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/ 26 January 2005
Why has the number of business broadcasters taken off so rapidly in the first ten years of democracy? Ten years ago, business broadcasting was a pretty dreary affair, confined to the business slot at the end of the news. Graeme Addison suggests that Bizotainment and money madness attract South Africans to the honeypot — even if they have no money to invest.
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/ 26 January 2005
The inaccessibility of learning materials is a problem for primary and secondary schools, where the Department of Education spends more than R1-billion on textbooks and is still left with four students having to share one book. It is also a problem for individuals, who are confronted with expensive curricular shopping lists at university.
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/ 26 January 2005
The implementation of regional electricity distributors (REDs) should not lead to price shocks, but the economies of scale should result in more competitive power prices in the longer term, Western Cape regional general manager of the planned first RED Leon Louw said last Tuesday.
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/ 26 January 2005
The World Social Forum (WSF), sometimes described as the "carnival of the oppressed", is under way in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre. While WSF participants debate the problems facing the international community, another issue is also likely to come up for discussion, however: Africa’s prospects of hosting the forum next year.
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/ 26 January 2005
The good news for the weeping editors and owners at our own financial publications is that they’re in good company. Annual advertising revenue at most of South Africa’s business print brands is equal to what it was five years ago — <i>Business Day</i> is more than R10-million down on 1999/2000 figures, and only the <i>Business Times</i> is significantly up.
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/ 26 January 2005
January 8 2005, I thought to remind myself, was the day I fully entered the realm of the petit-blackeois (the black bourgeois) class. I … I had a … ehhhh, uhmmm, a facial, back-scrub and full body massage at a beauty salon. There, I have said it. Condemn me if you will.
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/ 26 January 2005
The Luzira cocoa processing plant is unusual. In the only operation of its kind in the vast region, the workers at this site are harnessing the power of the sun to dry cocoa for export. Cocoa is a major earner of foreign exchange in Uganda, fetching  500 to  700 (R9 000 to R10 200) a tonne — three times what Uganda gets for coffee, its main export crop.
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/ 26 January 2005
For the past while the Financial Mail has been suffering declining circulations and internal editorial discord. Will Barney Mthombothi find the answer in fuller coverage of the country’s transformation? Kevin Bloom speaks to the new editor, Barney Mthombothi who takes the helm this month.
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/ 26 January 2005
Investigative journalism is essential if we are to preserve democratic values. Left to their own devices politicians will get up to all sorts of skullduggery and it’s up to honest hacks to catch them out and make them pay for their misdemeanors. Or so we are told. The greater truth is that investigative journalism is much better for newspaper sales than it is for upholding democracy.
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/ 26 January 2005
There is an audible buzz among online publishers and agencies about the renewed interest in the medium these days. And, to back it up, the figures appear to be looking healthy. Matthew Buckland explains why the local and international online sectors have good reason to be upbeat.