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Western Cape Premier and New National Party leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk has emerged as the most popular premier candidate in that province in a Markinor poll conducted in January/February. In KwaZulu-Natal, the African National Congress’s top-ranking candidate for the legislature, S’bu Ndebele, won the popularity stake in the poll.
Special Report: Elections 2004
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South African official opposition leader Tony Leon has questioned the shroud of silence which hangs in ruling African National Congress circles over the prospect that Finance Minister Trevor Manuel could be deputy president one day.
Special Report: Elections 2004
The Karoo dorp of Beaufort West is a curious mix. It is the birthplace of heart surgeon Christiaan Barnard and has a museum in his honour. It is the place where anti-apartheid activists downed a helicopter in the 1980s. Unemployment stands at an estimated 60% among the about 60Â 000 Central Karoo residents. Taking the Central Karoo from bust to boom needs more jobs that will stay.
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Ten percent to 12% of the vote — that is what Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille predicts her party will get in next month’s general election. The fiery party leader, called the one-woman-show by many of her opponents, on Tuesday introduced her provincial leaders and premier’s candidates to the media.
Special Report: Elections 2004
The Western Cape director of public prosecutions has decided not to prosecute three men arrested in connection with a fatal shootout last week in front of former president Nelson Mandela’s Constantia home, SABC radio reported on Tuesday. The three men had been facing charges of attempted murder.
The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) will have to hold a formal hearing regarding a complaint lodged by the South African Jewish Board of Deputies concerning a broadcast on Muslim station Radio 786 that the board alleges was anti-Jewish.
Thousands of Capetonians participated in Monday’s Freedom Parade, the public launch of the 10 Years of Freedom celebrations in the Western Cape. The parade saw two processions parading from opposite sides of the Cape Flats to converge at Athlone Stadium.
Education Minister Kader Asmal’s intention to appoint a truth commission to deal with the damage of apartheid education would be a divisive step, says Western Cape education minister Andre Gaum. It would merely open up old wounds and not contribute to improving the education system, says Gaum.
The right to vote and the opportunity it provides for an individual to contribute to social change is a very simple, powerful tool in the democratic process, and we in South Africa have waited long and suffered much to secure this right. For this reason alone we should all discharge our responsibility as voting citizens with due care and informed thought.
The three men who were arrested following the shooting of an ex-soldier outside former president Nelson Mandela’s home on Tuesday were to appear in court on Thursday afternoon. The matter would be postponed for seven days to allow the police to conclude its investigation, directorate spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi said.
A decision on whether to prosecute three men arrested following the shooting of an ex-soldier outside former President Nelson Mandela’s home will be made on Thursday. Authorities have 48 hours from their arrests to charge the men, or free them.
A third man has been arrested in connection with an incident outside former president Nelson Mandela’s home on Tuesday in which a disgruntled former soldier was shot dead, police said on Wednesday afternoon. The man was arrested in Knysna in the Western Cape around 10pm on Tuesday, according to police spokesperson Senior Superintendent Selby Bokaba.
The Greenpoint and Seapoint areas of Cape Town, known as relatively high crime areas in the city, are set to receive eight new CCTV cameras as part of an expansion of the municipal government’s crime-fighting efforts. Western Cape Premier Marthinus van Schalkwyk said that R4,3-million had been allocated for the project.
The Minister of Health has until close of business on Wednesday to respond to a letter of demand from the Treatment Action Campaign, or face litigation. The letter, sent on March 10, gave her seven days to authorise the immediate procurement of anti-retroviral drugs.
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Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon spelled out on Tuesday the goals of his party’s ”Coalition for Change” with the Inkatha Freedom Party, and predicted the two parties would win up to 30% of the national vote on Election Day. He said the coalition aimed to provide the ”core of an alternative government”.
The poor infection control practices in some of South Africa’s top academic hospitals raise the spectre of ”unexplained” HIV/Aids transmission, an article in the SA Medical Journal says. ”There is an urgent need to re-evaluate and improve infection control practices in health care settings,” the article concludes.
Gauteng province’s roll-out of antiretroviral drugs for HIV/Aids patients will begin on April 1, health MEC Gwen Ramokgopa said on Monday. The province hoped to treat about 100 new cases a week, starting in five hospitals, and expanding to 23 institutions by this time next year.
Black economic empowerment companies (BEE) have improved their share of spending by Old Mutual Properties on outsourced services for buildings in the company’s portfolios to 56% in 2004, according to Richard Murphy, head of the facilities management division.
The funeral of the late Transport Minister Dullah Omar will take place in Rylands, Cape Town on Saturday afternoon, it was announced on Saturday morning. Omar died in the Constantiaberg Medi-Clinic at 4am on Saturday morning –just days short of his 70th birthday — after a 15-month battle with Hodgkins Disease, a form of cancer.
Condolences on the death of Transport Minister Dullah Omar — who died in a Cape Town hospital in the early hours of Saturday morning — poured in from well wishers. Omar will be given an official funeral with ”all the honours due to a serving member of cabinet” government spokesperson Joel Netshitenzhe said.
Omar: A biography
Omar wanted ‘simple burial’
Dullah Omar, first names Abdullah Mohamed, was born in Cape Town on May 26, 1934. He became the first Minister of Justice of the new democratic South Africa.
He also became the first Cabinet Minister to be appointed as acting President of South Africa in the absence of the president and deputy presidents.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>The Democratic Alliance has rejected African Christian Democratic Party complaints about the DA’s election radio adverts that urge voters not to waste their vote on one of the smaller parties, saying the ACDP has missed the point.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=32518">ACDP: ‘Greedy’ DA not playing fair</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3_fl2.asp?o=40922">Special Report: Elections 2004</a>
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>Official opposition Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon has taken the New National Party Western Cape premier to task for pledging that he would open a new airport near Atlantis in the Western Cape. "There is no way that Van Schalkwyk can deliver a new airport in Atlantis," Leon said on Thursday.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3_fl2.asp?o=40922">Special Report: Elections 2004</a>
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) announced on Tuesday that it plans to apply for a Cape High Court interdict to stop the sale of the Golden Arrow bus company to black empowerment consortium Hosken Consolidated Investments and Mettle Limited for R270-million.
The Western Cape is to extend its anti-retroviral treatment to include every child under 14 who needs it, Premier Marthinus van Schalkwyk said on Monday. The province is acknowledged as having one of South Africa’s most effective treatment programmes.
President Thabo Mbeki launched the Urban Renewal Programme in 2001 to target development in the eight urban areas with the highest poverty levels in South Africa. Approximately R200-million will be invested in Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain this financial year.
Swart- en rooigevaar tactics have taken a new twist with the red and black posters strung up by the Democratic Whatever on lamp-posts throughout Mitchells Plain on the Cape Flats. ”The NNP is with the ANC” is the DW’s message specifically for residents of one of the largest coloured communities in the Western Cape
The increase in the number of deaths on the population register is an indictment of government’s handling of the Aids pandemic, the United Democratic Movement and Democratic Alliance said on Wednesday. The number of deaths on the register rose by 68% over the past six years to 457Â 000 in 2003.
<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/41909/10-X-Logo.gif" align=left>The Western Cape leader of the Freedom Front Plus, Dr Corne Mulder, faces a criminal investigation after he was allegedly seen removing Democratic Alliance posters at the weekend. However, Mulder, who is also the brother of FF+ leader Pieter Mulder, on Tuesday angrily denied a DA claim that he broke the law.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3_fl2.asp?o=40922">Special Report: Elections 2004</a>
A recent international study conducted in South Africa confirms that social pensions play a significant role in alleviating poverty. The pension system is a firmly entrenched feature of South Africa’s social welfare framework. The country has an unemployment rate of more than 40%, making a conventional, contributory pension scheme unworkable.