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/ 27 September 2007
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) hopes a new biometric identity card (ID) scheme backed by the European Union can help overhaul its undisciplined armed forces, branded by campaigners as the central African state’s worst rights abuser. After decades as a tool of repression under former leader Mobutu Sese Seko and a devastating 1998 to 2003 war, DRC’s army is bloated, unmanageable and corrupt.
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/ 27 September 2007
A man staggering and groping like a blind man and swearing like a sailor. That was the picture painted of Pretoria High Court Judge Nkola Motata this week.
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/ 27 September 2007
Troops cleared protesters from the streets of central Yangon on Thursday, giving them 10 minutes to leave or be shot as the Burma junta intensified a two-day crackdown on the largest uprising in 20 years. At least nine people were killed, state television said, on a day when far fewer protesters took to the streets after soldiers raided monasteries in the middle of the night.
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/ 27 September 2007
Allegations that South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) board deputy chairperson Christine Qunta is involved in a company selling medicines purported to cure HIV/Aids were ”irresponsible and defamatory”, her lawyer said on Thursday. Athol Gordon was responding to a comments by Zachie Achmat of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC).
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/ 27 September 2007
Festival-goers at the Aardklop National Arts Festival, under way in Potchefstroom, were forced to abandon the afternoon shows half way through on Thursday when the electricity went out in most of the town. It was not immediately clear what caused the power failure but several shows were interrupted and later scrapped as performers and audiences alike waited for the power to return.
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/ 27 September 2007
Work resumed on Cape Town’s 2010 Soccer World Cup stadium in Green Point on Thursday after a week-long strike. ”Work resumed this morning. It’s been a normal working day and we are very pleased,” deputy project director Ray Gamble said. He declined to comment further on the stoppage that has cost contractors Murray & Roberts and WBHO five days’ work.
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/ 27 September 2007
Pakistan military leader President Pervez Musharraf filed nomination papers on Thursday to run for re-election on October 6, while the Supreme Court prepared to rule on the army chief’s eligibility to stand. A bench of nine judges is due to deliver a ruling on Friday that could have far-reaching consequences for Pakistan’s transition to greater democracy.
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/ 27 September 2007
Unsustainable human settlements were part of apartheid planning, the KwaZulu-Natal local government department said on Thursday at the start of a two-day housing summit in Durban. ”We can no longer romanticise about human settlements …,” said provincial minister of local government Mike Mabuyakhulu.
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/ 27 September 2007
As you enter the gates of Soweto’s biggest shopping mall, you are welcomed by a majestic statue of an elephant. The elephant is seen to represent Richard Maponya as being part of the "big five" of business and retail in Soweto, but the actual symbolism of the stature has nothing to do with the man’s businesses.
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/ 27 September 2007
Developing countries are willing to do more when it comes to tackling climate change, but the ”trigger” has to come from the North, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk said on Thursday. In a speech prepared for delivery in Washington, he said participants in such efforts had to include the United States.