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/ 10 October 2005

Freezing quake survivors wait for help

Hundreds of thousands of quake survivors in the mountains of northeast Pakistan were on Monday desperately waiting for help after spending a second night in freezing temperatures, as the confirmed death toll rose to nearly 20 000. In many villages and towns hardest hit by Saturday’s quake, people dug through the night with their bare hands in an often futile attempt to reach friends and relatives trapped in the rubble.

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/ 10 October 2005

Wave of sleaze swirls around Bush

It never rains but it pours, as the people of Louisiana know to their cost. Since Hurricane Katrina hit in August, United States President George W Bush and the Republicans have been inundated by a rising tide of sleaze allegations. Bush’s bungling in Katrina’s aftermath cost him dearly.

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/ 10 October 2005

Literacy teachers in from the cold?

Eight years after the Department of Education defined conditions of service for adult literacy teachers, they may be on the brink of receiving formal contracts. Criteria that formalise and improve work conditions for adult basic education and training (Abet) teachers have been agreed on.

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/ 10 October 2005

LRA rebels cause political conflict

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has slammed an incursion by Ugandan rebels, the Lord’s Resistance Army into the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), but warned Kampala against using force to dislodge them. He reminded "governments that any recourse to the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity of the DRC contravenes the United Nations Charter."

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/ 10 October 2005

Critics don’t like Microsoft gift

A controversial new partnership between the South African government and the world’s leading software company, Microsoft, is at the centre of a heated debate about the best way to roll out IT access to poor communities. The memorandum of understanding aims to roll out free Microsoft software and training to telecentres in all 284 municipalities over three years.

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/ 10 October 2005

Low-cost, highly flexible RAs make sense

Recent figures from the Life Offices Association show that the sale of retirement annuities as a percentage of the life industry business has fallen over the past six months. With the bad publicity and rulings against the life industry by the Pension Funds Adjudicator, it would appear that investors have real concerns about the appropriateness of RAs as a savings vehicle.