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/ 7 November 2003

Scrumhalf warriors ready for battle

They will be the smallest men in a battle of giants on Saturday but the clash of Joost van der Westhuizen and Justin Marshall will have a huge impact on their World Cup quarterfinal. The rival scrumhalves of South Africa and New Zealand share an intense competitive fire and a resilience which has seen them survive in a highly pressured and crucial area.

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/ 7 November 2003

Where have all the the French fans gone?

France decamped from Sydney to Melbourne on Friday for their World Cup quarter-final against Ireland with a call from coach Bernard Laporte for the missing French fans to make themselves heard. The French fear that Melbourne’s 56 000-capacity Docklands Stadium will be vastly more green than red, white and blue for their clash on Sunday.

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/ 7 November 2003

‘Tata my chance …’

A treacherous minister of education, duplicitous and interfering government officials, a shoddy and compromised assessor, infantile members of the governing council, incompetent and self-serving senior managers, “Indian histrionics”, short-sighted academics, hostile students who might not even be students, sensationalist and trashy KwaZulu-Natal newspapers … All this – and a dash of “Hindu nationalism” to contend with too.

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/ 7 November 2003

What’s the story

States run by despots are invariably highly efficient when it comes to presenting a picture of normality to visitors. This was witnessed by visitors to the former Soviet Union, a country apparently full of happy peasants hurling themselves with zeal at the arts of mathematics and tractor-assembling.

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/ 6 November 2003

In bed with the Boeremag

The world knows them as the Boeremag, the rightwingers accused of wanting to assassinate Nelson Mandela and chase 30-million black people up the N1 to Zimbabwe. But they are also the husbands, sons, brothers and friends of people who believe in them and love them.

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/ 6 November 2003

Romance of the Leon and elephant

The "Coalition for Change" — the Democratic Alliance and the Inkatha Freedom Party — is going to be the black alternative to the ruling African National Congress, say officials of the opposition parties. One could count on one’s fingers the number of white faces at the rally on Sunday in Soweto where the coalition was launched.