Staff Reporter
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/ 27 February 2008

SAHRC: Reconciliation was overemphasised

South Africa’s early democracy after 1994 reached out too far with a policy of reconciliation at the expense of transformation, the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) said on Wednesday. ”We focused too much on reconciliation in the first years of our democracy,” said SAHRC chairperson Jody Kollapen.

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/ 27 February 2008

Stars, Cosmos play to goalless draw

The loudest cheers in a goalless Premier Soccer League match between Platinum Stars and Jomo Cosmos came when Stars communication manager Putco Mafan danced during a water break at a stifling hot Olympia Stadium in Rustenburg on Wednesday. The match was a tedious affair and the 500-strong crowd had little to cheer about.

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/ 27 February 2008

Custom allows miniskirts, say traditional leaders

Custom and ethnicity allow young women to wear miniskirts, the National House of Traditional Leaders said on Wednesday in reaction to a recent attack on a woman wearing a short skirt at a Johannesburg taxi rank. The traditional leaders said the actions of the woman’s attackers were not only ”barbaric”, but also unconstitutional.

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/ 27 February 2008

GM crops take root in SA

South Africa produced 30% more genetically modified (GM) crops in 2007, with 1,8-million hectares of GM maize, soya and cotton being planted, Agri SA said on Wednesday. This makes the country the eighth-largest producer of GM crops in the world, behind larger countries such as the United States, Brazil, India and China.

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/ 27 February 2008

UK earthquake: ‘It was unreal’

”The birds were flying around like it was daylight,” said David Alrewas, one of the thousands of Britons woken at night by the most severe earthquake to strike Britain in 25 years. The quake, measuring 5,3 on the Richter scale, according to the British Geological Survey, shook large parts of England and Wales at 1am GMT on Wednesday.

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/ 27 February 2008

Racist video slammed as ‘barbaric’

A racist video — featuring University of the Free State employees on their knees eating food that had been urinated upon — was widely condemned by various institutions and political parties on Wednesday. The video, made by members of the Reitz men’s residence on the Bloemfontein campus, came to the attention of the public on Tuesday.

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/ 27 February 2008

Jo’burg announces power-cut plan

The City of Johannesburg on Wednesday launched a timetable of possible four-hour power cuts to help industry and residents plan ahead. The timetable, effective from March 1, divides the city into eight geographic blocks and sets out the times when planned power cuts could occur, explained Vally Padayachee, director of engineering operations for City Power.