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/ 24 October 2005

It’s state v apartheid victims

Apartheid victims’ organisation Khulumani Support Group will square off against the South African government next month in a New York court when Khulumani accuses various multinational corporations of having aided and abetted apartheid.
The South African government’s decision to appear as a "friend of the court’ on behalf of the corporations goes a step beyond the so-called "Maduna affidavit".

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/ 17 October 2005

The ripple effect of typhoid

Come election time, the Delmas municipality may regret neglecting its only cricket ground and allowing it to be taken over by soccer clubs. It could also rue threats to evict a volunteer organisation helping disabled children from a government-built facility. But it will definitely suffer from its own ”Watergate” — the handling of the typhoid outbreak that hit the town between August and September.

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/ 14 October 2005

New dawn for enigmatic Birds

There was a time not so long ago when talk of the country’s big three meant Orlando Pirates, Kaizer Chiefs and Moroka Swallows. How times have changed. Mamelodi Sundowns, who lost 1-2 to Swallows on Wednesday, have replaced the once-mighty Dube Birds as part of the troika ruling the roost in the local game.

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/ 11 October 2005

Capitalist nigger

Dr Chika Onyeani spells out what he thinks is ”wrong with black people” in his book Capitalist Nigger. A Nigerian who has lived in the United States for the past 40 years, Onyeani speaks to the Mail & Guardian about his belief that blacks in Africa should embrace capitalism in order to get ahead.

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/ 7 October 2005

An era ends

If ever there was doubt that 2005 marked a watershed in South African football, some newspaper stories doing the rounds ahead of this weekend’s qualifier, served as confirmation of how times have changed. In normal times, the words ”World Cup” would have preceded ”qualifier” when referring to the match against the Democratic Republic of Congo.

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/ 7 October 2005

‘How can we trust taps?’

Ntsundukazi Mvandaba and her family were the envy of the neighbours they left behind when they moved from the Mandela informal settlement to proper houses in Delpark, both in Delmas. They moved five years ago into an Reconstruction and Development Programme house: unplastered and small, but the first real home for this family from the Eastern Cape.

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/ 30 September 2005

For whom the ball rolls

Imagine walking into an ancient Roman arena to find only a gladiator, a lion — and no one else. Soon the gladiator — and the lion, if it is reasonable — may come to the opinion that attempting to kill each other is a futile, even callous, exercise. This week’s historic lockout game between Kaizer Chiefs and Black Leopards at the FNB Stadium underscored the value of the fan.

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/ 30 September 2005

Stix still holds the field

It may be that the enduring memory about Solomon ”Stix” Morewa will be when, as the president of the South African Football Association (Safa), he was told to quit or be fired by the government-appointed Pickard commission into irregularities in the game. That would be, however, only one of the chapters in a biography of a man who did more good than harm.