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/ 25 February 2008

Zuma must be allowed to succeed

The dust had hardly settled after the ANC’s great Polokwane indaba when some people began toying with the idea that the ANC would put its deputy president, Kgalema Motlanthe, up as its presidential candidate for the 2009 general election. Lies are being peddled that ANC president Jacob Zuma has been banging tables reprimanding those he perceives to be back-stabbing him, writes Malusi Gigaba.

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/ 25 February 2008

When elders aren’t better

And so the preachers have hit the streets, and the school marm is ringing the bell and clicking her heels. It’s time to get in line.The clarion call sounds across the length and breadth of the land: the youth must be saved. Saved from drink, saved from disease, saved from one another – Hell, saved from themselves.

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/ 25 February 2008

The EU’s toughest challenge

The United States and the European Union were the midwives attending the birth of Europe’s newest country this week. Brussels now takes on the role of foster parent, attempting to raise its infant ward to adult statehood. It is a tall order, the EU’s toughest ever. Sunday’s independence declaration launches it on its most ambitious exercise in state-building.

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/ 25 February 2008

Shaik’s property plea

Schabir Shaik, the convicted former financial adviser to ANC president Jacob Zuma, will tell the Constitutional Court that there is no direct connection between his corrupt relationship with Zuma and tens of millions of rands’ worth of his assets. Next week Shaik and his companies will attempt to convince the court to reverse an earlier judgement by the Supreme Court of Appeal.

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/ 25 February 2008

India’s pink-clad vigilantes

Under a scorching summer sun, a swarm of 400 furious women engulfed the scruffy electricity office of Banda district in north India. They were all dressed identically in fluorescent pink saris. For more than a fortnight they and their families had had no electricity, plunged into darkness at dusk and stewed in sweat at dawn. But they had all been sent bills demanding payment for power they had never received.

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/ 25 February 2008

Sudan flare-up likely

Sudan’s Abyei region is a possible trouble spot from which conflict could resume, three years after a comprehensive agreement was signed to end civil war between the north and south, the United Nations special envoy to Sudan has warned. The oil-rich region, which lies between north and south Sudan, has experienced an administrative and political vacuum after disagreements over its status.

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/ 24 February 2008

Marry your like, says the Bible

I am a proponent of same-sex marriages and as a Christian minister of religion, I want to make it very clear that the Bible nowhere gives an indication that such marriages should be condemned. Most of the opposition to same-sex marriages could be ascribed to a lack of knowledge of what both marriage and homosexuality mean, writes André Müller.

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/ 24 February 2008

SA close in on Bangladesh

Jacques Kallis picked up a five-wicket haul to put South Africa on the brink of victory on the third day of the opening Test against Bangladesh in Dhaka on Sunday. He took all his wickets in a single spell of fascinating fast-bowling to help South Africa bowl out the hosts for 182 and restrict their second-innings lead to 204.