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/ 5 February 2007
Reading the newspapers during the past two weeks could easily have created the impression that the only role South Africa has played since it assumed a non- permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council was to vote against the resolution on Myanmar, writes Xolisa Mabhongo, Chief Director: United Nations (Political) Directorate, Department of Foreign Affairs.
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/ 5 February 2007
The Kenyan government’s frantic attempts to bury the ghost of high level corruption haunting President Mwai Kibaki’s administration suffered a major setback when exiled former anti-corruption czar, John Githongo, dropped yet another bombshell in late January, which appeared to link the president and his henchmen to a brazen bid to cream off millions of dollars through fictitious projects.
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/ 5 February 2007
Awut Deng Acuil, presidential adviser on gender and human rights in southern Sudan, speaks (in the soft, urgent tones of a troubled mother) about mobilising women to negotiate peace in her region. African-American Aids activist Sheryl-Lee Ralph rips a piece of tape from her mouth and lets out a mournful note that pierces the air like a stiletto.
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/ 5 February 2007
The editor of one of Zimbabwe’s only remaining independent newspapers, The Standard, which belongs to the stable of media outlets belonging to Mail & Guardian owner Trevor Ncube, this week received an envelope containing a bullet.
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/ 5 February 2007
I’m having an identity crisis, and I blame the media. Amazon can’t make up its mind whether I’m a gay man or a lesbian. The DVD rental site Lovefilm keeps insisting that I want to see Children of Men, which, thanks, I don’t. The supermarket sends me vouchers for money off tampons, organic yoghurt, and cat food, which, though useful, makes me want to kill myself.
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/ 5 February 2007
The former president of the European Court of Human Rights this week claimed he was poisoned during a visit to Russia in late October — three days before the former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko was fatally poisoned in London. Luzius Wildhaber, who retired last month as Europe’s most senior judge, told a Swiss newspaper that he had fallen violently ill after a three-day trip to Moscow.
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/ 5 February 2007
Venezuela’s congress extended the authority of the President, Hugo Chávez, on Wednesday when it passed a measure allowing him to rule by decree. The legislation gives Chávez powers to transform 11 “strategic areas” by decree over the coming 18 months to pave the way for “21st-century socialism”.
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/ 5 February 2007
Commentators have interpreted the number of staff leaving as a “purge” of those who disagree with Snuki Zikalala, news and current affairs director. The Mail & Guardian‘sTumi Makgetla speaks to SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago about this and the resignation of John Perlman.
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/ 5 February 2007
When President Thabo Mbeki attacked environmental processes for being too slow last year, many environmentalists were outraged. After a Cabinet lekgotla, Mbeki said environmental legislation was causing development delays and had contributed to “a quite considerable slowing down of economic activity”.
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/ 5 February 2007
The Australian writer Donald Horne meant the title of his celebrated book, The Lucky Country, as irony. “Australia is a lucky country run by second-rate people who share its luck,” he lamented in 1964, describing much of the Australian elite as unfailingly unoriginal, race-obsessed and in thrall to imperial power and its wars.