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/ 13 October 2006

I beg your pardon, comrade

President Thabo Mbeki hit back at SACP leader Blade Nzimande in a fiery retort at the party’s national executive committee last weekend. His response was that of a party man: he quoted several SACP and ANC historical documents to prove his points and disprove Nzimande’s.

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/ 13 October 2006

Yunus, bank win Nobel Peace Prize

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded on Friday to Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh and the Grameen Bank which offers loans to poor people without any financial security. The committee said: ”Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty.”

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/ 12 October 2006

New, improved Buthelezi

IFP president Mangosuthu Buthelezi is actively repositioning himself as a unifying statesman, rather than a standard-bearer for Zulu ethnic interests. Answering Mail & Guardian questions this week, Buthelezi said it was important for South Africans to rise above party differences on the succession battle in the ANC and other challenges facing the country, including HIV/Aids, crime, poverty and unemployment.

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/ 12 October 2006

SA to chair Nuclear Suppliers Group

South Africa was on Thursday unanimously confirmed as the next chair of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, for the period 2007 to 2008, the Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement issued from Vienna. The decision was taken at a consultative meeting of the group held in Vienna. South Africa was represented at the meeting by ambassador Abdul Minty.

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/ 12 October 2006

SA urges Sudan to accept UN force in Darfur

The Sudanese government must be convinced to accept the deployment of a United Nations force in its war-torn western region of Darfur, South Africa said on Thursday. ”All efforts must continue to be made to try to convince the government of Sudan that it is in the interests of everybody that we blue-hat the African Union forces,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said.

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/ 12 October 2006

Free State rugby hit by supporter ‘tsunami’

The Free State rugby union offices were hit this week by a small ”tsunami” of supporters booking and buying tickets for the 2006 Currie Cup final in Bloemfontein. Harold Verster, president of the union, said on Thursday: ”People just swamped us and we are still barely handling the requests still streaming in for tickets.”

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/ 12 October 2006

No betrayal from govt, says Maduna

The government could not give in to pressure from ”shrill, shriek and opportunistic” voices claiming the people’s cause had been betrayed, former minister of justice Penuell Maduna said in Johannesburg on Thursday. ”It has not been betrayed,” he told the business community at the launch of a new fund-raising system run under the auspices of The Giving Organisation.