By Obakeng Maje

PRETORIA: The North West police offer a R200 000,00 reward for information that may lead to the arrest and successful conviction of suspects responsible for the murder of a regional secretary of the African National Congress (ANC) in the Kenneth Kaunda Municipality, on Friday last week. 

“Mr David Mosiane Chika (33) was shot at point-blank range in the driveway of his Klerksdorp home in Alabama Extension 2” spokesperson said.

Anyone with information may contact the Hawks Unit:  Colonel Clifford Kgorane at 082 4923 921 or Lieutenant Colonel Rasekaka Makuoane at 071 4812 574.

By Obakeng Maje

Bafana Bafana have arrived in Durban ahead of their international friendly match against Malawi at the Moses Mabhida Stadium on Saturday, 22 December 2012.

The match kicks off at 17h00.

The South Africans landed in Durban on Thursday morning (20 December) to a warm welcome from a group of traditional Zulu dancers at the King Zwelithini International Airport.

They had their first training session at People’s Parks in the afternoon, with the final one scheduled for Friday morning (21 December) at the match venue.

All 23 players have reported for duty with the exception of Belgium-based Ayanda Patosi who has been withdrawn from the squad due to club commitments.

“I have been given assurances by his club that Patosi will be here on the 27th December in time for the mini-training camp that will be held in Johannesburg from the 27th to the 30th of December.

“I have seen his video footage but I need to get a closer look at him in a game situation.  I am not too worried though because I will assess him during next week’s training camp,” said Bafana Bafana head coach Gordon Igesund at a press conference in Durban.

Orlando Pirates defender Siyabonga Sangweni missed the afternoon’s training session after requesting leave of absence to sort out family matters at home. He is expected back in camp in the evening.

Also not training with the team was Kaizer Chiefs duo of Siphiwe Tshabalala and Bernard Parker. Both were on the sidelines after being rested as a precautionary measure.

Igesund added that he had a good predicament as all players have shown huge appetite to go out there and represent their country at next month’s Africa Cup of Nations tournament.

“I need to get the balance right for this match against Malawi which is the last one where I will be able to look at individual players.

“We want to win the match and I am happy the players have put their hands up that they want to be part of the AFCON 2013. This is good for me and my technical team and most importantly good for the country when we have such healthy competition for places. The critical question now is who to leave out,” added Igesund.

Malawi is already in Durban having arrived in the coastal city on Monday (17 December) ahead of the Saturday encounter.

The Flames, coached by Kinnah Phiri, arrived with a 20-man squad, which boasts players like Robert Ng’ambi, Josephy Kamwendo, Atusaye Nyondo and Chiukepo Msowoya.

Meanwhile, tickets for the Bafana/Flames encounter are still available and members of the public are advised to purchase their tickets early. They can be acquired at Checkers, Shoprite/Checkers and Shoprite stores as well as Computicket outlets countrywide.

Durban – Locked in a bedroom of her family’s Westville North home, Ashleigh Bothma clutched on to her friend, Chevonne Maré, and listened as her father fought off three men who were attacking him with granite and concrete slabs.

Then everything went quiet. The young women heard people running through the passages and the sound of things being smashed.

“I phoned the paramedics and told them that I did not know if my parents were dead or alive and that they had better come quickly,” Ashleigh said.

The 23-year-old was speaking from the scene of the attack on Wednesday. The previous night the Bothmas had become the latest victims of a spate of vicious attacks that have plagued the Highway area in recent months. This time, though, police shot and killed one of the suspects.

Ashleigh’s 57-year-old father, John, survived the ordeal and was recovering in hospital on Wednesday.

Her mother, Sherril, 51, retold the harrowing story.

It was 10pm and she and her husband were watching television in the living room. They had armed the external security beams and heard the alarm go off. Sherril went to the kitchen and saw three men peering through the window.

“I yelled to John, grabbed Ashleigh and Chevonne and ran into a bedroom,” she said. “By that time the men were outside the dining room window. John ran towards them, shouting, but they appeared unfazed. They picked up a granite slab and smashed the window.”

After waiting for a few minutes Sherril ventured out to see what had happened to her husband. Two of the men were standing over John with a slab of concrete.

“I thought he was done for.”

Sherril locked her daughter and Chevonne in the bedroom and, cellphone in hand, headed for the street.

She phoned the police and waited in the road.

In the meantime, Ashleigh phoned paramedics and left the bedroom to check on her father.

The attackers had fled. They had disconnected the television, but dumped it outside. Nothing was stolen.

“There was blood everywhere,” Ashleigh recalled.

Westville police as well as the metro police dog unit responded to the incident.

For more details go to http://www.iol.co.za

The rand was largely steady against the dollar on Thursday, with sentiment largely positive after a leadership conference of the ruling ANC allayed investor fears of any radical policy shifts. 

The currency was at R8.5060 to the greenback by 08:05 GMT, little changed from Wednesday’s close at R8.4850. 

“We’re not expecting anything major today, we’re firmly entrenched in holiday markets, and more broadly the scene is more positive for risk,” said Absa Capital trader Duncan Howes. 

“The major risk event for the local currency, being the Mangaung conference, is pretty much out of the way and I don’t think there’s going to be too much movement.” 

Investors had been nervous that the ANC’s conference in Mangaung this week could herald a shift towards more populist policies like state intervention and takeover of mines in the world’s largest platinum producer. 

But fears of outright nationalisation have abated, and investors took comfort in the election by the ANC of respected businessman Cyril Ramaphosa as its deputy president. He will  serve with President Jacob Zuma, who was re-elected ANC chief. 

For the rest of the week, the rand should meet resistance around the R8.30 area while finding support at R8.55/60, traders said. 

Government bonds were also largely stable in early trade, with the yields for the 14-year benchmark and the three-year paper each edging up half a basis point to 7.26% and 5.35% respectively.

news24.com

by Obakeng Maje

Johannesburg-Ralf GUM is one of the most respected figures in the house music scene for the distinctive qualities in his exceptional productions and DJ-sets.

Since Ralf’s DJ career started in 1990 he always stayed true to his passion for cool and diverse house music.

Harmony & Soul & Groove – are the main ingredients, but just some aspects of Ralf’s typical sound. With an instinctive feeling for the right vibe, he convincingly played at more than 400 German and international spots, including gigs all over Europe, Asia, the Middle East, South- and North America.

In autumn 2008 Ralf toured in South Africa for the first time with great response and was the first German house DJ who was booked in Botswana.

Since that time Ralf’s punishing deejay schedule includes regularly dates in Southern Africa.

Ralf GUM – Never Leaves You – album GOLD awarded in South Africa!

“This is a definite highlight in my career.

To reach such a success with a deep soulful house CD release is nowadays probably only possible in the world’s #1 house-nation Mzansi” He said.

Ralf GUM produced music since 1993 and worked with notable artists such as Inaya Day, Beady Belle, Robert Owens, Kenny Bobien, Michael Procter, Wunmi, Concha Buika or the fascinating Monique Bingham. He released on and remixed for top house labels like Mn2S, Papa, Peppermint Jam, Tommy Boy, Compose, Sole Music, Look At You or Defected.

His first remix for Defected’s classic record ‘Love is what you need (Look ahead)’ by King Unique instantly went to the 1 position on Traxsource’s download charts in March 2009.

Ralf has released numerous well-known songs, amongst them the soulful hit of 2008 “Kissing Strangers” (GOGO Music) featuring Monique Bingham, which was a bestseller in its genre.

Thus it scored the number 1 in the “Top 100 Singles 2008” and the “biggest house track 2008” in the annual chart of the ultra-credible Traxsource download-shop.

Alone in 2009 Ralf’s works made it 4 times to the top spot in the Traxsource sales chart and he claimed various more Top 10 positions.

But his success of course isn’t limited to the Traxsource charts.

He had various 1 download-chart positions on Clickgroove, made it to the Top 10 sales of various other download shops and his single “Little W. 12th St.” was amongst the 10 best selling house-songs of the year on the Japanese download-site Wasabeat in 2009.

His records are constantly receiving worldwide airplay and can be found in countless playlists of major radio stations including e.g. UK’s “BBC 1”, France’s “Radio FG” or South Africa’s “Metro FM”. Moreover he gained number one positions in the playlists “YFM’s Urban Top 40” or Botswana’s Yarona Mascom Charts where he stayed for instance for 4 weeks with “Complicated feat. Kafele” in May 2010. Further acclaimed hits of Ralf include “All This Love For You” (GOGO Music) featuring Diamondancer, “Ponle Tumbao” (Tommy Boy / Flamingo Discos / Milk & Sugar), “Helena Brown – Canção Dourada” (Peppermint Jam) or „Ralf GUM feat. Concha Buika – Nobody can touch me” (GOGO Music). Ralf GUM’s productions became a worldwide renown trademark in the house scene and UK’S TTR magazine called Ralf “one of Germany’s finest” already in 2005.

“Many people deserve a thank you, as they helped to achieve this, I almost don’t know where to begin … 

of course many thanks to Nivalito for composing the songs with me, all vocalists (Monique Bingham, Caron Wheeler, Jaidene Veda, @Oluhle, Robert Owens, Jocelyn Mathieu, Kafele Bandele, Kenny Bobien, Jon Pierce) for their outstanding performances, Phil Kullmann (aka Raw Artistic Soul) for the support on recordings, Christos for setting up a string of beautiful launch parties and everything else he does for me, all radio- and TV shows who gave me the opportunity for an appearance, press- and online-media who supported, Themba and Kaiser, Masterlab, HOUSE AFRIKA and Sony Music Entertainment – Africa for believing in the project, (everybody else I might have forgotten here now ;)) and FIRST OF ALL: YOU out there who bought the album so far” said Ralf.

But Ralf not only convinces as a producer, but also his DJ-sets have helped him building up his reputation as an forward thinking tastemaker. During his career he had various residencies in South-Germany including the “Airport” (Wuerzburg /Germany), which was the living-room for his interpretation of house for more than 11 years. During more than a decade he captured the crowd with his sessions every Friday night and hosted other worlds-top artists like DJ Gregory, Martin Solveig, Lenny Fontana or Frankie Feliciano, to name just a few. End of 2006 Ralf started his residency at Climax in Stuttgart (Germany), where he can be found regularly since then. From 2002 till 2007 Ralf was holding a bi-weekly event at “Studio-Lounge” (Wuerzburg, Germany) which was called “the deepest and most soulful party of Germany” by the Subculture Magazine.

In 2009 Ralf’s tight schedule included 2 extensive South Africa tours and Ralf was invited by DJU and the department of Arts and Culture to conduct various work shops at the Southern African Music conference.

In 2010 and 2011 Ralf was selected again as international panellist for the annual Southern African Music Conference where he was teaching about music-production, label business, DJ-ing and more.

Nowadays he is frequently found in various South African cities. As a DJ Ralf is steadily travelling and played at some of the best events around the world, including e.g. the “Southport Weekender” (Southport, UK), “Rave on Snow” (Saalbach, Austria), “Nature One” (Germany), “Sundaze” (Jakarta, Indonesia), “Dancevalley” (Amsterdam, Netherlands), “Mo’Vibes” (Munich, Germany) or the “Vodacom Unlimited Festival” (Orlando Stadium, Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa) which was attended by more than 15000 people. He graced the decks at clubs like “360” (Dubai, UAE), “El Devino” (Ibiza, Spain), “Amika” (Miami, USA), “The Room” (Tokyo, Japan), “ECU / Echoes” (Rimini, Italy), “Garito Café” (Palma de Mallorca, Spain), “Disco” (Sao Paulo, Brasil), “Volksgarten” (Vienna, Austria), “House 22” (Pretoria, South Africa), “Days like this” (Birmingham, UK), “Barokko” (Budapest, Hungary) “Marula Cafe” (Madrid, Spain), “Soulstice” (Oslo, Norway), “Oxa” (Zürich, Switzerland), “Atlantis” (Basel, Switzerland), “Stereo Sushi” (Antwerp, Belgium), “Mansion” (Amsterdam, Netherlands), “GURU Club” (Tibisli, Georgia), “Pacha” (Palma de Mallorca, Spain) or “Cocoon” (Frankfurt, Germany).

“Stay tuned…it is not done yet” he outlines. 

Ralf GUM embarked on the development of his own record label GOGO Music in 2001.

With strong ambitions and his love for music being the driving force, GOGO Music has become Germany’s, if not one of world’s most reputable soulful house music labels.

Late 2005 GOGO Music was called “one of the hottest imprints around” by UK’s leading magazine “Blues & Soul” and Germany’s “Subculture” wrote that “GOGO Music is the prime German house label”. In April 2009 Chicago’s best house music publication “5 Magazine” wrote, that “GOGO Music has become synonymous with the best Deep House produced in Europe” and 2010 UK’s magazine “SoulM8” certified that “GOGO Music is “one of Germany’s best independent labels”.

With his label-work Ralf has been pivotal for the international breakthrough of artists like Raw Artistic Soul or Black Coffee and the discovery of many other outstanding talents.

In 2003 Ralf initiated the GOGO Music radio-show.

What began as a monthly show transmitted on one internet-radio rapidly became one of the most popular broadcasts within the house community and beyond.

Since early 2006 the radio show is done on a weekly basis and is to date aired by more than 30 FM- and internet-stations around the globe.

The GOGO Music radio show residents Ralf GUM and Benny Pecoraio (aka Ben Moss) plus few selected guests are presenting hebdomadal nothing but the finest house music in a pure one hour DJ mix.

Next to his Ralf GUM productions, he started two further projects. “SUGAR BEAT”, is a collaboration with drummer Steffen Meder which developed out of their unique live performance: “Jazzy Live Drums & Uplifting Spinning”. With SUGAR BEAT’s irresistible sound a new broken beat style is being created. After some sweet remixes on GOGO Music, in 2006 the first own productions have been released on the “GOGO Music Spring Collection 06”. Together with soul-mate Benny Pecoraio, Ralf joined forces and started “4 Ears”.

Their first release ‘Can’t Be Without You’ was signed to Canadian deep house label Iwanai Music and hit immediately the Traxsource Top10.

During his career Ralf had the pleasure to compile and mix various CD-Compilations including for example “Arrival Vol. I” in 2004, a double Mix-CD together with Howard Donald (of famous pop-group Take That), for which they toured together all over Germany.

As well in 2004 Ralf’s compilation “Studio – the finest in lounge and house music”, was released and selected as CD of the month in the December edition of Germany’s “Raveline” magazine.

In February 2005 the first GOGO Music label-compilation “GO!” including highlights of the first 3 years label work came out. It was called the best compilation of the year by UK’S “TTR” magazine.

In October 2006 the second part “GO!!” hit the market and achieved likewise attention and success as the first edition.

In 2006 Ralf GUM held his first GOGO Music Winter Music Conference event in Miami with great success. With an impressive line-up including e.g. Kenny Dixon Jr aka Moodyman, Theo Parrish, Markus Enochson, Glenn Underground plus the GOGO Music DJs, the party went down in a storm and was one of the most talked about at the conference. 2007 saw GOGO Music teaming up with Atal Music and Bubble Soul for a joint WMC event at Hotel Victor, called “Yes Please”. With an equally great line-up including e.g. Jamie Lewis, Raw Artistic Soul and many others, it was a great success and the kick-off for further “Yes Please” parties:

The critical acclaimed WMC event in 2008 at Sagamore and the ADE 2008 event at Mansion. More highlights worth to adduce are Ralf’s appearance at MTV’s “Battle of the DJs” in April 2003 and several invitations to the You.FM Clubnight , a show dedicated to electronic music and club culture, which was transmitted on the German national radio-and TV-station Hessischer Rundfunk (2 times in 2005, one time in 2006, 2007 and 2009).

In 2008 Ralf GUM unveiled his long awaited debut masterpiece album titled “Uniting Music” on his label GOGO Music. Composing a continuous piece of music, seamless and blended into a luscious texture of soulful-, afro-and latin-house and jazz inspired grooves, Ralf showcased his ability to create wonderful original songs. With each song intertwining with another, he’s pushing the boundaries well beyond the traditional dj mix sense! Almost seeming like one beautiful track the whole album contained it all: really pretty dreamy tracks, some real groovin’ live sounding deals and some late night slices of hypnotic house, too. The album received great plaudit worldwide, as for example UK’s “M8” Magazine called the CD „simply one of the best albums of the year” and the German 3Sat TV show “Kulturzeit” wrote on its web-site that “no single second of the album bores”. “Uniting Music” was released by Rambling Records in Japan and by Soul Candi in South Africa, too.

The hallmark of Ralf’s sound is his love for jazzy harmonies coupled with wicked underground beats. But the distinctive groove isn’t the only reason for Ralf’s success – his passion for all things soulful shines through in all he does. This helps him creating a simply irresistible groove every time he emerges from the studio or works the turntables. Due to his successful work in various areas there is no denying that Ralf GUM has established in the top-league of the most prolific dj/producers in the house scene.

Links: 

Label-website: http://www.GOGO-Music.net

Artist-web-site: http://www.RalfGUM.com

Facebook-site: facebook.com/Ralf.GUM.GOGO 

Myspace-site: http://www.myspace.com/RalfGUM

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/RalfGUM

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/RalfGUM 

Soundcloud: http://www.soundcloud.com/ralf-gum-gogo-music

IMPRESSUM

Ralf Benkert

Am Heegring 25

97450 Arnstein-Gänheim

Germany 

Tel & Fax: +49 (0) 9363 995525

Persönlich Haftender: Ralf Benkert

Umsatzsteuer-Identifikationsnummer gemäß § 27a Umsatzsteuergesetz: DE 250826181

Inhaltlich Verantwortlicher gemäß § 10 Abs. 3 MDStV: Ralf Benkert

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Bloemfontein – Alliance partners Cosatu and the ANC are headed for another showdown soon after the Mangaung conference as the unionists prepare to launch a strike action to demand radical transformation policies, placing further strain on already testy relations between the two organisations.

On Sunday, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe launched a scathing attack on Cosatu at the party’s national conference in Mangaung for failing to contain its criticisms of the government within the alliance.

“It is always awkward when any alliance partner pronounces negatively on the other alliance partners and the other partners only discover the problem in the media. Alerting the other alliance partner is not tantamount to giving away the right to take independent decisions.”

The relationship between the allies has been troubled by Cosatu’s opposition to the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (e-tolling) in Gauteng, the Protection of State Information Bill and general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi’s public criticism of the ANC’s corruption and poor governance record.

Just before the ANC’s Mangaung conference, the trade union federation announced that it would seek to embark on a socioeconomic protest to spark a radical transformation of the economy.

“Whilst 1994 marked an important breakthrough and a crucial turning point in the struggles of the working class in South Africa, the democracy that it has ushered in has yet to deliver tangible material benefits to the vast majority of the working class,” Cosatu said in a statement.

“The Freedom Charter declares that in a democratic South Africa, ‘There Shall Be Work and Security’! It further demands that: ‘The state shall recognise the right and duty of all to work’. Yet, all the policies that have been adopted in the past 18 years have failed to deliver on the fundamentals: unemployment reduction, poverty elimination and the reduction of social and economic inequality.”

Cosatu will demand that the ANC must enact tighter labour regulation and greater state intervention in the economy, such as a state-controlled banking system and 100% state control of the Reserve Bank.

The federation’s second largest affiliate, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) wants the outright nationalisation of economic sectors such as mining and energy.

for more details go to http://www.iol.co.za