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/ 30 August 2005

Folly of political football

Students of European soccer will know that at midnight this week Wednesday, the transfer window closes until Christmas. The rumours and counter-rumours, the hyperbole and avarice of player’ agents, the acquisitive hopes and dreams of the coaches and club supporters will cease.

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/ 30 August 2005

Lies, damn lies and small surveys

"Although Statistics South Africa conducts exhaustive surveys on a regular basis, an odd reliance on small, private surveys persists in the media and among politicians. Given the economic, social and political divisions in South Africa, smaller surveys are more likely to be inaccurate," writes the coordinator of fiscal, monetary and public sector policy at the Congress of South African Trade Unions, Neva Makgetla.

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/ 30 August 2005

Absa man blew whistle

South African banking giant Absa had repeatedly been alerted to irregularities and unexplained payments authorised by the Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe (CBZ) with which it exchanged financial vows in 1998. Absa has a 26% controlling stake in CBZ, now known as Jewel Bank.

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/ 30 August 2005

Life’s not a TV show

Almost three-quarters of Britons are happy to give up civil liberties to make us safer from terrorist attack, according to a recent Guardian/ICM poll. Having seen the all-too-real threat of the July bombings, 73% are ready to pay the price, ready to let their protectors do whatever has to be done.

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/ 29 August 2005

Sunnis protest new Iraq Constitution

Thousands of Sunni demonstrators rallied in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit on Monday to denounce Iraq’s new Constitution a day after negotiators finished the new charter without the endorsement of Sunni Arabs. Sunni leaders have urged their community to defeat the charter in a nationwide referendum on October 15.

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/ 29 August 2005

Jiyane visits FW de Klerk

Ziba Jiyane, founder of the newly established National Democratic Convention, paid a visit to former National Party leader FW de Klerk on Monday to inform him ”of his plans to establish a new centre-right party based on Christian family values, participatory democracy and free-market principles.”