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/ 13 April 2006

A (week-long) trip to the shops

Caroline* from Harare comes to Jo’burg twice a month to shop. She does not like the place, but needs to come here to support her family. "I buy things here, so I can sell them in Zimbabwe," says Caroline, who buys mostly industrial goods, such as rubber, for making couches. There are thousands of so-called cross-border shoppers like Caroline who come to Jo’burg every year.

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/ 13 April 2006

DRC justice system flounders in turmoil

Like other government institutions that were neglected during years of civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the justice system is in dire need of reform. Since 2002, the country’s judicial officials have produced reports on ways to reform the justice system. However, these reforms have not been implemented because the government has been focused on efforts to move beyond the turmoil of civil conflict.

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/ 13 April 2006

My search is over

What I can say with assurance is that the journey has defined my life choices. I’ve lived a life eager and expecting to encounter God. I’ve been willing to go anywhere, do anything and open ever more deeply to that experience, and to assist others to do the same, writes Mary Ovenstone.

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/ 13 April 2006

Libya hosts Western stars to remember US raid

Basking in its two-year-old rapprochement with the West, Libya boasts that this year its commemorations of Washington’s deadly 1986 air strikes on its main cities will be joined by Western stars. Veteran United States soul singer Lionel Ritchie and Spanish tenor Jose Carreras are among the acts that Libya says will be performing in the capital.

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/ 13 April 2006

A genderless faith

African traditional religion does not discriminate against women. But you’d never know this because current study perpetuates the biases implicit in Judaeo-Christian analysis, and many scholars — including African feminist scholars — do not study ATR from direct experience. Their starting point is always the arrival of missionaries in South Africa.

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/ 13 April 2006

‘Screw you,’ say Afghan drug lords

Since the Western-led war on drugs started four years ago, only two major drug smugglers have been arrested — Haji Baz Muhammad, who was extradited to the United States last October, and Bashir Noorzai, who was arrested in New York six months earlier. But the remainder are apparently untouchable.

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/ 13 April 2006

Evolution: Fact or theory?

As is so often the case with questions of this sort, a lot depends on what is meant by the terms. If the term evolution includes the strange ethics, suspect metaphysics and optimistic ideas about progress that some try to extract from science — in other words, a raft of extra–scientific accretions — then evolution is not a theory in the scientific sense.