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/ 16 January 2007
Several publications on Tuesday expressed fears that the current restructuring of the South African Police Service (SAPS) will severely limit the media’s ability to access information. Up until the restructuring started, media outlets approached designated police officers at area level. However, media organisations have now been told to contact designated officers at a provincial level.
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/ 16 January 2007
Crime-combating strategies should be decentralised and province-specific, the South African Institute for Race Relations said on Tuesday. Researcher Kerwin Lebone said the institute advocated the decentralisation of crime-fighting strategies following the release of a report on crime across the provinces.
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/ 15 January 2007
The call for land invasions in Hout Bay by the Congress of South African Trade Union’s Western Cape secretary, Tony Ehrenreich, is irresponsible, illegal and a red flag to investors, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon said on Monday. Ehrenreich maintains there is a ”battle unfolding” in Hout Bay.
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/ 15 January 2007
Former African National Congress (ANC) chief whip and fraud convict Tony Yengeni was released from the Malmesbury prison on Monday morning. Yengeni was set free having served just more than four months of his original four-year sentence. Earlier, a group of senior Western Cape ANC leaders arrived at the Malmesbury prison to welcome him back into society.
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/ 15 January 2007
Fraud convict Tony Yengeni received two high-profile visitors at the Malmesbury Prison on Sunday –- African National Congress deputy president Jacob Zuma and Minister of Correctional Services Ngconde Balfour. While Zuma’s visit was a social one, Balfour’s was official, the department said in a statement.
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/ 12 January 2007
Fraud convict Tony Yengeni looks set to receive a warm welcome when he is released on parole from Malmesbury Prison on Monday morning. The African National Congress in the Western Cape said on Friday several of its senior members will be there to greet their party’s former chief whip, including provincial secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha and chairperson James Ngculu.
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/ 11 January 2007
During December, when South Africans seem determined to be merry or drown their sorrows with the help of alcohol, more than 1 000 intoxicated drivers were arrested throughout the country. In KwaZulu-Natal, 673 people were caught for drunken driving from December 1 to January 10.
Shebeens near schools are a source of school violence and an access to drugs and alcohol for minors, the Young Communist League of South Africa said on Tuesday. The league was announcing at a Johannesburg press conference the launch of its Joe Slovo ”Right to Learn” campaign, which will run from Thursday until the end of January.
The bodies of a husband and wife who were swept out to sea along with their daughter by a wave in Camps Bay in the Western Cape were recovered in Bakhoven, police said on Sunday. Spokesperson Captain Randall Stoffels said paramedics tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate the woman on Sunday.
Four tourists were trapped for about two hours in darkness inside the Cango Caves near Oudtshoorn in the Western Cape, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) reported on Sunday. The four were separated from their group, but when the cave lights went out, they were unable to find their way out.
Fourteen retired top cops are to assist police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi in the fight against crime, the Sunday newspaper Rapport said. The 14, all former commissioners, were asked in October to assist Selebi on an advisory council on policy matters.
Plans to build a 68 000-seater stadium for Cape Town to host a 2010 Soccer World Cup semifinal got the green light from the provincial government on Friday when it dismissed a series of appeals. The Western Cape province upheld the initial environmental authorisation and approved applications for the rezoning of the stadium grounds.
A vehicle-testing station owner has appeared in the King William’s Town Magistrate’s Court for allegedly trying to bribe an Eastern Cape transport official, the provincial transport department said on Thursday. Johannesburg businessman Haron Bhika appeared in court on Tuesday charged with corruption, said Eastern Cape traffic control deputy director Mqondisi Kulati.
The festive-season death toll on South Africa’s roads has dropped despite an increase in the number of cars and drivers, the Department of Transport said on Tuesday. Spokesperson Ntau Letebele said 1Â 366 people had died in 1Â 168 crashes over the December 2006 period — a drop from 1Â 454 deaths in 2005.
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/ 30 December 2006
A total of 1 277 people have died in 1 104 traffic accidents since December 1, the Department of Transport said on Friday. Spokesperson Collen Msibi said that while this was a slight decrease compared to 1 372 deaths in the same period last year, the department was concerned about the increase of fatal crashes involving pedestrians.
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/ 23 December 2006
There is an ineluctable rule of politics in developing democratic states: ruling liberation parties tend to grow in influence from election to election and the opposition declines. It holds true for South Africa’s ruling African National Congress — and for the current bleak picture for the opposition.
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/ 23 December 2006
Western Cape environment minister Tasneem Essop will decide on the rezoning of the Green Point Stadium in January, Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool said on Friday. This was agreed to on Friday following meetings between legal and technical experts from the Western Cape provincial government and the City of Cape Town.
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/ 22 December 2006
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) was not divided into pro-Zuma and pro-Mbeki camps. Zwelinzima Vavi, the union’s general secretary, said they had ”spent the year trying to convince the media that Cosatu has not taken any decision to support [African National Congress (ANC) deputy president] Jacob Zuma, or anyone else, as the next president of the ANC and South Africa”.
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/ 22 December 2006
Legal and technical experts from the Western Cape provincial government and the City of Cape Town met on Thursday to discuss a way forward on the city’s proposed 2010 Soccer World Cup stadium. Mayor Helen Zille said the experts were seeking a way to ”resolve the development approvals” required for the construction and would continue their work on Friday.
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/ 21 December 2006
Cape Town mayor Helen Zille will be to blame if Cape Town loses the 2010 Soccer World Cup semifinal, Independent Democrats (ID) leader in the city council Simon Grindrod said on Thursday. ”I’m holding Helen Zille personally responsible if we lose the World Cup [event],” he said.
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/ 21 December 2006
Cape Town mayor Helen Zille on Wednesday evening rejected a claim by Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool that the city had committed a major procedural blunder over the proposed Green Point 2010 Soccer World Cup stadium. An angry Rasool called on Zille to summon an urgent council meeting to rectify what he said was an error threatening the already-fragile construction timetable.
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/ 19 December 2006
The Cape Flats aquifer, which has the potential to supply Cape Town with billions of litres of fresh water a year, is under growing threat from chemical pollution, say experts. The chemicals, among others, that have found their way down into the water-bearing rock include nitrates from human waste, cyanide from industry and pesticides sprayed by local farmers.
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/ 18 December 2006
A state of emergency must be declared over the Aids pandemic sweeping South Africa and the country’s teachers and the defence force mobilised to tackle the problem, the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) said on Monday. PAC secretary general Achmad Cassiem said money to fund this could come from cancelling the government’s arms-procurement programme.
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/ 17 December 2006
Taliep Petersen, one of Cape Town’s most popular theatre personalities, was shot and killed during an armed robbery at his Athlone home on Saturday night, police said on Sunday. Petersen was internationally known and awarded for his work with David Kramer on the hit 1990s stage musical Kat and the Kings, among others.
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/ 14 December 2006
The Western Cape’s network of fire-alarm cameras has been improved to alert water-bombers even faster to shack and wildfires in the province, disaster workers said on Wednesday. More than 100 people died and 28 000 were left destitute in 2 000 fires in informal settlements in the city in 2005.
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/ 13 December 2006
South African IT services company Galdon Data is experiencing an increased demand for call-centre solutions and services in Cape Town, it said on Wednesday. The company said it strongly believes that the call-centre industry is set for major growth over the next few years, as South Africa becomes the preferred call-centre hub in Africa.
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/ 12 December 2006
Scientists in South Africa unveiled the country’s most powerful weapon yet in their fight against Aids, malaria and tuberculosis when they switched on a new supercomputer dedicated to scientific research this week. The supercomputer is designed to process huge amounts of complex information and to deliver data with astonishing speed.
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/ 11 December 2006
Former Western Cape provincial minister of environment and planning David Malatsi was on Monday sentenced to a five-year jail term for his role in the Roodefontein corruption case. Bellville regional magistrate Andre le Grange, however, immediately granted him leave to appeal his conviction.
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/ 11 December 2006
Cocooned inside a Cape Town warehouse is South Africa’s bid for power on the seas: a ,5-million Stealth catamaran, the latest offering from a burgeoning boat-building industry. Dubbed the Flying Gurnard, the Stealth 540, sold before tasting salt water, is a hydrofoil-assisted catamaran which its makers say offers greater speed and fuel efficiency than other power boats.
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/ 8 December 2006
All six of the municipal police chiefs say they support embattled police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi. The chiefs said they commended Selebi ”for remaining unfazed in the face of the scurrilous statements which have been bandied around in the recent weeks”.
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/ 8 December 2006
Afro-pessimists must reflect gleefully on the steady stream of corruption scandals fixating the post-apartheid South African media. After all, this is Africa, they say knowingly, and we are merely a postcolonial Johnny-come-lately to the continental way of doing things.
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/ 7 December 2006
The Department of Education must give teachers detailed salary advice so they know what money is owed to them and what the money is for, the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa said on Thursday. However, the department slammed unions for ”misinformed and inflammatory” remarks.