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/ 20 September 2004

Grieving Beslan residents suspect death toll cover-up

Beslan residents, desperately searching for their missing relatives, have begun to suspect that the government has underestimated or tried to conceal the true casualty figures from the massacre. The official death toll from the siege 16 days ago has remained at 329. Yet Zhana Gasiyeva, a deputy to the transport minister for North Ossetia, said that 1 347 people had been taken hostage — a figure that contradicts the ministry of interior’s total of 1 189.

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/ 20 September 2004

Undermining SA’s culture of violence

In the Nguni languages, an indlavini is a violent and reckless man who disrespects elders and tradition. The tough cities also produced the utsotsi, a street-wise petty criminal who asserts his masculinity through violence. Amplified by the media, such notions have now become entrenched. With the introduction of HIV into the social equation, their consequences are also deadlier than ever before.

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/ 20 September 2004

The UK’s new rubbish dump: China

More than a third of the waste paper and plastic collected by British local authorities, supermarkets and businesses for recycling is being sent 12 800km to China without any knowledge of the environmental or social costs — and to the complete surprise of most consumers.

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/ 20 September 2004

Are preschoolers getting their due?

"Give me a child until he is seven, and I will show you the man," goes the old Jesuit saying — an advertisement, if ever there were one, for the virtues of preprimary education. Yet, a decade after the advent of democracy, South Africa appears to spend more on keeping convicted criminals in their cells than on keeping children off the streets and in preschool.

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/ 20 September 2004

Why Dubya left Texas

Growing evidence suggests that United States President George W Bush abruptly left his Texas Air National Guard unit in 1972 for substantive reasons pertaining to his inability to continue piloting a fighter jet. And these revelations, suggesting the United States President abused alcohol and cocaine, could undermine his appeal as a military steward and guardian of values.

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/ 20 September 2004

Revamp takes shape

As Transnet CEO Maria Ramos fills in the details of her turnaround plan, it is becoming clear that extensive private sector involvement and a more creative approach to financing will be central to restructuring the parastatal. Wholesale privatisation may be out of the question for Transnet’s core rail and port operations, but the concessioning of specialised services seems likely to expand.

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/ 20 September 2004

DRC’s long road to TRC

Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) President Joseph Kabila has ratified an Act bringing the country’s truth and reconciliation commission into being. The Act comes within weeks of hostilities that culminated in the seizure and pillage of Bukavu by renegade forces. Post-conflict transformation isn’t possible in the DRC, a country still at war with itself.