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/ 1 September 2007
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South Africa’s rugby squad should forget about politics in sport and concentrate on their World Cup title tilt, President Thabo Mbeki said on Saturday. ”While you are away forget all of these controversies that we always raise as politicians, don’t worry about those ones, just play the rugby,” Mbeki was quoted as saying.
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/ 1 September 2007
Springbok flanker Hendro Scholtz was one of the heroes in the Cheetahs’ Currie Cup win of 80-33 over the Valke at Vodacom Park on Friday night. Scholtz produced some of the magic that made him South Africa’s first choice number-six flanker in 2003.
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/ 1 September 2007
After all the drama of the court cases that preceded it, the floor-crossing window got off to a low-key start on Saturday. The only excitement was provided by a senior African Christian Democratic Party politician in the Western Cape, Johan Kriel, who accompanied his move to the Democratic Alliance (DA) with a blistering attack on ACDP leader, Kenneth Meshoe.
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/ 1 September 2007
It was meant to be the feature game of the weekend Absa Currie Cup rugby fixtures but in fact the confrontation between the Sharks and the Golden Lions was almost a slow motion affair until a semi-power failure with 25 minutes to go sparked the Sharks into action for their first try in an important 21-3 victory.
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/ 1 September 2007
A number of local councillors and one member of a provincial legislature have crossed over to the Democratic Alliance (DA) since the floor-crossing window opened at midnight, DA federal chairperson James Selfe said on Saturday. ”There is a steady trickle of people to us, but it’s a trickle, not a flood, and that’s as we anticipated it,” he said.
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/ 1 September 2007
A movement similar to that of the anti-apartheid movement was needed to make a success of South Africa, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday night. Mbeki said it was time for the country’s leaders to come together to think of ways to address the common challenges in the country.
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/ 1 September 2007
The first politician to publicly announce he was crossing the floor did so on Saturday with a blistering attack on his former leader, president of the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) Kenneth Meshoe. ”He thinks he is president for life, anointed and appointed, and that the only one who can unappoint him is God,” said a disillusioned Johan Kriel.
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/ 1 September 2007
Bidvest Wits fought off the constantly attacking Kaizer Chiefs to record a second great, early-season victory in the space of a week in a Castle Premiership clash at the Olympia Stadium on Friday night. Noah Chivuta slotted home from the penalty spot in the 65th minute to give the Clever Boys another memorable victory and to send them to the top of the log.
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/ 1 September 2007
South African unions have wrested hefty wage increases from employers, wielding strikes as weapons at a time of high inflation and strong performance in the key mining sector and government surpluses. The strength of unions, traditionally allied with the left wing of the African National Congress (ANC), could become critical with a looming showdown over who will succeed President Thabo Mbeki as president of the ANC.
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Archbishop Desmond Tutu berated South Africa’s government on Friday over delays in introducing an HIV/Aids drug treatment plan and said its leaders’ unorthodox views had led to unnecessary deaths. Recalling fallen anti-apartheid heroes, the Nobel peace laureate said they would be shocked by the devastation caused by the pandemic, which he said was killing 900 people every day.
A Cape High Court judge on Friday reserved judgement in Najwa Petersen’s appeal against a magistrate’s refusal to grant her bail. Petersen, who was not in court, is appealing last month’s decision by Wynberg regional magistrate Robert Henney. She and three alleged hired hit men are charged with the murder of her husband, entertainer Taliep Petersen, in December last year.
The Independent Democrats (ID) were riding high on the eve of the floor-crossing window on Friday after Cape High Court judges rejected bids by four would-be deserters to hang on to their seats until midnight. Judge Dennis Davis turned down an application by former ID general secretary Avril Harding to have his summary expulsion from the party reversed.
The onus is now on Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang to ”cleanse” her name and counter allegations levelled against her by the Sunday Times, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa-SA) said on Friday. ”Misa-SA believes that it is within the minister’s moral obligation to publicly nullify the allegations and set the record straight,” it said.
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is a South African heroine and a true and devoted servant of the masses, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday. The recent sustained and merciless propaganda assault against her was frightening, and ”belongs to wild animals”, he said in his weekly online newsletter, ANC Today.
Parallel trials for Aids vaccines in South Africa look promising in their long road to conclusion, a press conference in Sandton heard on Friday. Indications are that vaccine trials tailored for global strains had an effect against the strain of the virus most prevalent in South Africa.
It is credible that Azanian People’s Organisation’s (Azapo) president Mosibudi Mangena is too busy to hand over his gun, despite leading a campaign against guns, said Azapo on Friday. ”As a president of the party … with such [a] busy schedule, not having had time to hand over his gun as yet is not [an] inconceivable and unreasonable excuse,” it said.
The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) said on Friday it was ”angered” by Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula saying the integration of metro police forces into the South African Police Service (SAPS) was inevitable. On Thursday, Nqakula told a media briefing at Parliament that no one could stop the incorporation of metro police into the SAPS.
Piet Bothma, the suspended chief executive of the Transport Education Training Authority, appeared in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court in connection with the Fidentia saga. It was Bothma’s second court appearance. He was recently arrested as a third suspect in the affair.
South Africa has denied it blamed Britain for Zimbabwe’s isolation in a report prepared for a regional summit earlier this month. The office of President Thabo Mbeki denied that the government produced a report on Zimbabwe critical of Britain before Mbeki briefed leaders of the Southern African Development Community on his mediation efforts in mid-August.
A Cape High Court judge on Friday criticised what he called ”unseemly political horse-trading” ahead of the floor-crossing window, and said it resembled transfer season in the English Premiership. Dennis Davis made the remarks before rejecting an application by the former general secretary of the Independent Democrats to overturn his expulsion from the party.
A magistrate had misdirected himself in finding that the ”exceptional circumstances” needed for Najwa Petersen to get bail did not exist, the Cape High Court was told on Friday. Petersen, who was not in court, is appealing against last month’s decision by Wynberg regional magistrate Robert Henney to refuse her bail.
Small business owners have until 1pm on Saturday to submit their 2006 tax return and financial statements in support of their applications for the small business tax amnesty. ”The South African Revenue Service [Sars] is encouraged by the number of queries and visits to our offices in the past week,” it said on Friday.
President Thabo Mbeki should accept that Afrikaans place names are also African, civil rights initiative AfriForum said on Friday. Speaking in Parliament on Thursday, Mbeki had implied that Afrikaners and Afrikaans-speaking people were not Africans, but Europeans, according to AfriForum chief executive Kallie Kriel.
The South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) is auditing its condom department after a manager at the bureau was accused of certifying defective condoms in exchange for cash. ”On the basis of the allegations, we did an immediate check and we are covering the other companies,” the bureau’s general manager for food and health, Mike McNerney, said on Friday.
A major IT company employed the Gauteng finance minister’s daughter as it awaited the outcome of two tenders from an agency answerable to him.
The African National Congress MPs who had pleaded guilty to Travelgate crimes should be dismissed, not demoted, says Democratic Alliance (DA) parliamentary leader Sandra Botha. ”They should not be allowed to remain in those positions of responsibility and trust at all,” she said on Friday.
The Nelson Mandela Bay metropolitan area is grappling with an increasing number of tuberculosis (TB) cases, with about 250 new patients being admitted to the Livingstone and Dora Nginza hospitals each month. In addition to this, over 200 new multidrug-resistant TB patients are transported from throughout the province to the Jose Pearson Hospital in Bethelsdorp each month.
The retail price of all grades of petrol will fall by 10 cents per litre from Wednesday September 1, the Department of Minerals and Energy announced on Friday. This follows a 15 cents fall on August 1 and an eight cents decrease on July 4.
With a script as strange and uncanny as that penned by a fiction writer, Orlando Pirates secured a frenzied 2-1 extra-time victory over SuperSport United in the SAA Supa8 semifinal at Durban’s King’s Park Stadium on Thursday night, with much-maligned coach Bibey Mutombo emerging the unlikely hero.
A villager from Songeni near Thulamahashe in Mpumalanga is recovering in hospital after he was kicked and dragged by a cow he was tied to, losing most of his teeth in the process. A media report said on Friday that the man had been accused by his employer of spreading a rumour about him.
"This year’s fashion week will be different," says Luke Radlott, an assistant designer for Black Coffee, talking about the 11th annual Sanlam South African Fashion Week that started on Wednesday. The yearly fashion spectacular runs until Saturday at Johannesburg’s Sandton Convention Centre.
Sunday Times editor Mondli Makhanya hailed the Johannesburg High Court ruling in the newspaper’s case against Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang as ”an important victory for press freedom”. He said the newspaper had already voluntarily handed over a copy of Tshabalala-Msimang’s medical files pertaining to her 2005 stay in Cape Town Medi-Clinic to the hospital.