Tumi Makgetla
Guest Author
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/ 26 January 2007

Which peers will Mbeki listen to?

All eyes are on President Thabo Mbeki as he steps up to the podium at the African Union heads of state summit in Addis Ababa this weekend: will he present a whitewashed peer review report or the warts and all assessment of the panel of leading Africans who have made their own assessment?

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/ 22 January 2007

Import quotas backfire

Clothing prices are to soar by 20% with the introduction of import quotas on January 1, retailers warn. And in response to quotas on Chinese imports, which kicked in on January 1, South African firms are scrambling to source clothes and textiles from other low-wage countries.

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/ 22 January 2007

Tracking the exchange rate

In the past few years, South Africa’s currency has gained recognition as one of a handful of the world’s traded commodity currencies. This term applies in countries where the world commodity price of the country’s commodity exports has an important effect on their real exchange rate.

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/ 18 January 2007

A review of the top world currencies

Economists take several factors into consideration when trying to judge where currencies are moving. And they often get it wrong. But to give an idea of some of the factors involved in evaluating a currency for risk, the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> spoke to some economists and analysts to review some of the top currencies on the market today.

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/ 15 January 2007

Pardons are hard to come by

The government has let the applications for presidential pardons for over 1 000 people imprisoned for what they believe are political “crimes” pile up, arguing that it has no policy on how to address this ”complex” matter. But it is unclear why the government is dragging its feet now when four years ago President Thabo Mbeki justified his release of 33 prisoners.

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/ 21 December 2006

With this cow I thee wed

‘Within our cultures we only pick what suits us best and use it in our everyday lives — lobola is one of them," says Nandipha Mosia, a young newly wed from the West Rand. Interviews with 10 urban, black South Africans revealed the many ways in which "traditional" beliefs are transformed in a modern setting and shape attitudes to marriage.

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/ 21 December 2006

Protocols rear their ugly head

An ANC MP cited the Protocols of the Elders of Zion — the infamous anti-Semitic forgery used by the Nazis — as a credible document at a recent Iranian-sponsored academic seminar in Pretoria. Farida Mahomed agreed recently she had asked a Jewish seminar delegate, Claudia Braude: “Are the protocols still relevant to you in today’s time?