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/ 5 December 2007
The JSE remained firm at noon on Wednesday in line with overseas markets, while ongoing mergers and acquisitions talk and higher commodity prices boosted miners. But investors remained jittery ahead of the local central bank’s interest rate decision on Thursday afternoon.
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/ 5 December 2007
After putting his seedlings to bed in the world-famous Banaue rice terraces in the northern Philippines, farmer Gabriel Balicdon works as a tourist guide and buys rice from the grocer. Built by Ifugaos — illiterate mountain farmers and woodcarvers — at about the same time the Pyramids of Egypt and the Great Wall of China were being constructed, the terraces look like giant staircases leading to the clouds.
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/ 5 December 2007
Tintswalo Hospital in Acornhoek, Mpumalanga, is somewhat run down and in need of a coat of paint. From the outside there is little to suggest the 450-bed government hospital is home to an innovative research project exploring the provision of quality post-rape medical care in under-resourced, rural settings.
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/ 5 December 2007
I attended last week’s Trialogue Making CSI Matter conference anxious that the presentations would focus on the newly legislated Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Codes of Best Practice, how and why to comply and, if not, on the importance of corporates having a social conscience, writes Steuart Pennington.
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/ 5 December 2007
When the ANC was formed in 1912, it was racially exclusive and only opened up to all races as recently as 1985. Yet, this did not make the pre-1985 ANC racist. ANC founders were wholly Eurocentric, and maintained good relations with white folk. The exclusiveness simply reflected a loss of faith in the liberal agenda, writes Mcebisi Ndletyana.
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/ 5 December 2007
The call by the Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel, to review BEE has fuelled similar calls from organisations such as the DA, Solidarity, IFP and the Freedom Front Plus. But what elements of BEE/affirmative action need to be reviewed? These groups argue that policies marginalise whites and the poor of previously disadvantaged groups.
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/ 5 December 2007
A profound sense of disempowerment among emerging farmers has come to light following FNB’s announcement of a R300million deal with United States development agency USAid. The deal will see the agency guaranteeing half the loans the bank extends to black farmers, writes Barrie Terblanche.
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/ 5 December 2007
As families disintegrate in the face of Aids and rural poverty bites deeper, a steady stream of job-seekers arrives in Johannesburg.
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/ 5 December 2007
Maintenance prosecutor René Botha quit her job as attorney the day she realised she was helping "the wrong people". Today Botha is one of the most important and successful torchÂbearers for neglected children, women and men in Johannesburg who do not receive the maintenance they are entitled to.
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/ 5 December 2007
Captain Zakhele Zwane likes to think of himself as an officer who does more than just his job. "It’s the only thing I’ve known for the past 20 years. I didn’t know anything about police work before I joined the force. As far as fighting crime was concerned, I knew I could make a difference," he says.