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/ 31 January 2007

Testimony of our time

If being a journalist is a species of voyeurism, then reading books about the exploits of journalists isn’t much different. But in the coincidence of two recent books by different South African journalists, you feel relieved that yours is only a second-hand taste of what they’ve seen.

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/ 31 January 2007

Journalists are not excused from humanity

Last April’s murder of actor Brett Goldin and his friend, designer Richard Bloom, found its way into ”The A to Z of cultural catastrophe” in the Mail & Guardian’s year-end edition. It was a particularly horrifying crime: the bodies of the two men were found with a single shot to the head.

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/ 31 January 2007

Leopards too strong for Maritzburg United

In a Premier Soccer League match between two relegation-threatened teams, Black Leopards beat Maritzburg United 1-0 at Thohoyandou Stadium on Wednesday afternoon. The home team, Leopards, led 1-0 at half-time. Only a few soccer lovers watched the game in which the first half belonged to Leopards and the second to Maritzburg United.

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/ 31 January 2007

Govt considers tougher line on BEE non-compliance

Black economic empowerment (BEE) legislation could be amended to compel companies to adhere to codes of good practice, Parliament’s trade and industry portfolio committee heard on Wednesday. ”The Act does not empower us to take action against a company that refuses to recognise the codes,” Trade and Industry Department chief director Polo Hadebe said.

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/ 31 January 2007

UK anti-terror operation ‘by no means finished’

Police in central England arrested nine people in a major security swoop on Wednesday, which a defence source said involved a plot to kidnap and possibly kill a Muslim British soldier. Detectives said eight suspected conspirators were arrested in dawn raids across the city of Birmingham on ”suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism”.

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/ 31 January 2007

Miners killed at Harmony

Four miners died in two rockfalls at the Harmony mine in Randfontein in the past week, the National Union of Mineworkers said on Wednesday. The company could only confirm two deaths — last Thursday when three workers attending to a railway line were struck by a ground fall.

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/ 31 January 2007

Bird flu claims first human life in West Africa

Nigeria confirmed the first human death from the H5N1 virus in sub-Saharan Africa on Wednesday after tests on a dead woman showed she had contracted bird flu. The 22-year-old died after feathering and disembowelling an infected chicken. She was from Lagos, the commercial capital of Africa’s most populous country, Information Minister Frank Nweke said.