Lloyd Gedye
Lloyd Gedye is a freelance journalist and one of the founders of The Con.
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/ 30 November 2004

Putting the government’s HIV/Aids plan to the test

<img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/142915/aids_icon.gif" align=left>A year ago the government approved a national plan for the management, care and treatment of HIV/Aids. Its aim was to provide free anti-retroviral drugs in the public health sector. The HIV prevalence rates range from an estimated 13,1% in the Western Cape to a very high 37,5% of adults in KwaZulu-Natal. A <i>M&G</i> assessment as World Aids Day approaches reveals the leaders and laggards.

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/ 19 November 2004

Truworths: No reason to hound us

Truworths CEO Michael Mark has hotly denied trade union claims that the retail chain is increasing cheap imports at the cost of local manufacturing jobs. "We find it very frustrating that they are targeting us in this way when we have done so much to ensure we import as little as possible, while other retailers have not," said Mark.

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/ 5 November 2004

Self-help? Help yourself

South African struggle history and self-help books are all the rage with book thieves in Johannesburg. Recently retired librarian Jane McArthur told the Mail & Guardian, ”The last three years I was working at Rosebank public library it just became a joke. Among the most frequently stolen books is, oddly enough, Conversations with God.

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/ 21 October 2004

SA greats the list missed

Eminence and popularity are not necessarily our criteria. Many of our 20 outstanding South Africans are unsung, but all have shaped our country through their talent, courage and leadership. Among those that the Great South Africans show forgot are Breyten Breytenbach, Victoria Mxenge, Ruth First and Ray Alexander.

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/ 29 September 2004

Gathering steam

South Africa could be heading towards a crisis that will see the country being unable to meet its energy needs by 2007. Frequent power cuts at peak times may become the norm unless we develop alternative and efficient energy sources. But an innovative, locally produced stove is turning South Africa on to efficient alternatives to electricity.

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/ 17 September 2004

Sympathy, not standstill

The national public service strike did not succeed in shutting down South Africa on Thursday. But the government was wrong-footed by the strike turnout and the extent of public sympathy for the action, according to a strategically placed observer. While the strike call appears to have drawn a patchy response, the government was caught on the hop by the extent of public sympathy for teachers, nurses and other civil servants.

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/ 12 August 2004

Mentors help students adjust to campus life

For most first-year students a tertiary study institution can be a daunting place, especially when if they are living on campus, far removed from their families and situated among thousands of students who are mostly, at first, complete strangers.
The dean of students at the Vaal University of Technology (VUT) is someone who has recognised these adjustment strains and decided to do something about it.

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/ 23 July 2004

Row over ‘mutant’ Aids drug

South Africa is to become the guinea pig for the production and testing of a controversial HIV/Aids vaccine that will be grown in genetically modified (GM) plants. But local environmental activists have warned they will fight the project, for which the European Union has granted 12-million euro (about R80-million) over five years.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=119188">’Conflict of interest’ in GMO panel</a>

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/ 21 July 2004

Tourism for all to share

The tourism industry, a nascent economic powerhouse, is the latest to catch black economic empowerment (BEE) charter fever. It has given itself six months to draw up a BEE charter to ensure more blacks are brought into the industry. Fourteen mandarins have been appointed to lead the process. The future of tourism, it seems, is sunny, but not pale.