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/ 15 February 2008

The scent of defeat

Of all the ways to describe last Tuesday night as a bad night for Hillary Clinton, perhaps the most dramatic is to point out this: the pundits on CNN and MSNBC started comparing her to Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani, of course, has become a national punch line for his decision to skip the first four Republican contests and put all his chips on Florida.

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/ 15 February 2008

‘Great policy, little capacity’

President Thabo Mbeki’s reference to land reform in his State of the Nation address has provoked cautious optimism among lobbyists, who are hoping South Africa’s policy in this regard might finally be on track. Ben Cousins, director of the University of the Western Cape’s Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies, expressed some disappointment, saying Mbeki said “nothing new”.

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/ 15 February 2008

A legacy of ineptitude

Mbeki favours collective responsibility without accountability. He told Independent Newspapers after a weekend interview that he did not know of any failures in his Cabinet, even as he alluded to failures in handling electricity in last week’s state of the nation speech and the performance of setas (sector education and training authorities) during a television interview, writes Rapule Tabane/

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/ 14 February 2008

Zille takes Scorpions battle to Zuma

Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille is to request a meeting with African National Congress president Jacob Zuma to discuss the future of the Scorpions, she said on Thursday. ”I intend to put this challenge to him. I will write to Mr Zuma and request an urgent meeting to state unambiguously the disastrous consequences that disbanding the Scorpions will have for South Africa.”

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/ 14 February 2008

R10m beckons for PSL winners

The winners of the Premier Soccer League (PSL) will get a colossal R10-million first prize. This was announced by league sponsor Absa at the Carlton Centre on Thursday. Just more than R29-million will be shared by the 16 PSL clubs at the end of the season.