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/ 9 February 2007
The court case involving former spy boss Billy Masetlha and two co-accused was postponed in the Pretoria commercial crimes court on Friday. Masetlha’s co-accused, Muziwendoda Kunene, a software salesperson, and Funokwakhe Madladla, the former National Intelligence Agency manager for electronic surveillance, have already been charged with fraud.
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/ 9 February 2007
The Department of Communications, cellphone companies and Telkom are finalising plans to address call termination rates this year, President Thabo Mbeki announced on Friday. This would be to the benefit of all consumers, he told Parliament in his State of the Nation address.
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/ 9 February 2007
A Markinor poll of 3Â 500 South Africans has found that nearly three out of every four South Africans are happy with President Thabo Mbeki’s performance and more than three out of five agreed that he could be trusted to do what was best for South Africa.
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/ 9 February 2007
A journalist working for South African free-to-air television station e.tv and at least one assistant were arrested in eastern Zimbabwe this week while trying to report on illegal dealings in the diamond-rich Marange district, the station told the Mail & Guardian Online on Friday.
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/ 9 February 2007
The government’s reaction to the heated national debate on crime is expected to be high on President Thabo Mbeki’s agenda during his State of the Nation address on Friday morning. The speech is expected to be upbeat, including a focus on ”the age of hope” and reference to the challenges posed by South Africa’s hosting of the 2010 World Cup.
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/ 9 February 2007
A fourth man has been arrested for the rape and murder of 14-year-old schoolgirl Thato Radebe, Soweto police said on Thursday. The 18-year-old was taken into custody in Zola, Soweto, said Captain Lindiwe Mbatha. Radebe’s body was found in a field in Soweto on Saturday morning. She had been raped, stabbed and stoned to death.
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/ 9 February 2007
Huisgenoot, You and Drum magazines will publish an open letter which was to form part of First National Bank’s (FNB) canned anti-crime campaign in its latest issue. FNB snatched headlines this week after it cancelled a multimillion-rand anti-crime advertising initiative.
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/ 9 February 2007
January is mango season in Hoedspruit, in the Limpopo province, and casual fruit pickers, mostly women, flood the area’s farms in search of work. Conditions on the farms already make them a potential breeding ground for HIV infection. Workers usually live in overcrowded compounds away from their families and isolated from HIV and Aids interventions.
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/ 8 February 2007
A Johannesburg bus driver accused of kicking eight pupils off his bus because they were white is being victimised, the parent of one of the children said on Thursday. ”My child told me that the children were lying. It’s not fair that this poor driver is getting victimised. They [the children] are lying, they demanded to get off the bus,” said Leena Bedworth.
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/ 8 February 2007
Police officers on Thursday shot rubber bullets at protesters burning African National Congress T-shirts bearing President Thabo Mbeki’s face during a march to the mayor’s office in Moutse district, a municipality of greater Groblersdal. More than 30 marchers were injured in the scuffle, and 46 protesters were arrested and charged for public violence.
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/ 8 February 2007
South African President Thabo Mbeki has been called on by the Inkatha Freedom Party’s (IFP) parliamentary caucus to demonstrate in his opening of Parliament speech on Friday ”that he has moved decisively away from a position of denial”. In a statement, the IFP said this denial was ”in respect of a number of serious issues confronting all South Africans”.
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/ 8 February 2007
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has rejected reports that all the country’s white farmers will lose their land, Harare’s Herald newspaper reported on Thursday. ”It’s only those white farmers, perhaps, whose farms have been taken. There are others whose farms have not been taken,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
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/ 8 February 2007
South African Airways (SAA) flights to the United States will operate via Ilha do Sal in Cape Verde due to a strike action at the Dakar airport in Senegal, SAA said on Thursday. Spokesperson Jacqui O’Sullivan said workers at the airport, who were not SAA employees, were on strike for various benefit payments.
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/ 8 February 2007
Judgement is to be delivered at noon on Friday in the Cape High Court trial of former LeisureNet chief executives Peter Gardener and Rod Mitchell. The two men face charges of fraud, money laundering and contraventions of the Income Tax Act and Companies Act. LeisureNet was liquidated in 2000 with liabilities of R1,2-billion and assets of only R302-million.
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/ 8 February 2007
The man accused of killing the mother-in-law of celebrity Soli Philander will be sentenced on Friday. Simon Matshwane (20) will hear his fate in the Parys Magistrate’s Court on Friday, said Philander’s wife, Toni, who will attend the sentencing with her family.
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/ 8 February 2007
Cholera is stalking the victims of heavy flooding in Southern Africa, which has claimed nearly 150 lives since the beginning of the year, reports said on Thursday. Nearly 4 000 cholera cases have been reported since January in Angola, where Oxfam reported at least 114 people dead in the wake of serious flooding.
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/ 8 February 2007
South Africa’s Reserve Bank has for some time raised the alarm about the inflationary risks posed by a boom in credit. But some analysts say increasing borrowing by businesses may bode well for the economy and may even help the country tackle its huge unemployment rate, provided the money is ploughed into much-needed investment in local industries.
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/ 8 February 2007
Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Lulu Xingwana has denied intending to accuse farmers of treating their workers inhumanely, AgriSA said on Thursday. ”In a joint meeting … she clearly stated that it was never her intention to accuse farmers of not treating workers properly,” said AgriSA president Lourie Bosman.
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/ 8 February 2007
South Africa has stopped the import of live poultry and poultry products from the United Kingdom after an outbreak of bird flu in that country. ”An outbreak of highly pathogenic notifiable avian influenza [bird flu], caused by the H5N1 subtype of the virus has killed 1 500 turkeys on a farm in Suffolk, United Kingdom.
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/ 8 February 2007
A defence lawyer for two of the eight men allegedly involved in an attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea hinted on Thursday that the South African government might have given its permission for the attempt. Defence lawyer Alwyn Griebenow was cross-examining state witness Johannes Smit in the Pretoria Regional Court.
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/ 8 February 2007
Anglo American has formed a new South African coal group, Anglo Inyosi Coal, worth R7-billion and 27% owned by black investors, the mining group said on Thursday. The deal is in line with the government’s black economic empowerment policy aimed at giving black South Africans, disadvantaged under apartheid, a bigger stake in Africa’s economic powerhouse.
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/ 8 February 2007
More than 50 schoolchildren were on Thursday evacuated to various hospitals suffering severe skin irritation, paramedics and health authorities said. Netcare 911 spokesperson Chris Botha said evacuation of the children from Alipore Primary School in Durban’s Merebank suburb followed a similar incident on Wednesday when 36 children from the school were taken to hospital.
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/ 8 February 2007
Chinese President Hu Jintao is in Africa bearing the usual gifts of money for soccer stadiums and interest-free loans, but is also acknowledging tensions. Unmentioned, as Beijing adds lustre to Africa’s renewed status as a strategic ally, is the possibility of a clash with the United States as the two vie for resources and influence on the continent.
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/ 8 February 2007
South Africa is not experiencing a heatwave, the South African Weather Service said on Thursday. ”It is close to a heatwave, but it [the temperature] will be cooling down rapidly tomorrow [Friday],” said spokesperson Garth Sampson. He said a heatwave is measured in the smallest province of the country, which is Gauteng.
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/ 8 February 2007
Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Tony Leon on Thursday suggested some leaders of big business in South Africa are as cowardly and mean spirited as their apartheid-era predecessors. This was in the light of the pressure brought to bear by Business Leadership South Africa on banking giant First National Bank (FNB) not to go ahead with a planned anti-crime campaign.
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/ 8 February 2007
Jacob Maroga, currently managing director of Eskom’s transmission division, has been appointed chief executive officer designate. A date for the handover will be announced later. Maroga will replace Thulani Gcabashe, who has served two terms as chief executive.
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/ 8 February 2007
Pakistan put in a superb performance on Wednesday night to beat South Africa by 141 runs in the second MTN one-day international at Kingsmead. South Africa, chasing a total of 352 for victory in front of a capacity crowd, were all out for 210 after 40 overs and one ball. Inzamam-ul-Haq won the toss and elected to bat first.
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/ 8 February 2007
The Democratic Alliance (DA) in the Western Cape has won by-elections in Hout Bay and Beaufort West, the party said on Thursday. In Wednesday’s vote it won 61,8% of the votes in Hout Bay, compared to the African National Congress’s 37%, said spokesperson Gareth van Onselen.
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/ 8 February 2007
The South African Aids Vaccine Initiative, which is supported by power parastatal Eskom and the South African government, announced on Thursday the start of the first large-scale test of a concept HIV vaccine — which will involve 3Â 000 participants in South Africa.
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/ 8 February 2007
The strike at the Modikwa platinum mine in Limpopo might come to an end on Thursday, the mine said. The union maintains that the ”continuous working week” arrangement at the mine contravenes the Basic Conditions of Employment Act and the Mines Act.
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/ 8 February 2007
The Presidency could not say on Thursday whether thousands of e-mails detailing South Africans’ experiences of crime had reached President Thabo Mbeki. ”I’ve not seen any of those letters. I’m not even sure whether they’ve arrived,” said spokesperson for the Presidency Mukoni Ratshitanga.
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/ 8 February 2007
A Metrobus driver accused of racially abusing a group of white schoolchildren has claimed his trip was made a ”living hell” by the taunting pupils. This was stated on Wednesday by Metrobus chief executive Bheki Shongwe, who sprang to the defence of a driver who is accused of forcing pupils off a bus in the middle of a busy main road.