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/ 10 November 2000

Vintage Sheringham gets United through

Neal Collins soccer Three goals in his past four games; 12 in 15 this season. The man is a middle-aged miracle. He’s 34 and Teddy Sheringham can’t seem to stop scoring vital goals. On Wednesday night SuperTed shot Manchester United into the last 16 of the Champions League while Leeds, with their oldest player eight […]

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/ 10 November 2000

SA’s post-democracy police force embraces

apartheid-era methods Khadija Magardie In July this year at Steelpoort Diesel Garage in Burgersfort, Mpumalanga, a South African Police Service (SAPS) inspector, with five civilians, overpowered Benjamin Mabelane and handcuffed him to a steel door. They switched on a nearby welding machine and turned it on Mabelane’s genitals. He died from his injuries. In Septembe, […]

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/ 10 November 2000

‘Major strides’ made in land claim

settlements Barry Streek The government has swiftly settled substantial land claims in the Southern Cape in the wake of threats by local residents to carry out land invasions. On Saturday Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Thoko Didiza will restore land to 1 100 coloured and black households in Knysna at a cost of about […]

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/ 10 November 2000

Caught in the web of deceit

With Internet fraud on the increase more measures are being put in place to protect consumers Rupert Jones and Phillip Inman Credit-card companies are privately slapping hefty fines on rogue websites for misusing people’s card details amid a big jump in complaints about Internet fraud. Much of the problem centres on “adult” websites and other […]

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/ 10 November 2000

Unlikely hero worth his weight

Samoa’s David Tua has put poverty behind him to become a true contender John Rawling in Las Vegas Those passionless arbiters of sporting probability, the Las Vegas odds makers, may claim that the chances of Lennox Lewis losing his world heavyweight title on Saturday night are slim, but two nations beg to differ. New Zealand […]

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/ 10 November 2000

SA bans date-rape drug

Ted Leggett As of November 3, the substance Gamma- hydroxy butyrate (GHB) was banned, largely due to its alleged use as a date-rape drug. This is despite the fact that of the more than 50 000 cases of rape reported each year, not one has ever been linked to GHB in South Africa. If preventing […]

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/ 10 November 2000

M&G staffers meet ‘worst nightmare’

Sechaba ka’Nkosi On the surface, Swaziland is a peaceful country blessed with natural beauty. In recent weeks, however, its tranquillity has been shattered by protests and the brutality of its police exposed. My colleague Ruth Motau and I attended a demonstration in Mbabane on Tuesday to cover the story. We became a story in the […]

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/ 10 November 2000

Bringing water to the poor

Delivering services free is not the best way to achieve sustainable access. Derek Hazelton discusses the requirements for universal access to water In its local government elections manifesto the African National Congress promises to provide all with a free basic amount of water, electricity and other municipal services. Those who use more than the basic […]

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/ 9 November 2000

BIG BUSINESS BACKS MBEKI OVER ZIM

SOUTH African companies, including mining giant Anglo-American Corporation, will place advertisements in local and British newspapers to voice their support for President Thabo Mbeki’s policy on Zimbabwe. Government communications chief Joel Netshitenze said business had volunteered to place the adverts to correct the “massive misperceptions” in the local and British press that Mbeki had backed […]

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/ 9 November 2000

Another SAPS terror dog attack

AFP, OWN CORRESPONDENT, AFRICAN EYE NEWS SERVICE, Johannesburg | Thursday POLICEMEN from the Pietersburg dog unit are being investigated after dogs were let loose on about 15 people who were dropping off garbage or collecting goods for recycling at a municipal dumpsite. The attack last week Thursday is similar to an incident aired on national […]

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/ 9 November 2000

96 DEAD FROM EBOLA

FOUR people have died in Uganda in the last 24 hours after contracting Ebola fever, bringing the total death toll to 96, the health ministry said. Three of the dead were from the northern Ugandan district of Gulu, which is at the centre of an epidemic of the highly contagious and often fatal Ebola epidemic […]

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/ 9 November 2000

27 DIE OF THIRST IN SUDAN

TWENTY-seven young Sudanese died of thirst while travelling on a desert road from the northern Sudanese town of Dongola to the town of Kufra in Libya. The group lost their way and ran out of water, prompting the driver to set out on foot in search of water, but he was arrested upon entering Libyan […]

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/ 9 November 2000

SWAZILAND BRACES FOR STRIKES

SWAZILAND’S three most powerful labour unions have called for a two day general strike next week to force the kingdom ‘s monarchist government to accept pro-democracy political reforms. The strike on November 13 and 14 is the latest protest in an escalating public campaign designed to force absolute monarch King Mswati III to repeal a […]

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/ 9 November 2000

SADF ‘meddled with Mandrax’

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Thursday ENOUGH chemicals to make 3,5 million Mandrax tablets were discovered during a stock check at a former SA Defence Force front company in 1995, the Pretoria High Court trial of chemical warfare expert Dr Wouter Basson has heard. Willem Nel, a chartered accountant who worked for Sentrachem, which bought the […]

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/ 9 November 2000

NIGERIAN DOCTORS’ STRIKE CLAIMS 2500

A STRIKE over pay by Nigerian doctors has led to the deaths of some 2500 people in the southern Rivers State for lack of medical attention, a representative for the doctors said this week. Members of the National Association of Resident Doctors, an affiliate of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), launched the nationwide strike eight […]

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/ 9 November 2000

LOW COFFEE PRICE KNOCKS PROFITS

UGANDAN coffee exports have dropped by more than 50% in the first month of the new coffee season, the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) said in its monthly report. The report said Uganda only managed to export 138 760 bags of 60kg each in October, compared to 225 025 bags exported the same month during […]

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/ 9 November 2000

Home is where the Hartswater is

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Kimberley | Thursday MORE than 400 households forcibly removed from their land in Hartswater in the Northern Cape in the early 1970s will this week receive new land as well as financial compensation in the first urban land claim to be finalised in the Northern Cape. The claim will see about 440 families […]

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/ 9 November 2000

Crime-hit Malawi reviews Refugee Act

BRIAN LIGOMEKA, Blantyre | Thursday MALAWI has announced a review of its Refugee Act governing the admission and treatment of foreign asylum seekers following a spate of violent armed robberies involving suspected war refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Malawi deputy commissioner for relief and rehabilitation Willy Gidala said government had been forced to […]

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/ 9 November 2000

Cop dog attack ‘tip of the iceberg’

CLAIRE KEETON, Johannesburg | Thursday THE brutality and racism shown by six white policemen in setting attack dogs onto three black men is not an isolated incident, and is a “manifestation of the widespread brutality across the colour bar and ranks,” according to South African police watchdog bodies. “This is the tip of the iceberg, […]

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/ 9 November 2000

CLASHES OVER ‘SATANIC’ SHOW

MUSLIM fundamentalists clashed violently with Niger police this week in protest at an upcoming fashion show they dubbed “satanic”. Some 500 demonstrators were objecting to the International Festival of African Fashion (FIMA) on the grounds that it was debauchery and a satanic breach of Islamic principles. Police used teargas to break up the crowd as […]

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/ 9 November 2000

BOTH SIDES CLAIM VICTORY IN SUDAN

SUDANESE government troops and opposition forces have fought heavily for control of the capital of eastern Kassala state, along the border with Eritrea, with both sides claiming victory. The Sudanese Armed Forces General Command said in a statement that its troops and pro-government militiamen had driven back rebel forces who had infiltrated the northeastern parts […]

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/ 8 November 2000

General tells of project’s mysterious millions

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Wednesday A FORMER SA Defence Force intelligence chief of staff has told the Pretoria High Court of his “dissatisfaction” about a lack of information on the end destination and ultimate use of millions of rands transferred to overseas bank accounts on behalf of the shadowy Project Coast. Project Coast was the […]

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/ 8 November 2000

Farmers ‘being forced off their land’

BRONWEN ROBERTS, Cape Town | Wednesday SOUTH African farmers have made an impassioned plea to the international community to rescue them from rural attacks, saying the violence was an “orchestrated bid” to force farmers off their land, as the government announced a land restitution programme was picking up speed. “It’s about forcing them to either […]

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/ 8 November 2000

CHARITY AND CHOICE CONVERGE ONLINE

BATTERED by spiraling petrol prices and predictions of a slow Christmas season for brick-and-mortar businesses, growing numbers of South African retailers are making an early bid for a slice of the expected 100% boom in online transactions predicted by leading e-commerce provider ECnet. The retailers form part of ECnet’s www.cybergifts.co.za website, a secure and easy-to-use […]

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/ 8 November 2000

AXED MALAWI MINISTERS IN HOT WATER

THE three influential Malawi cabinet ministers axed from President Bakili Muluzi’s executive last week are being probed for $2,5m fraud, authorities confirmed. Malawi director of public prosecutions Fahad Assani said the country’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) was already investigating former education minister Dr Cassim Chilumpha, former labour minister Peter Chupa and former public works minister Brown […]

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/ 8 November 2000

Apartheid thugs ‘told to beat up Kiwi’

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Wellington | Wednesday TWO apartheid-era security force members, now on parole in New Zealand where they were convicted for ecstasy smuggling, have told a New Zealand court how they were ordered to attack a New Zealander while he was on a drug-buying trip in South Africa. Albertus van Schalkwyk and John Goldsmith, who […]

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/ 8 November 2000

84 RWANDAN SUSPECTS CONFESS

EIGHTY-four prisoners held on charges of participating in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide publicly confessed to their crimes during a Presbyterian church service, official radio reported this week. The suspects confessed to their role in the wave of ethnic violence that swept the country, leaving between 500000 and 800000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus dead. They also […]

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/ 8 November 2000

WOMEN GROUNDED IN SHARIA-BOUND STATE

AUTHORITIES in a town in northern Nigeria have ordered women to stay at home at night to prevent immorality, before strict Islamic law is introduced in the state next month, an official said. Women in Dandi in northwestern Kebbi state have objected to the legislation, describing it as a rights violation and suggesting that men […]

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/ 8 November 2000

4 DEAD, 109 HURT IN REEF TRAIN SMASH

FOUR people have been confirmed dead and 109 injured after a head-on collision between two Metrorail passenger trains in Wadeville outside Johannesburg during peak hour traffic. The dead include two female passengers and two drivers, one of whom was still trapped inside the cab of his train the day after the smash. One of the […]

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/ 8 November 2000

UNREST SEES SHELL CUTS PRODUCTION

COMMUNITY unrest in southern Nigeria has prompted the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell to declare force majeure and reduce deliveries from the Bonny oil terminal to 250 000 barrels per day (bpd). The force majeure was declared this week at the terminal in the oil-rich Niger Delta region, and it will continue through the end of […]

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/ 8 November 2000

SUSPECTED EBOLA CASE IN TANZANIA

TANZANIAN health authorities this week launched a probe into the country’s first suspected Ebola case. National health secretary Mariam Mwaffisi confirmed that government had dispatched a team of experts to Kagera, on Tanzania’s border with Uganda. Tanzania began taking precautionary measures to contain and treat Ebola immediately after an outbreak was reported in neighbouring Uganda’s […]

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/ 8 November 2000

On the coalface of black empowerment

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday IN a massive black empowerment deal, Anglo Coal and Ingwe have sold coal interests worth R360m to Eyesizwe Coal to create the fourth-largest coal producer in South Africa. The transaction, initiated by Anglo Coal and Ingwe, involved selling coal interests previously held by these two companies and known provisionally as […]