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/ 8 September 2006

Is the Receiver going too far?

The Receiver’s net is becoming tighter as it works to increase the number of income earners who pay tax. But it may be that in some cases it has overstepped its mark. For example, you may suddenly find that the sale of a property has been held up due to the fact that one of the parties involved — seller, buyer or agent — is not tax compliant.

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/ 8 September 2006

Classical doctor

From the age of three, Cheryl McCrindle told her family that she wanted to become an ­animal doctor. They had to believe her. She was already collecting insects and reptiles. She had a pet snake, which one day made a meal of her pet mouse.

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/ 8 September 2006

Drowning in crime

I have found myself drowning in a crime wave. It happened suddenly, without me moving neighbourhoods, frequenting dodgy areas or buying more expensive, more desirable belongings. There is only one change in my circumstances of which I am aware. When Radio 702 moved to a stronger, FM frequency, I started listening to it, writes Kevin Davie.

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/ 8 September 2006

Don’t tell Manto

I harbour a great sympathy for our embattled Minister of Health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. It’s not her fault. She was sent on her absurd HIV/Aids denialist safari by her boss, the celebrated air-traveller, Thabo Mbeki. He has often stated that his personal clinical findings have proved that the HIV has nothing whatsoever to do with Aids which, anyway, is only a syndrome and not a disease.

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/ 8 September 2006

Ten queer years

According to the Mother City Queer Project, gender orientation is a complete non-issue. Its aim is to normalise and celebrate sexual difference by being non-sexist, non-racist and non-ageist. Shani Raviv talks to everyone from drag queens to transsexuals about the upcoming event..

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/ 8 September 2006

Contrition not enough

Readers of the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>’s predecessor, <i>The Weekly Mail</i>, may remember a July 1991 front page picture of then law and order minister Adriaan Vlok sporting a Pinocchio proboscis with the headline, "Oh dear, Mr Vlok, you lied". Vlok claimed to have accounted for every cent of the covert funding of the Inkatha Freedom Party by the police at the height of the dirty war in Kwazulu-Natal, which was, of course, not true.

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/ 8 September 2006

Kasrils and South Africa: apologists for Iran

When he first began speaking out against Israel in 2001, Ronnie Kasrils insisted he was not equating Israelis with Nazis: "I am not making that comparison," he told Parliament on 23 October 2001. Today Kasrils indulges such analogies brazenly: "Now Jews, too, have behaved like Nazis," he crowed last week. That he does so is a sign of how extreme the minister’s views have become as he has abandoned all pretence at moderation.

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/ 8 September 2006

Let’s mix it cheaply, baby

An application available for free download to your cellphone called MXit is making communication via cellphones fast, accessible and dirt cheap. Instant messaging service MXit cuts the cost of an SMS, priced at up to 80c to send a one-word message such as “hello”, by 100 000 times to just 0,0008c.