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The South African Police Service (SAPS) will be out in force this festive season, patrolling all tourist destinations and prioritising robberies, cash-in-transit heists and ATM bombings.

Sport

Sport

They came from the dusty rural and farm school playgrounds and gathered at the Boksburg Stadium to show off their sporting talents.

Some of them came to the city for the first time in their lives to take part in the finals of the Transnet Rural and Farm Schools Tournament in October.

International relations

South Africa is campaigning for the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to include African representatives.

Africa, which comprises 54 countries, is not represented in the UNSC, the permanent category of the organisation’s peace and security organ.

International relations

South Africa’s prospects for growth and development will depend increasingly on diversifying and strengthening of economic links with countries in the south, said Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies.

If you receive a social grant from a cash pay point or the Post Office, you have until the end of December to re-register on the new biometric-based payment system to receive a new South African Social Service Agency (SASSA) payment card.

You can use your SASSA card to get your social grant from an ATM, a cash pay point or a retail store.

According to Minister of Social Development, Minister Bathabile Dlamini, SASSA started the process of verifying and reregistering beneficiaries in March and will complete the process by the end of March 2013.

Building a university and hosting the square kilometre array (SKA) in the Northern Cape will boost economic development in the province, President Jacob Zuma said during his visit to Carnarvon in the Northern Cape, where the SKA’s first seven telescope dishes have been erected and put into operation.

After years of waiting, residents of Elliotdale in the Eastern Cape are finally proud owners of new houses that will replace the old mud structures they have called home over the years. Eastern Cape Human Settlements MEC Helen Sauls-August handed over 200 houses in the first phase of the Elliotdale Rural Sustainable Human Settlements Project recently to beneficiaries of the government housing subsidy grant. These people fall in the income bracket of between R3 500 and R7 500 per month.

Desperation drove Jessica Marobane to call the Office of the President on 18 September asking for funding to study to be a pilot. The cost for the training of becoming a pilot amounted to R408 763.50. She applied for bursaries at different institutions without success. Since her single mother, Dorothy, could not afford to pay her tuition fees, Jessica decided to contact the toll-free Presidential Hotline.

Know your Ministers

Thanks to the Reading for Redemption Campaign, offenders at some prisons are reading books and dis- covering the pleasures of reading and learning.