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/ 6 May 2008

Drug patents are beside the point

This week Switzerland will become ground zero for the future of health policy in Africa. The World Health Organisation’s intergovernmental working group is meeting in Geneva to discuss public health, medical innovation and intellectual property. Many participants are expected to express their support for efforts to undermine patent protections for drugs.

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/ 6 May 2008

A dose of empirical evidence

You can’t help seeing it as a kind of back-handed compliment. No sooner had his daughter announced that she intended to train to be a doctor than David Wootton decided to start work on <i>Bad Medicine</i>, a book that comes with the catchy subtitle <i>Doctors Doing Harm Since Hippocrates</i>. Wootton smiles, unfazed by the association. "It’s true that my daughter’s career choice did spark my interest in the history of medicine," he says, "but the title is somewhat misleading.

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/ 6 May 2008

Software to ease HR load

The functions of payroll administration and human resources (HR) departments are merging as the original barriers between the two fall away and payroll software undergoes radical development to cater for ever-changing legislative demands. Grant Lloyd, managing director of payroll software developer Softline Pastel Payroll, says there are five major payroll laws that govern payroll processing and these place immense pressure on payroll administration and HR departments.

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/ 6 May 2008

Burma cyclone toll climbs to 22 500

Burma’s military government raised its death toll from Cyclone Nargis on Tuesday to nearly 22 500 with a further 41 000 missing, nearly all of them from a massive storm surge. The United Nations’ World Food Programme began doling out emergency rice in Rangoon and the first batch of more than -million worth of foreign aid arrived from Thailand on Tuesday

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/ 6 May 2008

Iraqis pin hopes on bridge

Mohammed Abdul Qadir and the small group of armed men under his command were waiting for the moment the United States army foot patrol passed close to the abandoned clothing store in the Sunni-dominated enclave of Adhamiya. ”I have something to show them,” chuckled the former Iraqi army captain, as he peered out through the gaps in a bank of metal shelving that had been propped up against the bombedout windows.

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/ 5 May 2008

Pinned and wriggling on the wall

Wikipedia: according to a British medical journal of 1972 haemorrhoids ”are common in economically developed communities, rare in developing countries and almost unknown in tribal communities, where the influence of Western countries is slight.”This is not true. Mugabe is a haemorrhoid. He is not Aids, cancer, leukemia or malaria — those things that can kill you.

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/ 5 May 2008

Oil price crosses $120

Oil jumped more than to strike a record over a barrel on Monday on the weaker dollar and supply concerns from Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries members Nigeria and Iran. United States crude gained ,37 to trade at ,69 at 3.55pm GMT, after surging to ,21 earlier.

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/ 5 May 2008

Debate over Scorpions gathers momentum

Debate on the future of the Scorpions gained new steam on Monday as the government released a report from an inquiry it had commissioned into the elite detective unit. The Scorpions still have a role to play in the country’s crime-fighting efforts, states the report that was submitted to President Thabo Mbeki two years ago.