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/ 5 March 1999

A tempting offer from Appleton

THE DAVID GLEASON COLUMN Valuing financial services companies is always difficult, especially when they are brand new to the investing public. This is certainly the case with The Appleton Group, a company about to be listed for the first time on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE)and whose initial private offering for R50- million has already […]

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/ 5 March 1999

The Rose ready for greatness

Deon Potgieter Boxing If he wins on Saturday night, Dingaan “The Rose of Soweto” Thobela will become the first South African to gain world titles for three different world bodies. Thobela will take to the ring at the Nasrec complex against the South American champion, Adrian Daneff, for the vacant International Boxing Organisation Welterweight title. […]

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/ 5 March 1999

The battle over alternative drugs

The vacuum left by the transition from the old Medicines Control Council to the new regulator is bad news for consumers of complementary medicine. Aaron Nicodemus reports In warehouses, on loading docks and on natural food store shelves, a pitched battle is being fought over dietary supplements, vitamins and herbal remedies. The battle over “complementary […]

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/ 5 March 1999

Low caste with two smoking barrels

They’ve been murdered, raped and mistreated for 3 000 years under India’s caste system. But now the untouchable women of rural Bihar are fighting back – with bullets. Jason Burke reports Two scenes from rural India. The first from the summer of 1996. Bhuli Devi, a 30-year- old peasant woman, stands naked in a field […]

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/ 5 March 1999

Invitation to voyages

Shaun de Waal The Time of the Writer festival, held by the Centre for Creative Arts at the University of Natal, is set to become a regular feature of Durban’s cultural life. This year’s festival, the second, began on March 1 and runs until March 6 at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre. The opening address was […]

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/ 5 March 1999

You don’t have to kill them to test them

Gerda Dullaart The KwaZulu-Natal Conservation Service this week launched a R1,3-million strategy to combat tuberculosis in buffalo that doesn’t entail killing the animals in order to test them for the disease. The service expressed its concern about the threat of buffalo TBspreading to cattle in neighbouring areas, and from there to humans. For the past […]

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/ 5 March 1999

A real feast: Botha then the French

Coenraad Visser Never before have classical music lovers in Gauteng been offered a feast like they have this week. On Sunday, tenor sensation Johan Botha returned home for his first appearance on a professional stage since he left for Europe 10 years ago. And on Monday, the Orchestre National de France, with musical director Charles […]

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/ 5 March 1999

How compost is killing the wetlands

Peatlands, which take thousands of years to establish, are being exploited to make compost and potting soil, writes Rehana Dada Most gardeners buying plastic bags of “environmentally friendly” potting soil and compost are probably unaware that they are in fact contributing to the destruction of valuable wetlands protected by law. Unscrupulous profit-seekers often gouge this […]

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/ 5 March 1999

Maduna to pay for unfair dismissal

Mungo Soggot A labour relations arbitrator has ordered Minister of Minerals and Energy Penuell Maduna to pay his former special advisor R170 000 in compensation for his unfair dismissal. Maduna axed his advisor, Thulani Gcabashe, without a hearing last March in the midst of the scandal surrounding the appointment of Liberian Emanuel Shaw II as […]

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/ 5 March 1999

Old Mutual issue may force rule change

The organisation which selects and monitors members of the Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE)index is to consider rewriting the rule book governing the proportion of a company’s shares that must be available to outside investors. The Equity Indices Committee of FTSE International is expected to decide on a wide- ranging review of the whole “free-float” […]