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/ 17 February 2008
It was described as the show that couldn’t close, but on Sunday the curtain will finally come down on the <i>Lion King</i>, by far and away South Africa’s most popular stage production. This internationally acclaimed musical entered the South African theatre scene in June last year, and its stay has been extended three times.
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/ 17 February 2008
A draft loyalty pledge has plunged South Africa into a new identity crisis as it mulls its common values 14 years after discarding apartheid to forge a united society under a single flag. As the motley rainbow nation quibbles over a government proposal to introduce a pledge of allegiance in schools, some ideological battle lines are being redrawn.
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/ 17 February 2008
Infighting and mistrust are tearing the 2010 Local Organising Committee (LOC) apart, a media report said on Sunday. Key players in the LOC — tasked with organising Africa’s first Fifa Soccer World Cup — were barely talking to each other, while chief executive Danny Jordaan has been labelled a ”control freak”.
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/ 16 February 2008
Replacement flyhalf Earl Rose landed two late kicks to earn the Lions a 23-22 win at the Cheetahs in the Super 14 on Saturday. The Lions were outscored by three tries to two in a tense South African derby where the lead changed hands five times. The Cheetahs were on target in the second minute when right wing Eddie Fredericks ended a sweeping move by diving over in the corner.
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/ 16 February 2008
World player of the year Bryan Habana scored the only try of the match as the Bulls began the defence of their Super 14 title with a hard-fought 16-9 victory over the Stormers on Saturday. Habana scored his 25th try in 40 matches in the competition when he dived over on the left hand side four minutes before halftime.
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/ 16 February 2008
Ajax came from behind to beat 10-man Black Leopards in scorching heat at the Thoyandou Stadium in their Absa Premiership encounter on Saturday afternoon. The home team led 1-0 at the break. Both played their hearts out from start to finish, but Greg Rosslee’s Cape Town team looked hungrier than Bobby Solomon’s players.
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/ 16 February 2008
In what might be described as circus soccer, with the goalkeepers in the role of trapeze artists taking a couple of tumbles, Golden Arrows and Free State Stars drew 2-2 in a Premier League game that contained some impressive skills and many laughable errors.
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/ 16 February 2008
Johannesburg motorists had been using roads as a ”speeding track” since traffic law enforcement authorities in parts of Gauteng were barred from using speed cameras on some of the busiest roads in the city. The cameras were switched off until further notice, after traffic authorities failed to submit applications requesting permission from the National Prosecuting Authority.
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/ 16 February 2008
A 106m statue of King Shaka Zulu ka Senzangakhona will be built on the banks of the Thukela River north of Durban, media reports said on Saturday. The statue would cost about R200-million to build and was expected to be 13m higher than the Statue of Liberty in New York. A feasibility study estimated that the statue would attract 4 000 visitors a day.
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/ 16 February 2008
Cricket South Africa (CSA) President Norman Arendse and chief executive Gerald Majola officially buried the hatchet on Friday, after a week of turmoil in South African cricket. The two men issued a joint statement in which, among other things, they apologised to the people of South Africa for the row.
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/ 16 February 2008
Acting National Prosecution Authority boss Moketedi Mpshe has defended President Thabo Mbeki against suggestions that he lied about not being informed about the probe on police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported on Friday.
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/ 16 February 2008
The Magistrate’s Commission should institute an investigation into the conduct of a magistrate who handled the case against immigrants arrested during a raid at the Central Methodist Church in the inner city, the Johannesburg High Court ruled on Friday.
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/ 15 February 2008
Stefan Terblanche scored the try that sealed the Sharks’ 17-10 win over the Western Force in their Super 14 match in Durban on Friday. Fullback Terblanche, who was not in the 22 named for the match, was called into the team when French flyhalf Frederic Michalak withdrew with a calf injury.
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/ 15 February 2008
Award-winning South African actress Ashley Callie (32) died on Friday. ”It is with sincere regret that the Callie Family confirms that earlier today Ashley passed away as a result of the head injuries she sustained in a car accident,” her family said in a statement. ”Ashley continues to live on in our hearts and minds.”
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/ 15 February 2008
Author Jonny Steinberg’s <i>Three-Letter Plague</i> has attracted serious critical and retail attention in the US, writes Charlotte Bauer.
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/ 15 February 2008
Vosloorus’s monthly gig is gaining momentum, writes Kwanele Sosibo.
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/ 15 February 2008
Artist Michael MacGarry’s new exhibition subverts stereotypes of the "darkest" continent, writes Niren Tolsi.
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/ 15 February 2008
Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille, the mayor of Cape Town, is once again going to challenge the authorities by marching against gangsterism and drugs in a community where the drug lords are thriving. She announced that on Sunday she would conduct a march through the streets of Macassar in the east of the city, near Somerset West.
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/ 15 February 2008
Helen Zille, the leader of the Democratic Alliance, on Friday challenged African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma to pledge his own allegiance to the Constitution, and to declare that loyalty to the Constitution is more important than loyalty to the ANC.
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/ 15 February 2008
South Africans ought to be angry at the violent and senseless loss of precious lives affecting the country, Father Owen Franklin told mourners at the funeral of slain schoolgirl Emily Williams on Friday. The 12-year-old was killed by a bullet fired in a stand-off between robbers and security guards at a house in Fairlands, Johannesburg, on Tuesday morning.
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/ 15 February 2008
With only weeks to go before the Zimbabwean elections, there has been no let-up in the slanted coverage of the campaign by the country’s public broadcaster, according to the independent Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe. It said that it noted with concern that the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation showed no sign of observing Zimbabwean law.
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/ 15 February 2008
South Africa’s left is riding high as the government prepares to unveil a budget that is expected to raise spending on social programmes and shift policy more towards fighting unemployment and poverty. Powerful trade unions and the South African Communist Party have recently seen their influence within the ruling African National Congress rise.
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/ 15 February 2008
The Ginwala Commission of Inquiry on Friday received a submission from suspended National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli. The submission was delivered to Ginwala’s offices before midday. It was Pikoli’s response to a government submission received by the commission in January.
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/ 15 February 2008
Eskom on Friday put out requests for proposals for cogeneration projects as part of its plan to bolster faltering electricity supplies. Eskom spokesperson Andrew Etzinger explained that ”cogeneration” is when industrialists sell waste by-products that can be used to generate electricity.
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/ 15 February 2008
The Jeppestown massacre trial was postponed in the Johannesburg High Court on Friday to allow a defence attorney to recover. The court had to adjourn on Thursday morning after defence counsel Sibusiso Mbatha complained of pain. He had fallen down the stairs at his house on Wednesday night.
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/ 15 February 2008
The world’s fifth largest gold miner, Harmony Gold, said on Friday that its production for the March 2008 quarter would decrease. ”In the light of Eskom’s electricity-supply disruptions and with mines operating only at 90% of Harmony’s previous power supply, the company’s production for the March 2008 quarter will decrease,” it said in a statement.
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/ 15 February 2008
Sport Minister Makhenkesi Stofile’s attack against former Springbok rugby players is an attempt to distract attention from the government’s ”transgression of international sports regulations”, AfriForum said on Friday. Stofile on Thursday sharply criticised AfriForum after a group of former Springbok rugby players called for an end to ”racial discrimination in rugby”.
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/ 15 February 2008
Pointing out that Thursday February 21 is International Mother Language Day, the president of the African National Congress, Jacob Zuma, has called for the new schools’ pledge drawn up by the Department of Education to be recited in the different languages of the country — depending on the region.
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/ 14 February 2008
Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille is to request a meeting with African National Congress president Jacob Zuma to discuss the future of the Scorpions, she said on Thursday. ”I intend to put this challenge to him. I will write to Mr Zuma and request an urgent meeting to state unambiguously the disastrous consequences that disbanding the Scorpions will have for South Africa.”
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/ 14 February 2008
The release of figures showing that 830 KwaZulu-Natal law enforcement officers were under investigation would be probed, the Independent Complaints Directorate boss announced on Thursday. Patrick Mongwe said that statistics could not be released with out having been ”audited and verified”.
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/ 14 February 2008
Sport and Recreation Minister Makhenkesi Stofile on Thursday slammed the ”re-emergence of the erstwhile ambassadors of apartheid” in South African rugby. Stofile was responding to a public campaign calling for an end to political interference in the sport.
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/ 14 February 2008
The winners of the Premier Soccer League (PSL) will get a colossal R10-million first prize. This was announced by league sponsor Absa at the Carlton Centre on Thursday. Just more than R29-million will be shared by the 16 PSL clubs at the end of the season.