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/ 31 January 2005
Ferial Haffajee speaks to François Beukmann, chairperson of the standing committee of public accounts (Scopa). Among the questions she asks is whether or not he would revisit the issue of the arms deal, his reaction to media reports and what Scopa can do to repair the damage of the reputation of the Office of the Auditor General.
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/ 31 January 2005
The tsunami turned attention back to one of the most forgotten emergencies in the world, Somalia. It was a deadly tsunami wave from far away, that put this odd-shaped peninsula back on the map. Broken buildings, broken fishing nets, tattered boats and smatterings of ragged clothes blend in with the historic remains from before.
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/ 31 January 2005
Louisa is a non-professional community worker with the Portuguese chapter of Doctors of the World, who has participated in Mozambique’s home-based care programme since September last year. In a country where doctors and nurses are scarce, she –- and others like her –- are increasingly on the front line of efforts to provide care for the 1,4-million Mozambicans who are living with HIV.
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/ 31 January 2005
If your pets can benefit from medicines developed as a result of animal research,
does that leave you with a moral dilemma? The United Kingdom’s Animal Liberation Front, unsurprisingly, thinks not. According to its website, ”the immorality of rights-violative practices is not attenuated by claiming that the victims and beneficiaries are of the same species”.
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/ 31 January 2005
Mwanvua Silimu has just told a lie and everyone in the room knows it. She stares at her feet, silent. The 14-year-old is back home after months as the prisoner of vagabond soldiers, relating her ordeal. It is the obvious question, and her family ask it: how many of her 13 kidnappers raped her? In little more than a whisper, Mwanvua replies ”one”.
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/ 31 January 2005
Luis Moreno Ocampo, chief prosecutor of the Netherlands-based International Criminal Court (ICC), is going to be a busy man this year as far as Africa is concerned. Reports indicate that the court could begin trying those accused of perpetrating atrocities in the conflict between Uganda’s government and rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army this year.
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/ 31 January 2005
Last year’s violent tsunami reminded us that in history, as in geography, isolation is impossible, and all borders are common. It is no longer a question of opposing the inevitable overrunning of borders by globalisation with calls for autarky or isolationism, but rather of reinforcing borders with a convergence of wealth and rights and reaffirming the human component of economy and progress.
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/ 30 January 2005
Iraqis defied violence and calls for a boycott to cast ballots in Iraq’s first free election in half a century on Sunday. Insurgents seeking to wreck the vote struck polling stations with a string of suicide bombings and mortar volleys, killing at least 44 people, including nine attackers.
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/ 30 January 2005
Wayne Rooney scored two spectacular goals as holders Manchester United reached the fifth round of the FA Cup on a day when the giants of the Premiership hammered home their authority in the world’s oldest cup competition. Rooney made it four goals in five games to seal an emphatic 3-0 victory for United over Middlesbrough at Old Trafford.