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/ 14 October 2003

Globetrotting Muluzi defends his trips abroad

Malawi President Bakili Muluzi has defended his numerous overseas trips, saying they benefit the impoverished southern African country. Muluzi, who has just returned from a three-week trip to Asia, told a press conference that his critics were ”ignorant” and that he needed to travel in order to ”engage people”.

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/ 14 October 2003

Ethiopian famine looms

Over 17-million people in Ethiopia may need emergency food aid by 2007, according to a food security watchdog. The US government’s Famine Early Warning System Network (Fews) said 17,3-million people could need help because of declining rainfall levels and a spiralling population which are fuelling chronic food shortages.

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/ 14 October 2003

Meltdown of liberty in Zimbabwe

”Demonstrations here never last more than 10 minutes before the police move in,” photojournalist Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi remarks casually. It is another misleadingly tranquil day in Zimbabwe’s capital city, Harare, where Mukwazhi and two colleagues are keeping tabs on a group advocating for a new constitution, the National Constitutional Assembly.

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/ 14 October 2003

ANC backs posts for Zulu commissioners

The African National Congress in KwaZulu-Natal backs the filling of a proposed posts for parliamentary commissioners to the Zulu king from the ranks of provincial MPs — and would not oppose an Inkatha Freedom Party candidate. This follows a row between IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Premier Lionel Mtshali.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=21848">Buthelezi denies rift with KZN premier</a>

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/ 14 October 2003

‘I gave away son so he could escape squalor’

At the end of a potholed dirt track in an impoverished Albanian port town stands a concrete hut with a small TV antenna fixed to the roof. Outside a scrawny cow picks for grass between shreds of old plastic bags. Inside, Fatmira Bonjaku, seven months pregnant, explains why she gave away her three-year-old son to a childless Italian couple.