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/ 5 March 2007

Lies of the vigilantes

Slobodan Milosevic was posthumously exonerated on Monday when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Serbia was not responsible for the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica. The former president of Serbia had always argued that neither Yugoslavia nor Serbia had command of the Bosnian Serb army, a claim that has now been upheld by the ICJ.

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/ 5 March 2007

Blood ties

In public, at least, they seem remarkably unfazed by what they have done. And in some senses, of course, they needn’t be. They are a loving couple, who have been together for seven years and want to be with no one else. They have had four children. Beyond these details, however, the story gets more troubling. Patrick and Susan Stubing, who live in Zwenkau, near Leipzig, Germany, are brother and sister.

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/ 5 March 2007

Dial-a-super-profit

Some South Africans are paying just six cents a call in interconnect fees to cellphone operators, while others are paying a whopping R1,25 a call. The six-cents-a-call applies in under-serviced areas, but major network operator Cell C says it can operate and make profits at six cents a call.

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/ 5 March 2007

Zimbabwe’s workers struggle to survive

The average worker in Zimbabwe earns Z$100 000 per month, but following last week’s pay hike for teachers and the bulk of the civil servants, prices of basic commodities rose significantly, effectively putting a strain on the newly introduced salaries while those in other sectors were virtually plunged into a hopeless abyss of poverty and deprivation.

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/ 5 March 2007

‘I’ve always been an activist’

"Charity is a very Victorian notion — the further away people are, the more charitable we feel towards them," says Thompson with not a little asperity. "By my thirties I was thoroughly disenchanted by celebrity charity stuff — I just can’t bear it!" she says with a groan. Loathing the lunches-‘n-launches celebrity circuit, Thompson was looking for a way to make a more meaningful contribution.

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/ 5 March 2007

Former leader guns for presidency

Former Malawian president Bakili Muluzi dominated local media headlines over the past three weeks after returning from the United Kingdom, where he went for a medical check-up. But this time it is not his health but his desire to run again as president in 2009 elections that has attracted the media’s attention.

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/ 5 March 2007

Large-scale slavery returns

Slavery has made a "horrific" return to modern Britain, according to the most wide-ranging study of the secret world of forced labour yet published. Shocking statistics about the country’s sex trade, including an estimated 5 000 under-16s coerced into prostitution, mask equally violence-ridden and illegal practices in jobs ranging from crop-picking and factory work to nursing and the catering trade.

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/ 5 March 2007

Blame ANC for neglect of Imizamo Yethu

In the past few weeks the Mail & Guardian has carried a number of political views on the crisis of overcrowding and poor sanitation in the Imizamo Yethu informal settlement in Hout Bay. The City of Cape Town has a responsibility to remedy this situation, writes the mayor of Cape Town, Helen Zille.

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/ 5 March 2007

Rubbed the wrong way

A hand bobbing up and down on an erection is one of the funniest things in the world — at least when said penis is being woggled on a leafy Johannesburg street at noon on Valentine’s Day. Instantly it reminded me of my dog having a good scratch, especially as what I could see of the man’s face around his sunglasses had the same fixed look as my Alsatian when he’s trying to reach the itchy bit behind his ears.