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/ 18 September 2007
Aduke Komolafe, a 58-year-old Nigerian civil servant, put an end to her life by swallowing rat poison, mortified at the loss of her savings to a phoney investment fund. Lured by the promise of 100% returns in two weeks, the mother of five put 1,3-million naira ($10Â 000) into Pennywise, one of dozens of self-styled "wonder" investment firms.
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/ 18 September 2007
Oil prices topped 81 dollars a barrel for the first time on Tuesday, setting another record high amid fears of critically tight supplies for the winter season in the United States. Opec’s announcement last week that it would pump an extra 500 000 barrels per day from November has failed to stop the surge in price.
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/ 18 September 2007
"Of course they can," says Dr Venitha Pillay, feminist author and University of Pretoria academic whose single-motherhood status inspired her to undertake a study on women academics who are also mothers. Prior to conducting research for her book, Academic Mothers, Pillay found that most literature on women and work tends to be cluttered with arguments around balancing the two lives — motherhood and work.
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/ 18 September 2007
The higher education system and individual institutions need to act on the practice whereby some senior academics allegedly plagiarise the work of students. So say Dr Fulufhelo Netswera, a research director at Unisa, and Ndinannyi Malada, a higher education researcher at the Centre for Education Policy Development.
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/ 18 September 2007
Swami Parthasarathy, who founded the Vedanta Academy in Maharashtra State, India, offers students a three-year full-time residential course on Vedanta, a system of Hindu philosophy. The swami has also designed programmes for the corporate sector that offer a balance between outer success and inner peace.
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/ 18 September 2007
The National Research Foundation (NRF) honoured 19 of South Africa’s top researchers at its annual President’s Awards, which were made in three categories: a lifetime achiever award, P-rated research awards and Arated research awards. The lifetime achiever award went to Dr Mamphela Ramphele, former vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town (UCT) and now director of Circle Capital Ventures, a black empowerment company.
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/ 18 September 2007
It was one of the sneakiest sleights of hand ever manoeuvred by the former minister of education. No, it was not in the contrivance of the mergers. Nor, can you believe it, was it in the creation of universities of technology with the hilarious proviso that they continue to function solely as technikons; a rose by any other name.
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/ 18 September 2007
Growing up in the NG Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church) some of us have come to believe that dominees (ministers) come in prototypes. After years of careful observation from the benches of NG Kerk places of worship, all ministers appear to be moulded during their extended theology education to sport the same look and project the same sound.
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/ 18 September 2007
What colour is a polar bear? “That’s a dumb question,” you think. “Everyone knows polar bears are white.” Actually the correct answer is “black”. The reason why polar bears look white is because of the way their transparent fur reflects visible light. Their skin underneath the fur is, in fact, black.
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/ 18 September 2007
The police lost over 1 500 more firearms during the past financial year than they did during the previous year, says the Auditor General. In an audit contained in the South African Police Service 2006/07 annual report, he found 3 856 firearms were reported ”lost, stolen or robbed from personnel throughout the country” during the 12 months up to March 31 this year.