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/ 27 September 2000

SA steadily losing its golden lustre

OWN CORRESPONDENT and REUTERS, Johannesburg | Tuesday SOUTH Africa, the world’s biggest gold producing country for the past century, faces the prospect of losing its No 1 status by the end of the decade – and a new report suggests that only two of the country’s ageing gold mines will survive beyond 2025. The Department […]

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/ 27 September 2000

36 DIE IN GREEK FERRY DISASTER

AT least 36 people have died, and 44 are missing, after a Greek ferry with 511 people aboard ran aground and sank off the Aegean island of Paros. A port official also suffered a heart attack and died after hearing news of the sinking, the coast guard said. CNN reported that rescue teams are heading […]

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/ 27 September 2000

No place in homes for flood victims

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday VICTIMS of the March floods in Alexandra, Johannesburg have been barred from moving into temporary housing on eight hectares of land adjoining the Leeuwkop Prison after a successful court injunction by residents in the area. The Pretoria High Court blocked the flood victims from moving into the houses until an […]

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/ 27 September 2000

Mpumalanga appoints tainted D-G

JUSTIN ARENSTEIN, Nelspruit | Wednesday A MAN found by a commission to have tried to derail internal probes into licence fraud irregularities in 1997, being unable to control his staff, attempting to cover up for their inadequacies by doing their work, and not having managerial ability has been appointed to the most powerful administrative position […]

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/ 27 September 2000

MOM ACQUITTED OF BURNING CHILDREN

THE Sandton woman who drugged her two sons before setting their home alight has walked free after a court found she was psychotic when the crime was committed and could not appreciate the wrongfulness of her act. Dr Manuela Costa was found “not guilty due to mental illness” after she set alight her Morningside Manor […]

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/ 27 September 2000

Massive abuse in Tanzanian camps

AFP, New York | Wednesday THE UN refugee agency has been slated for failing to do enough for victims in refugee camps after investigations by a human rights organisation revealed rampant sexual and domestic brutality against Burundian women in camps in Tanzania. “Widespread sexual and domestic abuse have left many of these women physically battered, […]

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/ 27 September 2000

MAN KILLS MOM WITH GARDEN FORK

A 20-YEAR-old man has been was arrested for murdering his mother, their gardener and the family’s poodles with a garden fork. Johannesburg police said the dogs appeared to have been killed first and left in the garden. The 60-year-old gardener was then killed in the garage, and neighbours watched helplessly as the mother was attacked […]

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/ 27 September 2000

LEISURENET SELLS OFFSHORE OPERATIONS

SA HEALTH and fitness group LeisureNet says it has signed a letter of intent to dispose of all of the assets of its offshore operations to US-based Fitness Holdings Worldwide. The announcement signals a sudden reversal of strategy for LeisureNet, which last month said it was thinking of seeking an overseas listing to help consolidate […]

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/ 26 September 2000

REFORM OF NIGERIAN MILITARY UNDER WAY

A TEAM of US officials and private advisers has arrived in Abuja to start work on reform of the Nigerian military, the government announced. The assistance is part of a larger, $20m package agreed by Washington earlier this year aimed at boosting civilian control over the military and improving peacekeeping capacity in the country. The […]

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/ 26 September 2000

Mpumalanga gives vigilantes the boot

PHILLIP NKOSI, Nelspruit | Tuesday SOUTH Africa’s largest and most controversial vigilante group, Mapogo-A-Mathamaga, has been fired from guarding Mpumalanga’s glitzy R600-million legislature complex near Nelspruit. Safety and security MEC Steve Mabona intervened after media reports that the vigilantes had been appointed to guard the complex because conventional security services and police were unable to […]

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/ 26 September 2000

Govt unmoved by labour fury

ELLIS MNYANDU AND OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday GOVERNMENT is unlikely to overhaul its business blueprint in spite of threats by South Africa’s giant labour union federation Cosatu to strike to force changes to the country’s key policies, say analysts. Cosatu and the SA Communist Party had grumbled this week at Cosatu’s annual congress that […]

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/ 26 September 2000

Cholera kills two, leaves 1000 ill

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Durban | Tuesday HEALTH workers are fighting two separate outbreaks of cholera in northern Kwazulu Natal, which have killed two people and seen more than 1 000 contract the disease. An outbreak of the disease was reported in the rural Empangeni area in the northern part of the province in late August and […]

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/ 26 September 2000

CAPE GRACE SCOOPS BEST HOTEL AWARD

CAPE Town’s Cape Grace Hotel has been rated the finest hotel in the world at the Conde Nast Traveller’s 2000 Readers’ Choice Awards. Cape Grace won the award with a score of 95, the highest achieved in any category this year and the highest rating ever accomplished in the 13-year history of the poll of […]

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/ 26 September 2000

Angola uses carat and stick approach

AFP, Luanda | Tuesday ANGOLA’S government is cracking down on domestic diamond traders, giving small-scale miners 60 days to register their informal businesses and start paying taxes, say government officials. Authorities want to eliminate the parallel market in diamonds, which provide a major source of government funding. The latest push is part of a broader […]

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/ 26 September 2000

Algeria, SA forge new trade links

OWN CORRESPONDENT AND REUTERS, Algiers | Monday A VISIT to Algeria by South African President Thabo Mbeki and a high-powered delegation – including seven ministers and 30 chief executives of large South African companies – is paying rich dividends with the signing of an economic cooperation agreement to boost investment and trade exchanges between the […]

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/ 26 September 2000

WARNING ON HIV HOME TEST KITS

THE United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued a warning about home HIV test kits being dumped in developing countries. Dr Steven Toovey from the British Airways Travel Clinic warned that none of the kits, some of which are being sold in South Africa, have been found to be reliable enough to be allowed […]

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/ 26 September 2000

UGANDAN MP ARRESTED FOR RAPE

A UGANDAN member of parliament has been arrested on charges of raping a 25-year-old woman in his Kampala home. Callistus Adome Lokwii, 36, the MP for Jie county in northeastern Uganda, was arrested after he was accused of raping the woman, whom he had apparently offered a lift in his car the previous evening. A […]

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/ 26 September 2000

TRANSITIONAL COUNCIL FOR IVORY COAST

ORGANISATION of African Unity (OAU) leaders have proposed the creation of a “transitional council” for Ivory Coast, including representatives of the ruling junta and the main political parties, to prepare for upcoming elections. Seven African heads of state have held meetings with Ivorian military leader General Robert Guei and leaders of the four main political […]

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/ 26 September 2000

Stricken farmers stare ruin in the face

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pietermaritzburg | Tuesday FARMERS in the KwaZulu Natal Midlands face financial ruin if government officials go ahead with a plan to slaughter all livestock in a bid to contain an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease which threatens to devastate the South African agricultural industry. The prospect of a pre-emptive slaughtering campaign – and resulting […]

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/ 25 September 2000

Zim grenade attack: the plot thickens

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Sunday IN the latest twist to a confusing series of claims and counter-claims between Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and police over a hand grenade attack on the party’s headquarters, a Harare policeman has appeared in court for his alleged involvement in the bombing. Lazarus Nkomo, who is said […]

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/ 25 September 2000

WINNIE BLASTS ‘CASH FOR CONTACTS’ REPORT

ANC Women’s League president Winnie Madikizela-Mandela has denied newspaper reports claiming that a Chinese beer company is to sponsor her birthday party to the tune of R350_ 000 in a so-called “cash-for-contacts” deal. The Sunday Times said the “cash-for-contacts” deal by Tsingtao Beer was put together by a promotions company owned by Madikizela-Mandela’s daughter, Zinzi […]

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/ 25 September 2000

Sweat, tears and blood in Saddam’s Koran

AFP AND OWN CORRESPONDENT, Baghdad | Monday IRAQI President Saddam Hussein has taken delivery of a copy of the Koran he ordered written in his own blood to thank God for escaping unscathed from his long political career. The special edition of the Koran, the Muslim holy book, took three years to finish and was […]

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/ 25 September 2000

MINERS STILL TRAPPED UNDERGROUND

RESCUE workers are continuing to work around the clock in a bid to free two miners who have been trapped underground since Friday following a rockfall at the Kloof Gold mine outside Carltonville on the West Rand. A mine official said proto teams had not managed to make contact with the men and that the […]

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/ 25 September 2000

LEADERS DISCUSS IVORY COAST TENSIONS

SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki has joined leaders from ten other nations in the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), in the Togo capital, Lome to discuss the growing political tension in the Ivory Coast. Trouble in Ivory Coast began when its ruler, General Robert Guei, decided to run for office, after telling the nation in […]

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/ 25 September 2000

Landmark award for resettlement trauma

OWN CORRESPONDENT AND AFP, Cape Town | Saturday A SOUTH African court has for the first time awarded a person symbolic compensation for the distress suffered after being forced from their home by the former apartheid regime. The Land Claims Court this week ordered that 75-year-old Ronald Hermanus, a coloured man, be paid R6 000 […]

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/ 25 September 2000

Hunt stepped up for ship of death

ROSE-MARIE BRUBALLA AND OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Monday SOUTH AFRICA’S elite Scorpions crime-fighting unit has joined the hunt for a ship that may have brought a potentially disastrous livestock disease into the country, a government official said. The move comes as government officials fight to contain the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease that could cost South […]

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/ 25 September 2000

GRAVE ROBBERS DIG UP EX-MINISTER’S BONES

GRAVE robbers have dug up the bones of a former deputy minister of the apartheid regime to create a powerful “cure” for Aids, the Sunday Times newspaper reported. “All that is left of Hannes Rall, a deputy minister of transport in the apartheid government, are a few bones in a plastic bag at a police […]

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/ 25 September 2000

Flood victims sow seeds of recovery

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Maputo | Monday NEARLY 100_ 000 Mozambican families in areas affected by the devastating floods earlier this year will get a new lease of life when the country’s agricultural authorities start handing out seed kits for the coming planting season. Already dozens of trucks loaded with seeds imported from neighbouring South Africa and […]

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/ 25 September 2000

FLOGGINGS BEGIN TO BITE IN NIGERIA

A COUPLE have been publicly flogged in Nigeria’s northwestern Zamfara state for failing to prove their allegations that the Islamic head of the village had sex with their daughter, a court official said. Haruna Dutsi and his wife, Aishat, were given 80 strokes of the cane each in a public spectacle in the village of […]

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/ 25 September 2000

BLOODY WEEK IN ALGERIA RAISES FEARS

BLOODY attacks attributed to armed Islamic militants in Algeria multiplied last week, with local media reporting nearly 40 killings, as fears of a resurgence in violence haunted the country. Most of the attacks took place in the Mitidja region, the fertile agricultural plain near the capital and former stronghold of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA). […]

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/ 24 September 2000

ANC alarmed at growing Aids fiasco

HOWARD BARRELL, Johannesburg | Friday DEEP concern is spreading through the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and its parliamentary caucus over the corner into which President Thabo Mbeki has led the party and the government over HIV/Aids. Most ruling party MPs and senior ANC members approached this week privately said the HIV/Aids fiasco raised serious […]

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/ 24 September 2000

Zim farmers arrested after clashes

AFP, Harare | Friday FOUR white farmers have been arrested on charges of “inciting violence” for allegedly convincing their black labourers to evict squatters from several farms south of Harare, the government daily reported. “The police will not tolerate any unlawful actions or disruptions of public order, such as new farm occupations,” The Herald quoted […]