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/ 12 December 2007
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Tycoon Tokyo Sexwale has thrown his weight behind African National Congress deputy president Jacob Zuma as both men cemented support in the most powerful voting bloc to go to the party’s crucial Polokwane national conference. The two men adressed about 1Â 500 supporters in the small town of Ngcobo in the Eastern Cape on Tuesday.
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/ 11 December 2007
A settlement has been reached between the South African Revenue Service (Sars) and Nampak, Africa’s largest packaging manufacturer. In a joint statement by Sars and Nampak on Tuesday, the parties said they had agreed to settlement terms to resolve a matter relating to outstanding taxes, which were in dispute for the last two years.
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/ 11 December 2007
Cape Town firefighters have brought under control a fire that broke out in an industrial building in Salt River early on Tuesday. Johan Minnie of the city’s disaster management said the fire, which started in the building before spreading to a nearby train station, had finally been contained by late afternoon.
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/ 11 December 2007
Thousands of members of the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) in Buffalo City in the Eastern Cape are expected to strike this week, the union said on Tuesday. Samwu provincial secretary Sphiwo Ndunyana said at least 3 000 municipal workers were expected to down tools on Thursday to hand over a memorandum detailing their concerns.
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/ 11 December 2007
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The African National Congress (ANC) on Tuesday laid down some house rules aimed at preventing factionalism ahead of its national conference, at which its new leadership structure is to be elected. The warning comes after heated debate over whether President Thabo Mbeki should continue for another term, or whether party deputy Jacob Zuma should succeed him.
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/ 11 December 2007
A crack police team killed 11 would-be robbers and wounded one when it thwarted a cash-in-transit heist on the R101 near the Carousel casino in Limpopo on Tuesday. National police spokesperson Director Phuti Setati said members of the task force had received a tip-off that the men were going to rob a Coin security van at about 11.40am.
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/ 11 December 2007
The assertion by the Department of Agriculture and Land Affairs that all is well at the Land Bank and there has been significant progress in the past three months ”does not fly”, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Tuesday. It is common knowledge that ”the situation at the Land Bank has been all but rosy,” DA spokesperson Kraai van Niekerk said.
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/ 11 December 2007
”Sexist” remarks made by Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi about women’s equity were misunderstood, the trade-union federation said on Tuesday. ”It was for some reason interpreted as an attack on women and this we totally reject,” said Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven.
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/ 11 December 2007
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The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) has chosen not to take sides in the battle for the African National Congress (ANC) leadership between the President Thabo Mbeki or party deputy president Jacob Zuma. ”We will seek to work with whoever is democratically elected,” said TAC secretary Mark Heywood on Tuesday.
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/ 11 December 2007
Two private detectives claim they know who killed Stellenbosch student Inge Lotz, the Cape Argus reported on Tuesday. The two had laid charges of intimidation and obstruction of justice against two police officers who they claim knew the details and did nothing about it.
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/ 11 December 2007
The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) says it is quite unacceptable that Eskom does not give adequate warning to the public about its load shedding. "It is a crying shame that Eskom can paralyse the economic powerhouse of Africa — Gauteng province — every time it needs to do maintenance to power-generating equipment," the DA said on Tuesday.
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/ 11 December 2007
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The majority of South Africans prefer to have African National Congress (ANC) deputy president Jacob Zuma as their next national president, a recent TNS survey has found. Conducted on 3Â 000 adults between September and October, the survey saw Zuma emerge as frontrunner to succeed Thabo Mbeki when he steps down in 2009.
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/ 11 December 2007
The South African Airways (SAA) Open, formerly the South African Open, which tees off at the Pearl Valley Golf Estates in Paarl on Thursday, has attracted the strongest field in the history of the championship. The Open will include Ernie Els, Trevor Immelman, Retief Goosen, Tim Clark, US Open champion Angel Cabrera, veteran Greg Norman and Darren Clarke.
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/ 11 December 2007
South African maize futures continued their rebound from a two-week slump as the market reversed a heavy selling trend, traders said on Tuesday. Prices have fallen since the Crop Estimates Committee unexpectedly hiked South Africa’s maize crop forecast for the 2006/07 season two weeks ago.
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/ 11 December 2007
Candles and cold dinners will be the order of the day again on Tuesday as Eskom warned of further load shedding countrywide. ”Unfortunately there is load shedding today [Tuesday] again,” said spokesperson Andrew Etzinger, waiting for the power cut in his office in Sunninghill to roll over to another area while working on his laptop.
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/ 11 December 2007
The man caught up in the national hoax email saga, Muziwendoda Kunene, briefly appeared in the Bethlehem Magistrate’s Court in the Free State on Tuesday. A court official said Kunene’s case was postponed and transferred to the Kestell Magistrate’s Court, where he was expected to appear on Wednesday.
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/ 11 December 2007
South Africa’s current account plunged further into deficit in the third quarter of 2007 as both oil-import costs and payments to foreign investors surged, but household spending eased due to higher interest rates. The central bank said in its latest quarterly bulletin the shortfall on the current account swelled to a record R162,6-billion, or 8,1% of gross domestic product.
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/ 11 December 2007
The West Indies do not have a good record in South Africa, but captain Chris Gayle believes they should be able to turn things around on their coming tour of this country. Speaking just after the team’s arrival from Zimbabwe on Monday, Gayle said he thought there was an excellent spirit within the West Indies team.
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/ 11 December 2007
Zwelinzima Vavi was ”a bit reckless” in the comments he made about women’s equity, said African National Congress (ANC) secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe on Tuesday. ”History will judge him. I would expect a leader of his stature to be more circumspect,” Motlanthe said on Talk Radio 702.
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/ 11 December 2007
Prison officials denied whistle-blowing Pollsmoor doctor, Paul Theron, entry to the prison hospital when he reported for duty on Tuesday, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported. The Department of Health had suspended him after Theron had complained about poor conditions at the prison hospital.
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/ 11 December 2007
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The African National Congress (ANC) said on Monday it had suspended an activist for launching a legal battle to postpone the party’s leadership conference. Votani Majola has asked the country’s Supreme Court of Appeal to grant his request to have the ANC’s December 16 to 20 congress delayed for six months.
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/ 10 December 2007
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Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka has dismissed media reports that she summoned African National Congress (ANC) Women’s League delegates from Mpumalanga to her Pretoria office to chide them for nominating Jacob Zuma as party president.
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/ 10 December 2007
More than 250 people have been killed on South African roads since the beginning of the festive season, the Department of Transport said on Monday. Spokesperson Ntau Letebele said 275 people were killed in 230 crashes — 65 drivers, 84 passengers and 126 pedestrians.
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/ 10 December 2007
The boy was thrown into the fire and left to die by Janjaweed fighters in Sudan’s bedevilled Darfur province. But 12-year-old Rachid Dahiye Zakaria survived. Then, badly disfigured, he walked for days to a refugee camp across the border in Chad with his sole remaining relatives — a grandmother and a sister.
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/ 10 December 2007
Archbishop Desmond Tutu accused the United States and Britain on Monday of pursuing policies like those of South Africa’s apartheid-era government by detaining terrorism suspects without trial. He said the detention of suspected al-Qaeda members at the US naval base in Guantánamo Bay was a ”huge blot on a democracy”.
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/ 10 December 2007
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History is littered with the legacy of tyrants and leaders who abused the rights of citizens to hold on to power, African National Congress (ANC) deputy president Jacob Zuma said on Monday. He was delivering the keynote address on International Human Rights Day at Wits University in Braamfontein. Zuma said some leaders still did not understand the needs of the people or their rights.
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/ 10 December 2007
Denel Munitions has secured a R200-million order from the United Kingdom for 40mm target-practice grenades, the arms manufacturer said on Monday. ”Coming at the close of the calendar year, this order is most welcome for our Western Cape facility,” said chief executive Monwabisi Kalawe.
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/ 10 December 2007
Just beyond Johannesburg’s affluent suburbs, with their manicured lawns and swimming pools, the shack dwellers of Diepsloot live amid stinking garbage, raw sewage and rats. Disillusioned with politics, many squatters have little faith that their once-champion, the ruling African National Congress (ANC), will find them better homes and opportunities.
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/ 10 December 2007
The Wynberg Regional Court in Cape Town on Monday recommended that Najwa Petersen, accused of the murder of her famous husband Taliep, be moved from the Breederivier Prison at Worcester to one nearer her home. The court dismissed her second application on the grounds that she had misled the court in the first application.
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/ 10 December 2007
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The African National Congress (ANC) has welcomed reports suggesting that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela is trying to iron out differences between President Thabo Mbeki and the party’s deputy, Jacob Zuma, SAfm reported on Monday. Madikizela-Mandela plans to invite the two men to meet her before the Limpopo conference.
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/ 10 December 2007
The bail application of Muziwendoda Kunene, the man caught up in the African National Congress hoax email saga, was abandoned in the Atteridgeville Magistrate’s Court on Monday. Magistrate Allan Cowan postponed the case attempted murder against Kunene to January 15.
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/ 10 December 2007
Virtually every sector in South Africa that relies on skilled labour is facing a skills shortage, the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) said on Monday. ”There is clearly a skills crisis,” said SAIRR’s Marius Roodt, who released a report last week that indicated the country was facing a ”dire” skills crisis.