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/ 20 September 2007

Freedom from repression

The rhetoric against media freedom is shooting through society. In the establishment the ante has been upped by President Thabo Mbeki and his political associates, Ronald Suresh Roberts and Christine Qunta, all of whom have conducted a sustained verbal assault on the media in the past three months.

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/ 20 September 2007

Many shades of opinion

I have lost count of the number of unwinnable debates I have held in the past few years with friends who are media ideologues. The essence of the discussion has been the same. It is that: "Rapule, we know you; you were a comrade but, unfortunately, you work for the capitalist media and he who pays the piper calls the tune."

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/ 20 September 2007

‘First step of 1 000 miles’

It was all warm and cosy on Zimbabwe’s usually frosty political front recently, as Zanu-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change agreed on a set of changes to the country’s electoral laws. New constitutional amendments that the opposition previously said were meant to entrench President Robert Mugabe’s rule were read in Parliament on Tuesday.

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/ 20 September 2007

Johnnie Walker. Blue

It’s been extremely busy at the Sandton headquarters of the Blue Label Investments this week, which says a lot. The company, which has ballooned into a R12-billion-a-year juggernaut with 36 subsidiaries in the space of six years must be frantically busy at the quietest of times. The extra frenzy revolves around a bid to list on the main board of the JSE in November.

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/ 20 September 2007

If everyone recycled 90% of their garbage …

My doorbell rang last week. They had come to collect the garbage. I trundled out one of those plastic bins with lid and wheels that are omnipresent across Johannesburg. It was full to brimming. But this was no ordinary bin. Blue with a green lid, it belongs to Resolution Recycling, which takes away your recyclables twice a month.

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/ 20 September 2007

The billion-rand hole at Fidentia

Up to a billion rands of funds invested in Fidentia are unlikely to be recovered, say the financial group’s curators. One curator, Dines Gihwala, of Hofmeyr, Herbstein & Gihwala, says the company is expecting to recover only a further R300-million of the missing money to add to the R300-million already paid to investors.

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/ 20 September 2007

Cuba lends a helping hand

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.

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/ 20 September 2007

SACP accused of ‘witch-hunt’ against Madisha

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

President panics as popularity plummets

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.