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/ 16 November 2006
Former South African Airways (SAA) CEO Andre Viljoen expressed ”amazement” on Thursday at a report that said he had benefited unfairly from the sale of company shares to its executive directors. ”I am amazed because the investigation must have been seriously flawed to come to such a conclusion.”
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/ 16 November 2006
The Public Finance Management Act has proved toothless in holding the executive to account for government departments and entities who fail to submit annual reports on time, the Democratic Alliance said. The DA said on Thursday that while the legislation had made tremendous contributions in modernising the way government managed public finances, it was now due for an overhaul.
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/ 16 November 2006
Private security companies have to do more to ensure the safety of their employees, particularly during cash-in-transit heists, government ministers said on Thursday. Replying to questions during a media briefing at Parliament, Deputy Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba said the police should not be the only ones to respond to increased crime over the festive season.
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/ 16 November 2006
The arrest of businessman Glen Agliotti clearly shows police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi ”in a good light”, Deputy Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Johnny de Lange said on Thursday. Selebi, who has tried to downplay his friendship with Agliotti after initially saying that Agliotti was ”my friend, finish and klaar”.
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/ 16 November 2006
Several players will be hoping to impress the selectors when the Rest of South Africa take on India at Willowmoore Park in Benoni on Thursday. Among those hoping to force their way into the national team are batsmen Hashim Amla and Neil McKenzie, fast bowler Dale Steyn and all-rounder Johan van der Wath.
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/ 16 November 2006
The Eastern Cape health department says it is not correct that extreme-drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) patients at a Port Elizabeth hospital are being kept in the same wards as other TB patients. This follows a protest on Wednesday by about 40 patients at the Jose Pearson TB hospital with the less virulent multi-drug resistant strain of the disease.
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/ 16 November 2006
The Scorpions on Wednesday night arrested a prominent businessman in connection with the murder of mining magnate Brett Kebble in September last year, the elite unit said on Thursday. Talk Radio 702 named the suspect as Glenn Agliotti, a friend of police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi and fixer for Kebble.
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/ 16 November 2006
One of his friends may have died in front of his eyes but 19-year-old Leepile is in no mood to listen to pleas to stop ”train surfing” through South Africa’s sprawling Soweto township. ”We feel like we are in another world when doing it, in heaven or something. It’s like we are floating, and don’t fear anything,” says the teenager.
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/ 16 November 2006
Significant progress has been made implementing an anti-Aids drug programme in the Free State, the provincial health department said on Tuesday. Spokesperson Geralda Winkler said officials in the programme had been undergoing extensive training by the department’s skills development unit.
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/ 16 November 2006
The government will give Cape Town R1,9-billion to build a 68 000-seater stadium in Green Point for the 2010 Soccer World Cup, the city said on Wednesday. The funds from the National Treasury stem from R8,4-billion earmarked for 2010 stadiums, said Ian Neilson, Cape Town mayoral committee member for finance.
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/ 16 November 2006
A third Tshwane city councillor has been shot, media reports said on Thursday. William Mahlangu (42) a member of the Tshwane mayoral committee responsible for finance, was the latest victim. He was returning from a committee meeting at about 9pm when he was shot in the right arm. The bullet lodged in his chest.
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/ 15 November 2006
Africans reacted with a mix of horror and delight at news South Africa had passed a Bill to legalise gay marriage, making it the first to do so on a continent where homosexuality is still largely taboo. Gay rights groups applauded the decision as a step forward for Africa. But some in deeply religious Africa lambasted the decision as ”un-African” and immoral.
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/ 15 November 2006
The Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) will lead a march to the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) offices on Thursday to demand that the broadcaster be transparent and accountable, the FXI said. It said in a statement on Wednesday that the working-class and poor communities would hand over a memorandum of grievances.
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/ 15 November 2006
Floor-crossing is not only morally problematic, but is also ”dysfunctional” in a parliamentary system, a German political scientist told a conference in Cape Town on Wednesday. Dr Hans-Joachim Veen, honorary professor of comparative government at the University of Trier, said South Africa’s regular floor-crossings were a sign of a ”rudimentary party system”.
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/ 15 November 2006
The far right-wing Boerestaat Party of South Africa announced on Wednesday it intends registering as a political party on December 16. The group, which was formed in the mid-1980s, said it wanted to become a fully fledged political party because it was feeling marginalised as an extra-parliamentary group.
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/ 15 November 2006
The Presidency received the Donen Commission report into the Iraq oil-for-food programme on November 6 and was studying the report, president Thabo Mbeki said on Wednesday. Mbeki said this in reply to a question from official opposition leader Tony Leon in the National Assembly on Wednesday.
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/ 15 November 2006
It seems state oil company PetroSA has failed to fully comply with a Cape High Court order to provide the Democratic Alliance with documentation related to the so-called ”Oilgate” scandal, the DA said on Wednesday. ”A preliminary analysis of the documents provided suggests that PetroSA has not fully complied with the court order,” DA spokesperson Hendrik Schmidt said.
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/ 15 November 2006
Certain roads in the Pretoria central business district were clogged with traffic on Wednesday as the Tshwane Metro Police cracked down on traffic violators with outstanding warrants of arrests. The metro police held several roadblocks, stopping cars and looking at the registration of vehicles and drivers’ licences.
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/ 15 November 2006
In a dangerous cat-and-mouse game, South African police are battling armed gangs of gold pirates through dark mine shafts deep underground to stop an illicit gold trade worth more than -million (about R5,1-billion) a year. Assistant Police Commissioner Mike Fryer said the new operation opened a fresh front in South Africa’s war against gold smuggling.
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/ 15 November 2006
The South African Air Force needs to improve the quality of its new recruits, Major General Mandla Mangethe, the force’s new chief of Air Command, said on Wednesday. ”We need more young people wanting to join the air force so that we can have quality recruits, especially at the sharp end of the force where we need pilots and fighter pilots,” he said.
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/ 15 November 2006
The South African National Defence Force’s Chief of Joint Operations died shortly after having minor surgery, Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said on Wednesday in Durban. Lieutenant General Sipho Binda (54) died in One Military hospital in Pretoria on Tuesday night.
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/ 15 November 2006
"With a little bit of vision, a little bit of money, something new is beginning to emerge [in the inner city]," said Lael Bethlehem, the chief executive officer of the Johannesburg Development Agency, at Constitution Hill on Monday. Constitution Hill is located at the edge of Hillbrow, one of the most derelict areas in central Johannesburg.
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/ 15 November 2006
Well-known broadcaster and former SAFM presenter Tony Lankester has teamed up with the Mail & Guardian Online to host a new weekly podcast show. The show looks at the major news stories in the M&G newspaper and the M&G Online, interviewing the editors and journalists behind the week’s stories.
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/ 15 November 2006
Following the recent announcement by the Department of Health on the revised dispensing fee, South African retailer Pick ‘n Pay announced on Wednesday that all medicine prices in its pharmacies will remain at the current levels until the end of this year.
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/ 15 November 2006
France is prepared to help South Africa develop its transport infrastructure, visiting French Minister of Foreign Trade Christine Lagarde said on Tuesday. ”The Gautrain project clearly has one milestone in 2010 but that will be just one junction of the line,” she told reporters in Sandton.
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/ 15 November 2006
Expletives are scrawled across the classroom walls, the library ceiling has collapsed and up to 45 pupils cram into each filthy classroom — when the teachers turn up that is. But despite the shoddy state of her school, 14-year-old Constance Mpho has even bigger worries.
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/ 15 November 2006
The South African Reserve bank will remain resolute to keep inflation under control, and not hesitate to change monetary policy before Christmas if necessary, Governor Tito Mboweni said on Tuesday, signalling another rate hike.
The Reserve Bank has already raised its repo rate by 150 basis points since June to curb inflationary pressures, and most analysts expect more increases ahead.
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/ 15 November 2006
The final issues are being sorted out between Alcan, the Canadian aluminium company, and South Africa over the building of a smelter at Coega in the Eastern Cape, Trade and Industry Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa said on Tuesday. Briefing the parliamentary media, the minister said his government had been "in touch" with Alcan "quite a lot in the last two weeks".
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/ 15 November 2006
The legislative provision for floor crossing — defection by elected national, provincial and local government representatives — was still in place, Provincial and Local Government Minister Sydney Mufamadi said on Wednesday. He was responding to a question whether the floor-crossing mechanism would still be in place next September.
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/ 14 November 2006
A new women’s magazine will finally bridge the gap between religion and sex — at least for religious Afrikaans women in South Africa. Intiem — meaning ”intimate” — is a new, glossy, A5-size magazine targeting the national religious Afrikaans community that will be launched at the end of November.
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/ 14 November 2006
While South Africa still has one of the highest crime rates in the world, the past three years has seen a significant reduction in crime, according to a South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) report. ”The number of serious crimes reported to the South African Police Service declined by almost 18% between 2002/03 and 2005/06 according to the report,” read a SAIRR statement released on Tuesday.
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/ 14 November 2006
The whole wine industry should provide aid for those affected by Monday’s fatal railway accident at Faure in the Western Cape, according to leading figures in the industry. Nineteen wine farm casual workers died and 17 were injured when the truck carrying them was hit by a train at a level crossing.