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/ 29 March 2006

Cellphones target credit cards

Over the past few years, cellphones have metamorphosed from a useful communication tool to the equivalent of a Swiss Army knife. Soon, the only thing you will have to have in your pocket when you leave home will be your cellphone. Today, a cellphone can be used to pick up e-mails, take photographs and videos, listen to music and pay accounts.

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/ 29 March 2006

Digital Royalties

How did the Napster case in the US impact so quickly on the radio broadcasting environment in South Africa? Mark Rosin and Greg Hamburger outline some important legal developments arising out of new technologies.

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/ 29 March 2006

India’s growing ‘rent a womb’ trade

Daksha, a shy Gujarati woman in her early 30s, wants a child — but not for herself. The baby is for the ”Britishers”, the couple seated in the lobby of the Indian fertility clinic. It is the first time that the British Asian couple, Ajay and Saroj Shah, from Leicester in central England, have met Daksha. The 31-year-old is ”loaning” her womb to them for 150 000 rupees (about £2 000).

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/ 29 March 2006

Zuma’s rubber raspberry

”There wasn’t one handy.” And so it came to pass that The Elephant himself, u-Msholozi, departed the real world. He is now said to be keeping company with the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny — in the Land of the Tall Tale. They also say his days of financial woe are over, with at least one confirmed sighting of leprechauns at Nkandla.

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/ 29 March 2006

Taking Candy

Contemporary youth culture isn’t exactly looking for intellectualism in its media, reckons Andy Davis. No kidding. So what is it that makes this sector one of the most lucrative around and which local brands are pitching at the perfect level?

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/ 29 March 2006

Guantánamo’s day of reckoning in Supreme Court

The United States Supreme Court was urged on Tuesday to rein in President George Bush’s use of his powers as a wartime president, challenging his order to dispatch al-Qaeda suspects to trial before military tribunals. Lawyers for Salim Ahmed Hamdan, an inmate at Guantánamo, told the court that Bush had violated basic military protections with his November 2001 executive order setting up the tribunals.

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/ 29 March 2006

Runaway athletes surrender to Australian officials

All fourteen Sierra Leone athletes who fled the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in a bid to escape being returned to their war-torn country have been allowed to remain temporarily in Australia, officials said on Wednesday. Twelve of the athletes, including three women who feared circumcision if returned home, were granted temporary bridging visas earlier this week.

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/ 28 March 2006

Telkom waiting on unions for approach

Telecommunications giant Telkom on Tuesday said it was waiting for two striking unions to approach it directly about the reissue of a retracted offer to overcome a deadlock in wage negotiations. ”We are waiting for the unions to talk to us directly. We are then going to tell them what has been decided and what can be done further to alleviate the situation.”

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/ 28 March 2006

So near, and yet so far

Australia beat the fading light and bowled South Africa out for 297 to win the second Castle Lager Test at Kingsmead by 112 runs on Tuesday. Despite a battling partnership of 72 runs by Mark Boucher and Nicky Boje, the South Africans were unable to cope with the wiles of legendary legspinner Shane Warne and were all out with less than seven overs left to play.