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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.
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/ 5 February 2007
Representatives of Côte d’Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo and New Forces rebel leader Guillaume Soro started holding face-to-face talks on Monday in a bid to promote a stalled peace process. The talks are taking place in Ouagadougou under the mediation of Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore, an Agence France-Presse journalist in the Burkina Faso capital said.
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/ 4 February 2007
On January 5 of this year, 13 Nobel Peace Prize laureates in eight countries attempted to apply for visas to visit our sister laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma, where she remains under house arrest — this time since May of 2003. When we arrived at the Burmese consulate in Washington DC, the open gate was immediately closed and locked, writes Shirin Ebadi and Jody Williams.
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/ 4 February 2007
South Africa cruised to a massive 164 run victory over Pakistan in the first MTN one-day international at a packed Supersport Park on Sunday. Pakistan won the toss and sent South Africa in to bat. The Proteas made the most of an ideal batting strip and notched up a huge total of 392 for six in their 50 overs.