody is very positive about the fact that they would like the matter to proceed and be brought to finality as soon as possible,” Scorpions prosecutor Bruce Morrison said.
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/ 10 November 2003
Johannesburg socialite Hazel Crane, shot dead on Monday while on her way to court to give testimony against an alleged South Africa-Israeli mafia member, apparently said only last week she feared for her life. This was at the jurisdiction hearing of a diamond dealer accused of battering to death her estranged husband.
Jo’burg socialite killed
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/ 10 November 2003
Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s lemon, garlic and olive-oil diet for people with HIV/Aids has been given a firm thumbs-down by the South African Medical Journal. The editorial of the latest issue of the journal says there is currently no convincing evidence that these foods alter the course of the disease.
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/ 10 November 2003
Tampering with South Africa’s public holidays would amount to a betrayal of those who died for freedom, the Congress of South African Trade Unions said on Monday. Home Affairs Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi last week indicated the country might soon have multi-purpose public holidays.
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/ 10 November 2003
Media group Johnnic Communications on Monday rejected what it called unsubstantiated allegations by sacked Sunday Times editor Mathatha Tsedu of ulterior motives as the reason for his dismissal, saying the decision to dismiss him related purely to his performance.
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/ 30 October 2003
Foreign Affairs official and former death row inmate Robert McBride has been appointed chief of the East Rand municipality’s Metro Police. The announcement was immediately decried by the Democratic Alliance, which said in a statement that it was reacting with ”shock and disgust” to the appointment.
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/ 30 October 2003
The former National Party government was a ”magnificent master or teacher” of the present African National Congress government regarding corruption, according to Federal Alliance leader, rugby supremo and businessman Louis Luyt. He has also voiced his support for the reintroduction of the death penalty.
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/ 30 October 2003
Tourism operator Thomas Cook is set to bring the first of 26 000 Germans over the next two years to South Africa on Friday. It has organised charter flights from Germany as a result of a ground-breaking agreement signed between the tour operator, South African Tourism, Tourism KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape Tourism Board.
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/ 30 October 2003
Rightwingers planning a coup d’état were in 2001 provided with maps, aerial photographs and weapons and ammunition stock lists of the Lohatlha defence force base in the Northern Cape, police informer Johannes Coenraad Smit told the Pretoria High Court on Thursday.
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/ 29 October 2003
Several officials employed by the Eastern Cape provincial administration were arrested at their offices on Wednesday in connection with fraud and corruption charges. Numerous documents were also taken as evidence in fraud and corruption investigations involving R4,4-million.
R1-million govt fraud bust in KZN
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/ 29 October 2003
In a candid account in his new book <i>Nothing But the Truth</i>, a leading member of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress, Professor Ben Turok, has provided a new account of the battle within the party to accept the current economic policy, called Growth, Employment and Redistribution (Gear).
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/ 29 October 2003
The Afrikaner-based Freedom Front Plus (FF+), which has three members of the South African National Assembly, has handed a memorandum to the office of President Thabo Mbeki protesting at plans to provide continue racial quotas for state learnership programmes that fall under the Department of Labour.
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/ 29 October 2003
The crocodile playing Loch Ness monster in the Hennops River, west of Pretoria, might have been kidnapped, or else it was an escapee, an expert said on Wednesday. He believes Charlie, as the croc has been named, escaped from a crocodile farm or was removed from his natural environment as a baby crocodile.
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/ 29 October 2003
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and Tony Yengeni are two surprise omissions from the Gauteng African National Congress’s provincial and national election list. ”We don’t know ourselves why they are not there,” ANC provincial secretary David Makhura said in reply to several questions on Madikizela-Mandela and Yengeni.
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/ 29 October 2003
Some South African National Defence Force bases and their troops were identified in 2001 to help carry out a plan to overthrow the state, the Pretoria High Court heard in the Boeremag treason trial on Wednesday. Meetings to this end had taken place with the commanding officers of several commandos and generals.
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/ 29 October 2003
Twenty-six government officials, including two heads of districts from the KwaZulu-Natal agriculture department, have been arrested for fraud totalling R1,1-million, police said on Wednesday. The affected areas are Vryheid, Nongoma, Babanango, Empangeni and Eshowe.
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/ 29 October 2003
Former judge Joos Hefer has decided to subpoena the country’s intelligence agencies for information, his commission announced on Wednesday. Commission secretary Advocate John Bacon said the heads of the various agencies will be summonsed to testify before the commission.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=22773">’Misleading’ Ngwema in trouble with NIA</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=22774">Spy masters’ ‘flawed’ argument</a>
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/ 28 October 2003
Workers at airports run by the Airports Company of South Africa on Tuesday asked their aviation industry colleagues to join them in an attempt to get Acsa to agree to a higher pay rise. The union has asked colleagues from South African Airways and three other firms to support them.
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/ 28 October 2003
South Africa’s conventional arms exports nearly doubled between 2000 and 2002, according to a government paper referred to the parliamentary defence portfolio committee and joint standing committee on defence. A notable change in the listing is that South Africa sold no arms to Zimbabwe in the past two years.
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/ 28 October 2003
South Africa’s official opposition Democratic Alliance says it has taken a lot of time and effort for the CPIX to reach a figure of 5,4% notched up for September. A DA spokesperson said "it is the first time that the CPIX falls within the Reserve Bank’s inflation target band [of between 3% and 6%]".
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/ 27 October 2003
National Development Agency (NDA) CEO Delani Mthembu has been suspended from his position pending an investigation into allegations of mismanagement and corruption, Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya announced on Monday. The suspension followed a preliminary forensic audit of the NDA.