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/ 13 October 2006
Top parliamentary officials are ignoring their own policy guidelines to protect African National Congress chief whip Mbulelo Goniwe from court action aimed at getting him to pay maintenance for two children he fathered. The Sheriff of Cape Town has repeatedly requested permission from the legislature to serve Goniwe with a summons to appear in the Bedford maintenance court.
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/ 13 October 2006
The Zimbabwean police have ignored a written order from the attorney general’s department to arrest state secret agent Joseph Mwale so he could face trial for allegedly murdering two opposition activists six years ago, sources told <i>ZimOnline</i>.
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/ 13 October 2006
Let us not ask what the government, or to be more precise Deputy Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba, really wanted the Films and Publications Amendment Bill to achieve when he approved it for tabling in Parliament. Let us stick instead to the more readily discernible facts: what they said they wanted it to achieve, and the mechanisms the Bill proposes.
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/ 12 October 2006
If South Africa is to achieve the 6% Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth as envisaged in the government’s economic plan, the gross national savings rate as a percentage of GDP needs to increase from the current 13% to 25%, says Paul Hanratty, managing director of Old Mutual.
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/ 12 October 2006
North Korea’s declared nuclear test has blown the chances of a relaxing round of golf for South Korea’s military, officials said on Thursday. Officers and troops were ordered to stay off the links after Monday’s declared test. "The virtual ban on golfing is effective at all military golf courses across the country," a defence ministry spokesman said.
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/ 10 October 2006
Armed youths on Tuesday seized a Shell flow station and took 60 workers hostage in Nigeria’s restive Niger Delta, the company said. "After firing some warning shots, the attackers took hold of the security post where they are holding about 60 SPDC [Shell Petroleum Development Company] and contractor staff," Shell said in a statement.
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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
An Australian scholar in his 90s successfully capped off his law degree this week, winning a race against time he feared he might not live to finish. Having compressed the demanding course of legal study from six years into just four-and-a-half due to his advanced years, Allan Stewart graduated to a standing ovation on Saturday.
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/ 10 October 2006
The $20-billion initial public offer (IPO) of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the mainland’s largest lender, drew intense interest on the its opening day, reports said on Tuesday. The IPO — expected to be the largest to date — attracted a wave of international orders of up to $56-billion, according to reports in Hong Kong’s English-language press.
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/ 10 October 2006
<i>M&G Money</i> takes a look at how to put together a financial plan, with the help of Sanlam Financial Advisers and Tumi, a character who represents the financial reality as well as hopes and dreams of many of our readers.
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/ 10 October 2006
I am changing jobs and have decided to take out my pension as I am young and I have a policy with PPS. I would like some advice on how to invest it or should I pay it on my bond?
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/ 10 October 2006
A <i>Mail & Guardian</i> reader’s endowment policy recently matured. He was horrified to discover that after investing monthly for five years, he virtually got back what he had invested. This is not an uncommon complaint and is specifically true of policies and investments sold in the late Nineties and early 2000s when the stock markets took a bath.
The 603-carat Lesotho Promise diamond, the 15th largest rough diamond ever discovered, has been sold in Antwerp for $12,36-million, according to Gem Diamonds, owners of Letseng Mine in Lesotho where the diamond was recently discovered. "This has been a fantastic day for the Letseng Diamond Mine and for the people of Lesotho," said Lesotho’s Minister of Natural Resources, Dr Khaketla.
United States economist Edmund S Phelps won the 2006 Nobel Economics Prize on Monday for work on trade-offs in macroeconomic policy, the Nobel jury said, noting that his work had improved understanding of how policy affected welfare for present and future generations.
Mittal Steel came under fire this week for creating a "state within a state" in impoverished Liberia, according to a newly released report by human rights group Global Witness. In a report entitled Heavy Mittal? Global Witness said the steel company’s $900-million deal to exploit iron-ore reserves should be substantially renegotiated.
The traffic department, in its wisdom, has decided to solve the problem of congestion on the N1 corridor between the crucial Gauteng centres of Johannesburg and Tshwane (still known to most people as Pretoria) by turning the former speed freak outside lane into an exclusive lane for vehicles with more than one passenger.
A dog starved at his master’s gate, wrote Blake, predicts the ruin of the state. He was right, of course, but today culturally sanctioned brutality against dogs is usually just weekend overflow, the lads having a Saturday morning out together after five days of culturally sanctioned brutality against women.
The value of fraudulent claims submitted to the life insurance industry during the first half of this year dropped by almost 76-million rand compared with the first half of last year, from R175,2-million rand to R99,5-million. Lerato Mametse, communications manager at the Life Offices Association, says the reduction in claims fraud from January to June this year was a welcome respite.
Nissan said on Thursday it was still open to an alliance with a United States carmaker after the failure of talks with ailing General Motors, amid speculation Ford could be next to the negotiating table.
Any South African who uses national highways or main roads in our cities will sooner or later run into a government convoy. Depending on the rank of the politician being taxied, the convoy can stretch from two to eight cars. At the last count, President Thabo Mbeki had eight. Jacob Zuma may be out of government, but he has almost as many.
Professor Nixon Kariithi asks to what extent the print media can take comfort from readership figures.
South Africa’s first Survivor series is launching on M-Net this month. We take a look at our own industry’s survivors who have outlasted, outwitted and outplayed the media jungle.
Every now and then a new accusation of plagiarism against a celebrated author pops up in the media. Charlene Smith asks why they do it and also looks at the lower profile plagiarism cases that never make it to the headlines.
Lumko Mtimde took office as CEO of the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA) in July. He shares with us his vision for the future of the agency.
Australia’s heritage-listed "Tree of Knowledge", a 200-year-old ghost gum known as the birthplace of the centre-left Labour Party, has died after being poisoned, a party official said on Tuesday. The tree, which stands opposite a hotel in the centre of the small town of Barcaldine in the north-eastern state of Queensland, was the meeting place for sheep shearers during a landmark strike in 1891.
Sisters Megan and Lola Verlaque are the only all-female team on South Africa’s rally scene. The <i>Mail & Guardian</i> spoke to Lola about her passion for cars and racing.
<b>Obituary: Ramolao Makhene</b><br>
Malcolm Purkey pays tribute to a great actor and friend.
<i>The Media</i> magazine celebrates Women’s Day in August by hosting the MTN Women in The Media awards. This year, we salute six formidable women in the industry. Our board, after sifting through almost 50 nominations, chose a winner from four finalists, a rising star under the age of 30, and a lifetime achiever.<
Israel’s recent bombardment of Lebanon was clearly visible with "the naked eye" from space, a Russian cosmonaut based at the time on the international space station said on Monday. "Of course it was visible. You know, all negative human activities, in particular military operations, are immediately visible from space," said cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov, during a press conference.
South African gold miner AngloGold Ashanti on Monday revealed details of its empowerment transaction with the National Union of Mineworkers, Solidarity, union Usas and Izingwe Holdings. The three unions and the company have agreed upon the architecture of an employee share ownership plan (Esop), to be called the Bokamoso Esop, or "harvesting for the future".
The faltering peace process in the Côte d’Ivoire represents a crucial test for the African Union (AU), an analyst said recently after Ivorian rebels rejected South African President Thabo Mbeki, the AU-appointed mediator, as biased. "The Côte d’Ivoire, Somalia and Darfur are the three crucial tests of the new AU," says Richard Cornwall, senior African analyst at the Institute for Security Studies.