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/ 16 January 2008

Bizos and Chaskalson cannot claim to be neutral

The Congress of South African Trade Unions has the greatest respect for former Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson and Mr George Bizos. The two played a valuable role in the struggle for freedom. They made an important contribution to the drafting of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, and we fully agree with them that the separation of powers between the judiciary and the executive is an essential cornerstone of our democracy.

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/ 16 January 2008

North Korea, last Cold Warrior standing at Games

North Korean athletes will enter the 2008 Beijing Olympics with pluck, a soldier-like fighting spirit and a completely different concept of international sport to the one embraced by former Cold War allies. Eastern Bloc states used to spend heavily on sports systems that turned out Goliaths, whose victories at the Olympics were used to validate what they argued was a superior political system.

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/ 16 January 2008

Choice or force?

This might sound like a plot line from a Bollywood blockbuster, but it’s for real. Gouri Roy, the eldest of eight sisters in India’s West Bengal, was married off when she was 11. Her husband did no work. After a decade of working as a domestic in other village homes, bearing two daughters and a son, and recurring bouts of battering, she started looking for work away from home.

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/ 16 January 2008

Musicians in Kenya lead push for alternative protests

A catchy ”song for peace” crackling over Kenyan radio is breaking pace with the litany of doom and gloom and bloody fallout from last month’s elections that dominates the air waves these days. WaKenya Pamoja (Kenya Together) carries a different message, and maybe a reason not to give up on a vote meant to uphold this nation as a beacon of democracy in a troubled region.

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/ 16 January 2008

English-learning frenzy as China prepares for Olympics

When Zhi Lijiang first signed up to be an Olympic volunteer for the 2008 Beijing Games, she could hardly have imagined she would be playing the role of a Canadian tourist in English and etiquette classes. The classes are all part of Beijing’s effort to get its population to speak English to welcome the millions of foreigners expected to flood to the city in this Olympic year.

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/ 15 January 2008

Survivor: African National Congress

There is more than a touch of Ronald Reagan — or even, dare one say it, George W Bush — in Jacob Zuma. Apparently happily unencumbered by the need to demonstrate a towering intellectual faculty, he is an archetypal instinctive politician — streetwise, savvy and not to be underestimated.

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/ 15 January 2008

Fires destroy Hermanus homes

Raging veld fires in Hermanus have destroyed six houses and damaged several others, it was reported on Tuesday. ”We’ve had strong winds that got out of control,” explained an official in the Hermanus municipal office, who declined to give his name.

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/ 15 January 2008

Govt criticised for delaying Pikoli inquiry

The Ginwala Commission of Inquiry into suspended National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli has criticised the government for its ”slow response” and failure to deliver its submission on time. In a statement on Tuesday, inquiry head Frene Ginwala said she had ”reluctantly” granted the government a 10-day extension.