Staff Reporter
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/ 5 March 1999

Waking up to the Web

After initially neglecting the Internet, South Africa’s traditional media houses are now investing heavily in the next wave of media: online newspapers. Most major newspaper groups for the past two years have maintained a virtual presence on the World Wide Web, usually postings of their print stories and searchable archives of previous editions. But late […]

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/ 5 March 1999

Sparks fly over `painful’ banking

The battlefield of the real banking war has shifted to the corridors of Parliament. Howard Barrell reports The major banks, stung by perceptions that they don’t care about customers and charge as much as they can get away with for their services, begin hawking a new draft banking code of conduct around consumer groups this […]

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/ 5 March 1999

RUSSIANS FOR ENGEN SERIES

THREE of Russia’s best pole vaulters will be in South Africa to test Okkert Brits during the Engen Grand Prix Summer Series. Vadim Strogolev, Yevgeny Smiryagin and Pavel Burlatsenko have confirmed their participation in Pietersburg on March 13, Roodepoort on March 19 and in Cape Town on March 26. Joining them will be woman highjumper […]

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/ 5 March 1999

Low caste with two smoking barrels

They’ve been murdered, raped and mistreated for 3 000 years under India’s caste system. But now the untouchable women of rural Bihar are fighting back – with bullets. Jason Burke reports Two scenes from rural India. The first from the summer of 1996. Bhuli Devi, a 30-year- old peasant woman, stands naked in a field […]

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/ 5 March 1999

Motive behind the murder of Ruth First

Peter Vale: A SECOND LOOK The brave testimony of Dr Bridget O’Laughlin before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s amnesty committee provides a moment to pause and take a second look at the influential intellectual work of her friend and colleague, Ruth First, who was assassinated by an apartheid letter bomb in August, 1982. It also […]

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/ 5 March 1999

It’s the glue without the goo

Records are made to be broken -some just break more easily than others, reports Neil Manthorp in Auckland Animal rights activists will be happy with calls to ban any repeat of the heartbreak pitch on which South Africa’s bowlers toiled in the first Test at Eden Park. Glue, after all, is made from boiled cow […]

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/ 5 March 1999

A murderous day in the magistrate’s court

John Matshikiza:WITH THE LID OFF I’m summoned to appear in the magistrate’s court at 8.30am. It’s a simple matter. My car was broken into, the culprits were caught a few minutes later with my property still hot in their hands, and the case has finally come before a magistrate. I am obliged to testify. The […]

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/ 5 March 1999

A 36D trapped in a 34B body

Elizabeth Wurtzel:BODY LANGUAGE In 19th-century France, the art academies considered it less than respectable to have students paint posed nudes. So, lest all the fun be quashed, the budding artistes made paintings of other people painting naked models. Now Esquire’s at it, too. How else to explain its February issue’s devotion to the topic of […]

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/ 5 March 1999

The fire-starter at foreign affairs

If words are cheap for politicians, they are cheaper for journalists. We are free to criticise most decisions while seldom having to live with the consequences of what we might have advocated. Unlike politicians, we can afford to have poor foresight. But we always have excellent hindsight. This difference between politicians and journalists seldom seems […]

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/ 5 March 1999

TOYOTA WORKERS TO RETURN

TOYOTA South Africa’s car assembly plant was closed for a fourth straight day on Thursday, hit by a strike over bonus pay, but a union official said members will return to work on Friday. “Our members have decided to go back to work on Friday after [we have read] Toyota’s financial statements due out today,” […]