Vito Roberto Palazzolo
Vito Roberto Palazzolo (; born 31 July 1947) is an Italian businessman previously living in South Africa. Born in Terrasini, he moved to South Africa in the mid-1980s. He also goes by the name Robert von Palace Kolbatschenko. He is alleged to be a member of the Sicilian Mafia, an allegation he denies.Il boss finanziere della mafia , Antimafia Duemila, N° 28, January 2003 In March 2009, the highest court in Italy confirmed a 2006 nine-year sentence for association with the Mafia.Il Sudafric ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Terrasini
Terrasini is a international touristic centre most popular in Sicily. It is a ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Palermo on the island of Sicily in Italy. Data Terrasini is located west of Palermo at the motorway between Palermo and Trapani, between the mountains and the Gulf of Castellammare near the Palermo International Airport. Terrasini's population works mainly in fishing and tourism. Bounding communes are: Carini, Cinisi, San Vito Lo Capo, Balestrate, Partinico and Trappeto. History The name Terrasini probably derives from Latin "terra sinus" = "land at the gulf" (the Gulf of Castellamare) or from "terra sinorum" = "land of the bays" due to the strongly curved coastline with a large number of larger and smaller bays. The name was first cited for the region in a letter from the archive of the abbey San Martino delle Scale near Monreale of 24 November 1350 as "terras vocatas li Terrasini". The grottoes in the area of Terrasini were inhabited already in the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone (; 18 May 1939 – 23 May 1992) was an Italian judge and prosecuting magistrate. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, Sicily, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Sicilian Mafia. After a long and distinguished career, culminating in the Maxi Trial in 1986–1987, on 23 May 1992, Falcone was assassinated by the Corleonesi Mafia in the Capaci bombing, on the A29 motorway near the town of Capaci. His life parallels that of his close friend Paolo Borsellino. They both spent their early years in the same neighbourhood in Palermo. Though many of their childhood friends grew up in an environment in which the Mafia had a strong presence, both men fought against organised crime as prosecuting magistrates.Stille, ''Excellent Cadavers'', pp. 22–27 They were both killed in 1992, a few weeks apart. In recognition of their tireless effort and sacrifice during the anti-mafia trials, they were both awarded the Gold ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pik Botha
Roelof Frederik "Pik" Botha, (27 April 1932 – 12 October 2018) was a South African politician who served as the country's foreign minister in the last years of the apartheid era, the longest-serving in South African history. Known as a liberal within the party, Botha served to present a friendly, conciliatory face on the regime, while criticised internally. He was a leading contender for the leadership of the National Party upon John Vorster's resignation in 1978, but was ultimately not chosen. Staying in the government after the first non-racial general election in 1994, he served under Mandela as Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs from 1994 to 1996. While testifying at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Botha was one of the few officials to repent for his involvement in the apartheid government. He said he'd realized that apartheid was morally wrong in the 1970s, but didn't do enough to "turn the tide" against the regime and prevent atrocities from being commi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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South African Police Service
The South African Police Service (SAPS) is the national police force of the Republic of South Africa. Its 1,154 police stations in South Africa are divided according to the Provinces of South Africa, provincial borders, and a Provincial Commissioner is appointed in each province. The nine Provincial Commissioners report directly to the National Commissioner. The head office is in the Wachthuis Building in Pretoria. The Constitution of South Africa lays down that the South African Police Service has a responsibility to prevent, combat and investigate crime, maintain public order, protect and secure the inhabitants of the Republic and their property, uphold and enforce the law, create a safe and secure environment for all people in South Africa, prevent anything that may threaten the safety or security of any community, investigate any crimes that threaten the safety or security of any community, ensure criminals are brought to justice and participate in efforts to address the ca ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Franschhoek
Franschhoek (; Afrikaans for "French Corner", Dutch spelling before 1947 ''Fransche Hoek'', French: ''Le Coin Français'') is a small town in the Western Cape Province and one of the oldest towns in South Africa. It was formerly known as Oliphants hoek (as there were vast groups of elephants roaming the valley). It is situated about from Cape Town, a 45-minute drive away. The whole area, including townships such as Groendal and suburbs such as Wemmershoek, has a population of slightly over 20,000 people while the town proper, known as Hugenote, has a population of around 1,000. Since 2000, it has been incorporated into Stellenbosch Municipality. In 2022, Franschhoek was mentioned in ''Time'' magazine as one of the top 50 places in the world to visit. History Franschhoek's original inhabitants are the Khoisan peoples. They are now mostly extinct, but their descendants continue to live in the area as mixed race (Khoisan and French/Dutch) people. In 1685, King Louis XIV bann ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bantustan
A Bantustan (also known as a Bantu peoples, Bantu homeland, a Black people, black homeland, a Khoisan, black state or simply known as a homeland; ) was a territory that the National Party (South Africa), National Party administration of the Union of South Africa (1910–1961) and later the Republic of South Africa (1961–1994) set aside for People of Indigenous South African Bantu languages, black inhabitants of South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia), as a part of its policy of apartheid., "1. one of the areas in South Africa where black people lived during the apartheid system; 2. SHOWING DISAPPROVAL any area where people are forced to live without full civil and political rights." The term, first used in the late 1940s, was coined from ''Bantu'' (meaning "people" in some of the Bantu languages) and ''-stan'' (a suffix meaning "land" in Persian language, Persian and other Persian-influenced languages). It subsequently came to be regarded as a disparaging term by s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Harms Commission
The Harms Commission of Inquiry into Certain Alleged Murders, known as the Harms Commission, was established by South African apartheid-era President F.W. de Klerk on 31 January 1990 as a public inquiry to investigate politically motivated assassinations of opponents of the apartheid regime by clandestine death squads within the South African police and the army. Chaired by Judge Louis Harms, the hearings were held at the Dutch Reformed Church office building in downtown Pretoria between February and September 1990. By June 1990, the commission had heard testimonies from 250 witnesses - ordinary people, policemen and members of the South African army's Civil Cooperation Bureau, an undercover military unit accused of murdering political opponents of the apartheid government.Witnesses hinder Pretor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Douw Steyn
Douw Gerbrand Steyn (19 December 1952 – 4 February 2025) was a South African billionaire businessman, the founder of BGL Group, a UK-based insurance and financial services company, and the parent of Comparethemarket.com. Steyn had links to South African politics, having housed former South African president Nelson Mandela at the Saxon Hotel, Villas & Spa. According to The ''Sunday Times Rich List'' in 2021, Steyn had an estimated net worth of £2.05 billion, an increase of £1.1 billion from 2020. Early life Douw Gerbrand Steyn was born in December 1952. He went to school in Linden, Johannesburg. He received a bachelor's degree in 1978 from Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education. Career Steyn began his career as a quantity surveyor at Eskom Mega Watt Park. Steyn founded BGL Group (which was founded as Budget Insurance Company in 1992), a UK-based insurance and financial services company, and the parent of Comparethemarket.com. In 2015, Steyn launched the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Burgersdorp
Burgersdorp is a medium-sized town in Walter Sisulu in the Joe Gqabi District Municipality of the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. In 1869 a Theological Seminary was established here by the '' Gereformeerde Kerk'', but in 1905 it was moved to Potchefstroom, acting as an instrument in the formation of the PUK in 1919, then becoming the Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education in 1951. The Afrikaner Bond political party was founded in Burgersdorp in 1881. Demographics According to the 2011 census, the town of Burgersdorp proper has a population of 5,240, while the adjacent townships of Mzamomhle and Tembisa have populations of 4,656 and 6,094 respectively, giving the urban area a population of 15,990. Of this population 78.1% described themselves as Black African, 11.98% as Coloured and 9.4% as White. 69.2% spoke Xhosa as their home language, 20.1% spoke Afrikaans, 3.3% spoke Sotho, 1.4% spoke English as their home language and 6.0% spoke some other ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ciskei
Ciskei ( , meaning ''on this side of Great Kei River, [the river] Kei''), officially the Republic of Ciskei (), was a Bantustan for the Xhosa people, located in the southeast of South Africa. It covered an area of , almost entirely surrounded by what was then the Cape Province, and possessed a small coastline along the shore of the Indian Ocean. Under South Africa's policy of apartheid, land was set aside for black peoples in self-governing territories. Ciskei was designated as one of two homelands, or "Bantustans", for Xhosa language, Xhosa-speaking people. Xhosa people were forcibly resettled in the Ciskei and Transkei, the other Xhosa homeland. In contrast to the Transkei, which was largely contiguous and deeply rural, and governed by hereditary chiefs, the area that became the Ciskei had initially been made up of a patchwork of "reserves", interspersed with pockets of white-owned farms. In Ciskei, there were elected headmen and a relatively educated working-class populace, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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East London, South Africa
East London (; ) is a city on the southeastern coast of South Africa, in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality, Eastern Cape Provinces of South Africa, Province. The city lies on the Indian Ocean coast, largely between the Buffalo River (Eastern Cape), Buffalo River and the Nahoon River, and hosts the country's only river port. , East London had a population of over 267,000 with over 755,000 in the surrounding metropolitan area. History Early history John Bailie, one of the 1820 Settlers, surveyed the Buffalo River (Eastern Cape), Buffalo River mouth and founded the town in 1836. There is a memorial on Signal Hill (Cape Town), Signal Hill commemorating the event. The city formed around the only river port in South Africa and was originally known as Port Rex. Later it was renamed London in honour of the capital city of the United Kingdom, hence the name East London. This settlement on the West Bank was the nucleus of the town of East London, which was elevated to city sta ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Peet De Pontes
Peet or PEET may refer to: Surname A surname of English or Dutch origin * Alfred Peet (1920–2007), Dutch-American entrepreneur and the founder of Peet's Coffee & Tea ** Peet's Coffee & Tea, specialty coffee roaster and retailer founded in 1966 * Amanda Peet (born 1972), American actress * Azalia Emma Peet (1887–1973), American missionary teacher in Japan * Bill Peet (1915–2002), American children's book illustrator and a story writer for Disney Studios * John Peet (other), various individuals * Lee Pete (1924–2010), American sports-talk radio broadcaster and college athlete * Mal Peet (1947–2015), English author of novels mainly for young adults * Margot Peet (1903–1995), American painter * Stephen Peet (1920–2005),British filmmaker * Thomas Eric Peet (1882–1934), English Egyptologist * Wayne Peet (born 1954), American jazz pianist and organist * Beaumelle Sturtevant-Peet (1840-1921), American temperance activist and suffragist Given name * Peet Aren ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |