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/ 20 September 2007
Israel’s declaration that the Gaza Strip is an ”enemy entity” is yet another alarming development in the ever-fractious situation in the Middle East. The move is intended to warn of, and ostensibly to justify, a cut-off of fuel and electricity to the territory — home to 1,5-million people already living in appalling conditions.
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/ 20 September 2007
A small-town murder is bound to leave residents continuously looking over their shoulders. In the northern KwaZulu-Natal town of Dundee — population 25 000 — the condition has been exacerbated by the initial arrest of the Endumeni municipality’s first citizen, her sibling and her boyfriend in connection with the murder of SACP/ANC activist Grishen Bujram in June this year.
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/ 20 September 2007
”One reason the apartheid-did-it explanation doesn’t completely satisfy is that South Africans are not unique in the world in having gone through long periods of disenfranchisement, oppression and collective violence.” Antony Altbeker looks at some of the weaknesses of an argument that relies only on our history to explain present crime levels.
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/ 20 September 2007
Former director general of the National Intelligence Agency Billy Masetlha has warned that the existence of the Scorpions unit in its current form — outside the South African Police Service — remains a threat to national security and could lead to the country being infiltrated by foreign intelligence operatives. Masetlha also lashed out at his former boss, Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils
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/ 20 September 2007
A group of Richtersvelders is trying to stop the Land Claims Court from making the land settlement signed on April 22 with Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin an order of the court. The agreement, signed by four members of a 15-member committee with Erwin, was allegedly done in great secrecy.
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/ 20 September 2007
For almost two decades, the Indian and Pakistani armies have fought a near-war along the freezing peaks of the Himalayas. But now the world’s highest battlefield is to become an adventure playground. The Indian army this week announced it would ”encourage mountaineering and trekking expeditions” across the Siachen glacier.
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/ 20 September 2007
An oppressive pall hangs over the Motala Heights informal settlement in Pinetown near Durban. It comes not from the dump site nearby the wood-and-iron houses nor from sewage, but rather from the clampdown on basic civil liberties — the freedom of movement and political association.
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/ 20 September 2007
Less than a week after Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki unveiled his new party and embarked on a rigorous re-election campaign, the National Security Intelligence Service has leaked a damaging report, suggesting the president is headed for a resounding defeat in six out of the country’s eight provinces in the national polls set for December.
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/ 20 September 2007
Controversial businessperson Charles Modise, being held in prison in Kimberley, said this week that he was arrested as part of a larger political conspiracy to discredit besieged Cosatu president Willie Madisha. He said in a fax from prison this week that he was arrested with the help of the head of the detectives in Gauteng, commissioner Norman Taioe.
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/ 20 September 2007
Thousands of unemployed South African youths and an embattled social services sector will benefit from a bilateral cooperation agreement signed between the department of social development and the government of Cuba. Under the agreement just more than 9 000 auxiliary social workers will be trained in the next year in a move to provide relief to overworked social workers.