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/ 21 September 2007
Lawmakers in crime-ridden South Africa approved a Bill on Thursday making it harder for rapists to argue for reduced sentences. The Criminal Law Sentencing Amendment Bill bars judges and magistrates from considering a rape victim’s sexual history or an apparent lack of physical injury to justify lessening minimum jail terms.
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/ 21 September 2007
As the England boys prepared to face Russia, there was only one topic of conversation going round the dinner table: how the women had fared against Japan the previous day. It was good to hear all the lads talking about it, along with the other results from the Women’s Soccer World Cup.
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/ 21 September 2007
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As the Rugby World Cup pool stage reached the halfway point this week, not one of the Six Nations countries could yet start planning for a quarterfinal. On the form of the opening two rounds, the semifinalists will all be from the southern hemisphere: New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Argentina.
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/ 21 September 2007
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It took Kevin Pietersen, of all people, to articulate the edgy appeal of the Twenty20 World Championship. ”Twenty20 is totally different from one-day cricket, where you can plan your innings and do so many things in your preparation to make sure the procedures you want to happen out in the middle do happen,” he said this week.
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/ 21 September 2007
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It seems this isn’t the best time to be an English rugby fan. For one thing, their team just seems to keep losing — even off the pitch! This week the internet was awash with rugby shirts bearing the ”036” logo after the English went down by that margin to South Africa last Sunday.
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/ 21 September 2007
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There have been times during his tenure as Springbok coach when Jake White must have wished he were Bernard Laporte — but this is not one of them. At the same time that White and his charges are relaxing after a job well done, the coach of France is wondering if his team will still be in the World Cup on Saturday morning.
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/ 21 September 2007
Athletes have become the first casualty of mining company Harmony’s drastic drive to cut its soaring costs. The company has decided to rid itself of about 40 star athletes on its payroll and invest in developing talent. Professional runners at Harmony earn between R500 and R14 000 a month, depending on experience.
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/ 21 September 2007
If ever there were a case of a sport taking itself too seriously, it arrived in Paris last week, when the geniuses who regard themselves as the guardians of the sport’s morals fined the McLaren team -million (about R700-million). It was grandstanding on a ludicrous scale.
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/ 21 September 2007
<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=rugbyworldcup07_home"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/317644/icon_rwc_03.gif" align=left border=0></a>Who can save the northern hemisphere in this World Cup? It looks like either France or Ireland, but neither has had a remotely reassuring start to the Rugby World Cup tournament. The three Tri-Nations teams look safe bets for places in the semifinals, and most neutral observers would back Argentina to join them there.
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/ 21 September 2007
The British government stands accused of breaking its G8 pledge to help defeat Aids after it revealed it would only marginally increase its contribution to the Global Fund for Aids, Malaria and Tuberculosis.