Staff Reporter
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/ 28 January 2008

Matfield eyes Bok return

South Africa’s World Cup-winning lock Victor Matfield could make his international reappearance against Wales in June if he can perform a delicate balancing act with his French club, Toulon. Matfield hasn’t played for the Springboks since the World Cup victory over England in October and has only featured in four games for the ambitious French second division side.

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/ 28 January 2008

Zim rules out new constitution before election

The Zimbabwe government on Monday slapped down opposition demands for a new constitution to be adopted before a March general election, saying it would only be put to a referendum after the polls. Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa told the state-run <i>Herald</i> newspaper that "the state was not in a hurry to craft a new constitution".

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/ 28 January 2008

Anti-apartheid campaigner rejects SA award

A New Zealand anti-apartheid campaigner has rejected a nomination for a South African award, saying he is dismayed over conditions in the country. John Minto was the national coordinator of the Halt All Racist Tours movement, and said black South Africans were now ”worse off than they were under minority rule”.

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/ 28 January 2008

Egyptian police frustrate Palestinian shoppers

Dozens of policemen in riot gear at Egyptian checkpoints set up in the pouring rain just a few kilometres from the border with Gaza on Sunday failed to halt the flow of Palestinians into Egypt five days after the border was breached. Taiser Shuber had spent two days in Sheikh Zuwayed, a town about 19km into northern Sinai, where he savoured his first trip outside the Palestinian territories.

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/ 28 January 2008

Pitbull Bill – help or hindrance on the campaign trail?

It has come down to Obama versus Clinton in the key southern state of South Carolina — but the Clinton that Barack Obama is up against is Bill, not Hillary. She flew out of the state late on Monday night, heading for Washington and then west to California and Arizona, leaving her husband behind to slug it out with Obama in the tough and rumbustious southern state that goes to the polls on Saturday.

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/ 27 January 2008

Choking on the Oppenheimers

”How Pahad censored Roberts” (January 11) is a headline at war with its facts. As with my Gordimer biography, I invited comments, accepting the helpful and rejecting the rest. ”I may say at this point, before dealing with other matters, that you also surely must have seen how your book has lost nothing in the cuts made,” Gordimer wrote on March 5 2003. That is not censorship.