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/ 20 September 2005

The railway across the roof of the world

China is a nation on the move. But should its economic growth be cause for alarm? Other nations have risen fast — Britain during the industrial revolution, the United States at the turn of the century, and Japan during and after the 1960s. However, it took Britain 100 years to rise; 60 for the US and 30 for Japan. It seems China will be transformed in just a couple of decades.

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/ 20 September 2005

How America rides the storms

Four years ago the dust was still settling on Lower Manhattan. The Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre had been reduced to rubble and the United States was in shock. Rightly, there were fears for the health not just of the US economy but also that of the rest of the world.

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/ 19 September 2005

Provinces pass, councils fail

There’s good and bad news from the social delivery interface, but mostly it is good. Personnel costs are down, capital expenditure is up, the provinces are growing their implementation capacity, social development expenditure has more than doubled since 2001/02 and nearly 5,6-million children are getting child support grants, up from 970 000 in 2001/02.

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/ 19 September 2005

Living with Aids in the military

Private Andries Nhlengethwa jumps from planes and lifts 45kg weights. He also happens to have HIV. The 31-year-old parachutist and bodybuilder is one of the few South African soldiers living openly with the deadly virus, presenting a new face of the pandemic on a continent where Aids drugs are rare and infection is often a death sentence.

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/ 19 September 2005

How German voters disappointed Blair

The inconclusive result of Germany’s election has deprived British Prime Minister Tony Blair of a much-sought ally in a crusade to reform Europe’s lacklustre economy, political analysts said on Monday. Officially, Downing Street declined to comment on the outcome of Sunday’s German vote that left Gerhard Schröder and conservative challenger Angela Merkel both claiming victory.