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/ 11 October 2006
A bid by the African National Congress to wrest back power in Cape Town, a lone bastion of opposition to South Africa’s ruling party, has triggered a fierce backlash across the political spectrum. Western Cape minister of local government Richard Dyantyi has summoned members of the city council to a meeting next Tuesday where he will flesh out plans to amend the system of government.
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/ 11 October 2006
A senior Gauteng transport official has acknowledged that he failed to follow proper procedures in awarding a R5-million tender to a Cabinet minister’s wife. Media reports on Wednesday quoted provincial transport department head Sibusiso Buthelezi as saying he did not advertise the tender ”because it was a matter of urgency”.
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/ 11 October 2006
Durban’s Engen oil refinery was shut down on Wednesday morning after a power failure, an Engen spokesperson said. Herb Payne said the refinery shut down automatically as a result of the power failure. The shut-down resulted in a huge plume of black smoke being sent ”into the atmosphere”.
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/ 11 October 2006
Police were ”working around the clock” after a baby girl was killed and seven other people were wounded in a shooting during a cash-in-transit heist in central Johannesburg on Tuesday. The incident occurred outside a cosmetic shop on the corner of Bree and Wanderers streets at about noon on Tuesday.
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/ 11 October 2006
The imposition of quotas on Chinese textiles "is going to present challenges" to the South African Revenue Services (Sars), its commissioner Pravin Gordhan told Members of Parliament on Wednesday. He said South Africa had, in terms of the memorandum of understanding with China, taken the responsibility "for controlling the quota".
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/ 11 October 2006
An inquiry has found that South African Broadcasting Corporation’s head of news Snuki Zikalala has broken the broadcaster’s own code of conduct, media analyst Anton Harber wrote on Wednesday. The inquiry found that Zikalala made a misleading statement when denying the existence of a blacklist which banned certain analysts.
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/ 11 October 2006
Having stadiums ready for the 2010 soccer World Cup would be held hostage by cement imports, as local producers struggle to keep up with demand, Business Report said on Wednesday. It said the same applied to other infrastructure development plans, including the Gautrain rapid rail link.
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/ 10 October 2006
The two former joint chief executives of LeisureNet went to ”great lengths” to cover up what the state claims is an unlawful kickback on a deal concluded by the company, the Cape High Court has been told. The submission was made by the prosecution team in heads of argument handed in on Tuesday as it began its closing submissions in the trial of Peter Gardener and Rod Mitchell.
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/ 10 October 2006
Rescuers lugged heavy equipment underground for kilometres, abseiled, waded through flooded tunnels and finally gave up searching on Tuesday for a man who fell in an abandoned mine near Barberton. ”We went through hell the last three or four days,” said Inspector Danie Theron, of the White River police search-and-rescue unit.
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/ 10 October 2006
The Cape High Court on Tuesday dismissed an application to strike from the roll the case against an actuarial assistant accused of beating and stabbing his ex-girlfriend to death. Fred van der Vyver (24) is charged with the murder of Stellenbosch University student, Inge Lotz, who was allegedly beaten to death with a hammer and stabbed in March last year.
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/ 10 October 2006
A Pretoria businessman accused of dragging his dog behind his car has been fined R4Â 000 or three months in prison, South African Broadcasting Corporation news reported on Tuesday. Oupa Seemo was convicted on Monday of animal cruelty. It was found he had tied his Jack Russell dog to the back of his car and dragged it for several kilometres.
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/ 10 October 2006
Delegates at Free State public hearings on initiation schools on Tuesday called for special courts to be established to deal with transgressors of initiation customs. The call was made in a joint statement by the South African Human Rights Commission, the National House of Traditional Leaders and the Commission for the rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities.
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/ 10 October 2006
The Congress of South African Trade Unions’ (Cosatu) involvement in the new national lottery operator, Gidani, has come under fire from Independent Democrats (ID) chief whip Avril Harding in Parliament. In a member’s statement to the National Assembly, Harding said despite its strong objections to the lottery, Cosatu has emerged as one of the major shareholders in Gidani.
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/ 10 October 2006
The Western Cape, already boasting some success in bringing down crime, hopes to better the crime-busting feats of New York mayor Rudi Giuliani. A five-year 40% drop in crime by 2008 ”is a target that can be achievable”, provincial police commissioner Mzandile Petros said in Cape Town on Tuesday.
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/ 10 October 2006
A one-year-old baby girl was killed and seven people were wounded in a shoot-out during a cash-in-transit heist in the Johannesburg city centre on Tuesday, police said. Superintendent Mary Martins-Engelbrecht, speaking from the scene, said two coin security guards had just collected money when they were approached by between six and eight men.
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/ 10 October 2006
South Africa batsman Herschelle Gibbs was scheduled to fly to New Delhi on Tuesday, hoping to put the Hansie Cronje match-fixing scandal behind him once and for all. Gibbs, accompanied by his lawyer, will meet police commissioner KK Paul to answer a series of questions about the match-fixing affair, which was unearthed in India in 2000.
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/ 10 October 2006
The Federation of Unions of South Africa called on Tuesday for solidarity with Zimbabwean workers after the viewing of a DVD that showed police beating trade union leaders last month. Members of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions were arrested and beaten after an attempted protest march in Harare.
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/ 10 October 2006
The rail parastatal, Spoornet, could not become just a "two-commodity business" — focusing on its iron and coal lines — and that was why it was focusing a lot of money on the general freight business, Transnet group chief executive Maria Ramos said on Tuesday.
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/ 10 October 2006
The 14-year-old boy arrested for allegedly stabbing a fellow pupil to death at the Forest High School remained in custody at the Booysens police station on Tuesday, Johannesburg police said. Captain Schalk Bornman said the boy has been charged with murder and police were awaiting word from the state prosecutor on when he would appear before the Booysens Magistrate’s Court.
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/ 10 October 2006
The Dolphins will be banking on the broad bat of Lance Klusener, among others, to consolidate their position at the top of the MTN domestic championship cricket log when they host the Highveld Lions in Durban on Wednesday. The match features joint-log leaders the Dolphins against the side propping up the bottom of the log, although the Lions have played only one game so far.
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/ 10 October 2006
All tickets for the final of the Currie Cup championship between the Cheetah’s and the Blue Bulls have been sold on the first day, the Free State Rugby Union said on Monday. Spokesperson Liza-Anne Mould said they tried as far as possible to help all supporters with tickets on Monday.
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/ 10 October 2006
The slogan for the PSL’s new Telkom Knockout competition promises ”it’s a whole new ball game” — and when it comes to cold cash it was patently clear the sponsors were not kidding when the tournament was launched in Johannesburg on Monday night.
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/ 10 October 2006
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said on Monday it supported statements made by South African Communist Party (SACP) leader Blade Nzimande after President Thabo Mbeki accused him of ”extraordinary arrogance”.
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/ 10 October 2006
The state’s Marine Living Resources Fund is R45-million in debt from having R53-million in its coffers by the end of March 2005, media reports said on Tuesday. The fund’s travel and entertainment costs went up from just over R2-million in 2004/05 to R23-million in 2005/06.
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/ 10 October 2006
An attempted hostage-taking by a South African police officer backfired on Monday when he shot himself in the leg inside his boss’s office at a station near Cape Town. The incident happened when the 24-year-old constable held up his station commander and two other senior officers while he was on duty, police spokesperson Captain Elliot Sinyangana said.
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/ 10 October 2006
A Pretoria man who dragged his dog behind his luxury car with a nylon rope earlier this year is expected to be sentenced on Tuesday. Oupa Jan Seemo (32) of Faerie Glen was convicted of cruelty to animals by the Pretoria Magistrate’s court on Monday. After its ordeal, the dog did not have a single pad left under its paws.
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/ 10 October 2006
About 5Â 000 former employees of the Pelindaba nuclear facility may be suffering from diseases linked to chemical and radiation exposure, media reports said on Tuesday. This figure emerged from a survey of ex-employees of the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa at Pelindaba, outside Pretoria.
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/ 10 October 2006
The new biography of Nelson Mandela is not just another book on the former president, but conveys his values, Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel said on Monday. ”Perhaps the strongest sense that this portrait conveys is that ubuntu is real … and that the values of ubuntu … are as noble now as they were in Qunu in the 1920s,” said Manuel.
Political bickering and name-calling continued on Monday as the African National Congress (ANC) lashed out at a ”malicious attack and hurling of insults” by Young Communist League national secretary Buti Manamela. ”No serious-minded individual will accord respect to such insults as contained in their statement,” said ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama.
South Africa is set to seize two more white-owned farms, one of them run by a church, to fast-track land reforms to rectify apartheid-era imbalances, a top land official said on Monday. ”The minister [of agriculture and land affairs] has signed the notices of expropriation and they have been sent,” chief land claims commissioner Tozi Gwanya told the media.
A senior South African diplomat has been transferred back home from South Africa House in London following allegations of misdemeanour by his son, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Monday. According to the Sunday Independent, the official’s 12-year-old son was under investigation by British police for taking a ”spray gun” to school.
South Africa and China have signed an extension to the memorandum of understanding in the labour field agreed to in 2002. Briefing the media at Parliament after the signing ceremony on Monday, Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana said the agreement focused on human resources development, job creation strategies and cooperation in the International Labour Organisation.