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South Africa’s third post-1994 local government election got under way without obvious hitches at 7am on Wednesday. President Thabo Mbeki was the first voter to cast his ballot at the Colbyn voting station in Pretoria. He was welcomed by Independent Electoral Commission chairperson Brigalia Bam and chief electoral officer Pansy Tlakula.
Watching the news from out of the Middle East, you might be wondering what’s going on and why — and, mostly, when’s it going to stop. The simple answer is: it isn’t. The world is now in the first stages of a multistep "end game" for global domination by the last remaining superpowers. The "energy wars" have begun in earnest and will keep on going, from here onwards.
To lovers of fine wine there is no more satisfying sound then the pop of a cork as a favourite vintage is opened. The twist of a screw cap just doesn’t carry the same hint of promise. But the metal top is moving up market. "We are convinced about screw caps. They are better, certainly for white wine," said Veronique Bouffard, communications manager at Andre Lurton.
Walking into the Angolan capital’s main maternity hospital, the first thing that hits any visitor is the stench: a nauseating combination of blood and excrement. After a short while, the stomach settles and the eyes adjust to the poor light in the Maternidade Lucrecia Paim; then, the true wretchedness of the grey walls and broken windows begins to sink in.
I was recently on a discussion programme with a fully signed-up card-carrying feminist. ”Damn,” she said, as we came off, ”I said ‘husbands’ by mistake, instead of ‘partners’.” She’d made the ultimate faux pas — the assumption that couples must be married. But is it right, particularly when so many feminists — like herself — have chosen to get married, that marriage should continue to be taboo?
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/ 28 February 2006
The irrigation water boozed by South Africa’s burgeoning golf-course estates would satisfy the basic water needs of at least 75% of South Africans, a few simple sums indicate. According to Tony Vaughan, publisher of The Property Magazine, each golf course consumes between 1,5-million and two million litres of water a day.
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/ 28 February 2006
Against a background of rising rural unrest, China recently unveiled ambitious plans to help the 800-million people living in the countryside catch up economically with people in the cities. More rural investment, agricultural subsidies and improved social services are the main planks of a policy to create a ”new socialist countryside”.
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/ 28 February 2006
The recent violence surrounding the publication in the West of caricatures of the prophet Muhammad illustrate the danger of Islamic ”totalitarianism”, Salman Rushdie and a group of other writers said in a statement obtained on Tuesday. ”After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new global threat: Islamism,” they wrote.
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/ 28 February 2006
Suspects who allegedly sabotaged a generator at Koeberg power station which has triggered months of off-and-on power outages in the Western Cape have been identified, the 702 radio station quoted Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin as saying on Tuesday.