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/ 21 February 2008

Small companies, big winners

A main feature of Finance Minister Trevor Manuel’s newly unveiled budget has been to slash the red tape, and small businesses will be elated over some major changes in the tax legislation. According to the Treasury’s tax team, the focus of this budget was to take the administrative burden of tax compliance off small companies.

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/ 21 February 2008

February 15 to 21 2008

Our hope is in Simba I always knew Zimbabweans loved and respected Simba Makoni, but I only realised how much when he announced his intention to run for the presidency. A few days ago I met a middle-aged woman who had registered as a voter because of Makoni’s announcement. She told me she last voted […]

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/ 21 February 2008

Good job – now pass the baton

”Trevor does it again!” is a headline we newspaper people have come to rely on at this time of year. It is too trite a formulation, though, and it does not properly credit the complex achievements of 11 years’ planning that have enabled the finance minister to deliver budgets with strong savings, spending and tax relief components for six years now.

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/ 20 February 2008

Dexter’s attack simply a defence of his own interests

Stripped of its polemical verbosity, Philip Dexter’s article (January 25) simply argues that the electoral contest against Thabo Mbeki’s leadership was just about personal power to pursue egoistic interests. The newly elected leadership will use its power to pursue these interests, including purging those who differed with them towards the national congress, writes David Masondo.

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/ 20 February 2008

Musharraf rejects opposition calls to quit

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf rejected demands to quit on Wednesday and called for a ”harmonious coalition” as victorious opposition parties mulled a grouping that could force the key United States ally from power. Musharraf was making his first official comments since Monday’s crucial parliamentary vote.

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/ 20 February 2008

Ebola eradicated in Uganda

Uganda is officially free of the deadly Ebola virus, which killed 37 people in the East African country last year, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday. Forty-two days passed with no new infections — long enough to be sure that there were no cases still in the incubation stage, said the country’s Health Minister, Dr Steven Malinga.

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/ 20 February 2008

Nato closes roads between Serbia and Kosovo

Nato peacekeepers closed off roads between Serbia and northern Kosovo and armed United Nations police officers guarded smouldering border checkpoints on Wednesday as thousands of Serbs protested against Kosovo’s independence. For three days, Kosovo’s Serbs have shown their anger over Sunday’s declaration of independence.