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/ 1 February 2007
South Africa is in danger of becoming an African country where its citizens cannot speak, read or write African languages, Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said on Thursday. Speaking at the official opening of the University of South Africa’s academic year, Mlambo-Ngcuka pleaded that students should be able to study in African languages.
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/ 1 February 2007
Standard Bank forecasts a slow down in house prices while maintaining its long-held view that aggregated house prices are unlikely to fall. In a statement released on Thursday, the bank attributed the predicted slowdown to waning investor appetite for buy-to-let residential properties, combined with constrained demand and finances from owner-occupants.
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/ 1 February 2007
Gauteng’s provincial community safety minister Firoz Cachalia will on Friday provide feedback on the crime-prevention operation he launched six months ago, his spokesperson said. ”The briefing will take place at Prime Media offices in Sandton tomorrow [Friday],” said Phumla Sekhonyane.
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/ 1 February 2007
Zimbabweans should continue to be resilient in the face of harsh economic realities and earn an honest living to avoid contracting HIV/Aids. Mutoko North member of the House of Assembly David Chapfika urged youths in the area to initiate various projects and desist from relying on prostitution.
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/ 1 February 2007
The government’s reckless implementation of the affirmative-action policy is forcing many white people to leave the country, creating a skills shortage crisis, Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi said on Thursday. Writing in his weekly letter, Buthelezi said white people need to be offered incentives in order for them to stay in the country.
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/ 1 February 2007
The strike at the Modikwa Platinum mine in Limpopo will continue on Thursday, the National Union of Mineworkers said. Chief negotiator Humbulani Tshikalange said a draft agreement was presented to the union on Wednesday to be studied. The agreement deals with the issues agreed upon during negotiations on Monday in the dispute that began over allegations of racism.
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/ 1 February 2007
Twenty people died and five were injured in a head on collision on the road between Standerton and Embalenhle, Mpumalanga police said on Thursday. Superintendent Abie Khoabane said a Ford Laser overtook a municipal water-tank truck and collided head on with a Quantam minibus taxi on Wednesday evening.
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/ 1 February 2007
Three goals in the opening 12 minutes gave indication of an imminent goal deluge in the Premier Soccer League derby between old Soweto foes Moroka Swallows and Orlando Pirates at the Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace in Rustenburg on Wednesday night.
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/ 1 February 2007
The Buffalo City council has approved a R6,7-million plan to prevent East London’s central business district from being plunged into darkness for up to two weeks. Faced with increasing public ”jitters” over the perilous state of East London’s electricity supplies, the council also voted to commission an electricity ”master plan”.
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/ 1 February 2007
Adelaide Frances Tambo will be remembered as one of South Africa’s key heroines of the liberation struggle. The nursing sister from Vereeniging, who married African National Congress president Oliver Tambo in 1956, died on January 31 2006 aged 77 and will be best remembered as a beacon of hope to many exiled activists during the liberation struggle.
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/ 1 February 2007
The pensioner stepfather of a 44-year-old Witbank businesswoman has agreed to pay her R300 000 following claims by the woman that he raped and sexually abused her over a period of 13 years. The woman initially claimed R1,8-million in damages from the elderly man in the Pretoria High Court.
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/ 1 February 2007
Adelaide Frances Tambo (77), widow of former African National Congress president Oliver Tambo, died on Wednesday night, the party confirmed. ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama said Ma Tambo, as she was affectionately known, collapsed at her home in Johannesburg. Early media reports said that Tambo died as a result of a heart condition.
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/ 31 January 2007
In a Premier Soccer League match between two relegation-threatened teams, Black Leopards beat Maritzburg United 1-0 at Thohoyandou Stadium on Wednesday afternoon. The home team, Leopards, led 1-0 at half-time. Only a few soccer lovers watched the game in which the first half belonged to Leopards and the second to Maritzburg United.
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/ 31 January 2007
Four miners died in two rockfalls at the Harmony mine in Randfontein in the past week, the National Union of Mineworkers said on Wednesday. The company could only confirm two deaths — last Thursday when three workers attending to a railway line were struck by a ground fall.
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/ 31 January 2007
Cape Town mayor Helen Zille has been voted Newsmaker of the Year for 2006 by the National Press Club, Pretoria. Zille had regularly made the headlines, press club chairperson Patrick Hlahla said on Wednesday. ”Following the municipal elections in March, she eventually became mayor after deals with smaller political parties,” he said.
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/ 31 January 2007
A R50-million biomass fuel-pellet project has been launched at the Coega Industrial Development Zone near Port Elizabeth, South African Broadcasting Corporation news reported on Wednesday. The plant is expected to create thousands of jobs when it starts production in July.
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/ 31 January 2007
The stand-off between two commercial farmer unions and minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Lulu Xingwana continues, the three parties said on Wednesday. Tensions between the unions, AgriSA and the Transvaal Agricultural Union, and the minister have been brewing since last year.
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/ 31 January 2007
Zimbabwean university student Tinashe Rioga, who allegedly tried to hijack a South African Airways (SAA) flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg last year, was on Wednesday declared unfit to stand trial in terms of the Mental Disorders Act. The order was made by magistrate Johan Vermaak when Rioga appeared in the Bellville Regional Court.
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/ 31 January 2007
Teazers former co-owner Michael Jackson received psychiatric therapy after a street child was allegedly murdered outside the nightclub’s Cape Town premises, the Cape High Court heard on Wednesday. Jackson (45) is accused of murdering Xolani Zodwana, who was shot dead between 5am and 6am on a Saturday in May 2004.
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/ 31 January 2007
Business against Crime project manager Alan McKenzie was shot at the home of a family member in Table View, Cape Town police said on Wednesday. Captain Randall Stoffels said McKenzie (56) was shot four times by five armed men who entered the house after 10pm on Tuesday. McKenzie attempted to overpower one of the men, while a second man held others in the house at gunpoint.
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/ 31 January 2007
South Africa has been informed that more South Africans are to be listed on the United Nations Security Council list of terror suspects, Foreign Affairs Deputy Minister Aziz Pahad said on Wednesday. Pahad did not say which UN member country was planning the listing, when it would be done or how many South Africans would be listed.
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/ 31 January 2007
South Africa’s trade balance swung into surplus in December from a R10,5-billion deficit the previous month, official data showed on Wednesday. The surplus was far better than a Reuters survey forecast of a R2-billion deficit in December, although the data is volatile and unpredictable and December is traditionally a low import month.
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/ 31 January 2007
Youths participating in budget discussions have influenced state decisions in Brazil and free uniforms have upped school attendance in Kenya, reducing teenage child bearing, according to a World Bank report. The future could look brighter for the world’s youth with the implementation of such interventions, which are highlighted in the World Bank’s first report of the year.
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/ 31 January 2007
Supporters of African National Congress deputy president Jacob Zuma have hit back at the South African Communist Party’s Jeremy Cronin for saying they are unprincipled and inconsistent. ”Cronin is one of the people who have consciously continued to lie about Zuma and his supporters since the [Zuma’s] rape trial,” the Friends of Jacob Zuma Trust said on Wednesday.
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/ 31 January 2007
Syria is hoping that South Africa can help it with key problems in the Middle East, its Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Faisal Mikdad, said on Wednesday. Mikdad has been sent to South Africa as a special envoy of Syrian President Bashar al-Asad to deliver a letter to President Thabo Mbeki highlighting problems in the Middle East.
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/ 31 January 2007
Crime affects more than eight out of ten businesses in South Africa, a survey has found. Eighty-four percent of medium-to-large privately held businesses in South Africa report that they, their staff or families of staff have been affected by personal contact crime over the past 12 months, according to Grant Thornton’s 2007 International Business Report.
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/ 31 January 2007
Two men have been arrested in connection with the murder of historian David Rattray. While police have not officially confirmed the arrests, sources said that the arrests had taken place and more were expected shortly. Rattray was murdered last Friday at his at his Fugitive’s Drift Lodge home.
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/ 31 January 2007
Making former prisons chief Linda Mti 2010 World Cup security chief is ”inappropriate” and ”a national disgrace”, opposition parties said on Wednesday. ”How is it that the LOC [local organising committee] saw fit to appoint a man whose professional reputation is in tatters?” asked Democratic Alliance MP James Masango in a statement.
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/ 31 January 2007
The case of Annanias Mathe, the man who escaped from the top-security C-Max prison, was postponed to February 15 in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday. Mathe, who was still limping, had no legal representation as the court had not yet provided a Portuguese lawyer that he requested for translation.
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/ 31 January 2007
A desperate need to raise money for her children’s education drove Desiree Oberholzer to agree to a plan to kill Icelandic national Gisli Thorkelsson, she told the Johannesburg High Court on Wednesday. She said murder-accused Willie Theron told her of the plan after she told him that she was resorting to prostitution to raise money.
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/ 31 January 2007
The Gauteng Business Barometer (GBB) slipped by 6,2% in December to 145 index points from 154 index points in November. The index is also 4,8% lower than in December 2005, when it stood at 152 index points. The GBB is a unique provincial index that measures business activity in various economic sectors in Gauteng.
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/ 31 January 2007
Guests at The Saxon hotel, in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, can listen to music while under water in the pool. It’s one of the tiny details — along with the koi ponds surrounding the luxury suites, the selection of biltong served with every cocktail and the stone water feature crisply running through the spa — that makes this hotel one of the best on the continent.