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/ 6 February 2008
Over half of South Africa’s public dams, including the biggest — the 5,3-billion cubic metre Gariep Dam — do not fully comply with modern-day safety standards, the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry said on Wednesday. ”As at October [last year], 160 of the 294 dams do not comply with current dam safety standards,” the department said.
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/ 5 February 2008
The disciplinary hearing of a suspended Western Cape police officer linked to the alleged drunken-driving arrest of Tony Yengeni began on Tuesday, police said. Senior Superintendent Billy Jones said Goodwood station commissioner Senior Superintendent Siphiwe Hewana would face internal misconduct charges.
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/ 4 February 2008
Cycling in South Africa received yet another boost on Monday when it was announced that MTN has become the title sponsor of the country’s premier and only international road-cycling stage race, the Giro del Capo. The five-day stage race takes place yearly in the Western Cape.
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/ 4 February 2008
The African National Congress was not aware of any imminent visit to its Johannesburg headquarters by Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool, a spokesperson said on Monday. Rasool’s spokesperson Shado Twala also said she did know about the reported visit.
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/ 3 February 2008
Fear now stalks the corridors of African National Congress (ANC) power as the party’s new president, Jacob Zuma, asserts his authority in Parliament, the provinces and the party structures, the Sunday Times reported. ANC MPs made their anxiety known in a closed meeting of the ANC’s parliamentary caucus on Thursday.
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/ 1 February 2008
A doctor who spoke out about medical conditions at Pollsmoor Prison while working there has been redeployed to another clinic, the South African Broadcasting Corporation said on Friday. Paul Theron withdrew his court application to return to the correctional facility on Friday.
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/ 30 January 2008
Prosecution procedures into alleged price-fixing by certain South African milk producers will begin next week, the Competition Commission said on Tuesday. Eight dairy companies investigated for alleged price-fixing will be involved in pre-hearings next week, said the commission’s head of enforcements and exemption.
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/ 28 January 2008
Eskom’s monopoly was the main cause of South Africa’s electricity problems and the solution lay in independent power producers (IPP), the DA said on Monday. While provision was made for IPPs to generate up to 30% of South Africa’s total electricity output, it had to be sold to Eskom and not to other users, party MP Hendrik Schmidt told journalists.
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/ 28 January 2008
African National Congress (ANC) premiers and mayors who refuse to take instructions from the organisation will be removed from their position, ANC treasurer general Mathews Phosa said on Sunday. Phosa said there was no ANC leader who was above the organisation.
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/ 27 January 2008
The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) said on Sunday that the death of Don Pasquallie (41), the union’s deputy general-secretary, was a ”profound loss” to the organisation. Pasquallie died in a car accident in Napier, near Bredasdorp in the Western Cape, at about 6am on Sunday morning.
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/ 27 January 2008
The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) said on Sunday that the death of Don Pasquallie (41), the union’s deputy general-secretary, was a ”profound loss” to the organisation. Pasquallie died in a car accident in Napier, near Bredasdorp in the Western Cape, at about 6am on Sunday morning.
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/ 27 January 2008
A guard in a surgical mask patrols a wire fence designed to keep dozens of patients with a lethal form of tuberculosis at Cape Town’s Brooklyn Chest hospital isolated from the rest of the world. Sufferers of extreme drug resistant tuberculosis, a near untreatable strain, battle boredom, depression and the side-effects of a daily palmful of pills.
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/ 26 January 2008
Three people were injured after cash-in-transit security guards were robbed in a Manenberg mall, Western Cape police said on Saturday. Spokesperson Inspector Bernadine Steyn said on Friday morning that Coin security guards did a cash pick-up at a shop in the Nyanga Junction Mall in Manenberg.
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/ 25 January 2008
The Nigerian method of low-budget movie-making is set to take off in South Africa if an upcoming producer has his way, writes Percy Zvomuya.
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/ 25 January 2008
South Africa has plenty of energy available. The problem is, we don’t have enough power. Some of the country’s biggest businesses have been queuing up to sell power to Eskom. The potential power on the table — all 5 000MW of it — is almost equivalent to two Koeberg-sized nuclear power stations.
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/ 24 January 2008
Thieving staff members caused losses worth R2,5-million in the Western Cape provincial administration in the last 12 months, the Bellville Specialised Commercial Crimes Court heard on Thursday. The deputy director in the administration’s Forensic Investigation Unit, Rajendra Naidoo, testified at the trial of a former staff member, Melanie Otto.
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/ 24 January 2008
HIV/Aids prevalence in the private security industry is at 15,9% and in the legal services industry it is at 13,8%, a study compiled by the Human Sciences Research Council has shown. Research was carried out among 2Â 787 participants from private security services in Gauteng, the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
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/ 23 January 2008
Activists and doctors on Wednesday accused the government of backsliding on promises to provide more effective treatment to prevent mothers passing on Aids to unborn children. The Treatment Action Campaign said that more than 60Â 000 babies are infected with HIV yearly in South Africa, most of them in the womb.
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/ 23 January 2008
Allegations of a ”serious rift” between Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Helen Zille and the party’s parliamentary leader, Sandra Botha, have been dismissed by the DA. ”As far as we are concerned, the story … has absolutely no facts or grounds,” DA national media officer Aimee Franklin said on Wednesday.
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/ 23 January 2008
The Western Cape’s energy risk-management committee (ERMC) is to be reactivated to deal with the latest wave of Eskom power failures to hit the region, the provincial government announced on Wednesday. The ERMC was first set up two years ago to deal with power cuts in the province at that time.
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/ 23 January 2008
The City of Cape Town is making R30-million available to restart the development of the Dreamworld Film City project, which is still hoping to turn the eastern suburbs of Cape Town into a southern-hemisphere Hollywood. Film producer Anant Singh was chosen to build the country’s first major film studio in Cape Town four years ago.
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/ 21 January 2008
Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown on Monday made his first appearance in the Cape Town Regional Court, where he is to go on trial on two charges of fraud, one of theft and one of contravening the Companies Act. Brown had previously made several appearances in the lower district court.
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/ 19 January 2008
For the second successive match, striker Tarryn Bright spared South Africa’s blushes when she landed the winning goal in her side’s 1-0 win over Ireland on Friday in the third Test played at Stellenbosch in the Western Cape. Bright also scored the lone goal in South Africa’s close-shave 1-0 victory over the tourists on Tuesday.
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/ 18 January 2008
There is a ”rising tide” of corruption in the South African Police Service [SAPS], Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille alleged on Friday. ”Minister of Safety and Security [Charles Nqakula] and the leadership of the SAPS need to find the political will to acknowledge the grave threat that police corruption poses to our country,” she said in her weekly newsletter.
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/ 17 January 2008
Outrage over the country’s ongoing power cuts spread among business, agricultural and political sectors on Thursday as Eskom announced that the risk for continued cuts over the weekend remained high. ”Load shedding will continue today [Thursday] until after evening peak and the possibility of load shedding remains high,” said Eskom.
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/ 17 January 2008
If the South African Reserve Bank needs further evidence of the dampening effect of higher rates on real economic activity, recent building data has been just that, according to independent economic analysts. A major challenge facing the government is also the extreme escalation in building costs.
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/ 16 January 2008
The South African Air Force has grounded its fleet of Pilatus Astra PC-7 MkII aircraft following the death of a pilot in a plane crash on Tuesday. The fleet would remain grounded until further notice, South African National Defence Force headquarters said on Wednesday.
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/ 15 January 2008
The Cape High Court on Tuesday again postponed the Delft eviction case — the application will now take place on January 29. The court furthermore urged Democratic Alliance city councillor Frank Martin to engage a lawyer to represent him in proceedings.
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/ 14 January 2008
Tiger Brands began charging 40 cents more for a loaf of Albany bread on Monday, with Pioneer Foods and Premier Foods in the process of considering their increases. In response, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) suggested the increases were linked to last year’s bread price-fixing scandal.
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/ 14 January 2008
The timetable for hearings into the City of Cape Town’s spy-allegation controversy will be released to the public on Tuesday, the Erasmus Commission of Inquiry said. Commission spokesperson Zithulele Twala on Monday said the commission had already finalised the timetable.
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/ 10 January 2008
The Western Cape does not have problems with either teacher numbers or places for pupils, provincial education minister Cameron Dugmore said on Thursday. He was speaking following reports of shortages in both areas in some inland provinces where schools opened this week.
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/ 10 January 2008
More than a month after he was suspended for his role in Tony Yengeni’s alleged drunk-driving incident, a senior Western Cape police officer does still not know the date of his disciplinary hearing. ”People from disciplinary management are closer to setting a date,” said Western Cape police spokesperson Director Novela Potelwa.