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/ 29 December 2004
For the better part of this year, the peace accords that brought five years of civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to an end have been described as "fragile". As 2004 ends, however, the agreements seem close to breaking down completely. The past weeks have seen a surge in tensions between the DRC and neighbouring Rwanda.
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/ 29 December 2004
Virgins? A fresh 72, or your wife with HHR (Heavenly Hymen Reconstruction)? If you look, it’s all on the menu, sir. Brocade couches? Seating this way, sir. Silver goblets; fruit? Follow me to the dining area, madam. This is Jannah, the paradise promised by the Qur’an to the Righteous. And frankly, one can’t understand all the fuss.
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/ 29 December 2004
Once again, Africa has experienced a year with more conflicts resolved than wars started. Nevertheless the continent remains depressingly in the red on the agenda of international confidence. South Africa too has seen an increase in its mediation efforts, and South African forces remain on peacekeeping duty.
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/ 29 December 2004
Once again, mommy is to blame. Or sometimes your auntie. Or both. Collective multiple orgasms convulsed the media this year worldwide, including some in South Africa, when the results of yet another scientific study into ”the cause of homosexuality” were unveiled. Male homosexuality, that is, not lesbianism. The choice of focus is wearily familiar, and significant.
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/ 29 December 2004
If you lived in Dobsonville, the real Soweto could prove quite elusive, writes Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya. ”I had never heard anyone ask a taxi driver whether the cab was going to Soweto. And nobody I knew ever said they were going to visit their relatives in Soweto. It was always ko-Central, eS’godiphola or Mgababa. Never Soweto.”
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/ 29 December 2004
A great domestic rivalry moves on to the international stage this weekend when Ghanaian club giants Hearts of Oak and Asante Kotoko clash in the first leg of the African Confederation Cup final. It will be the first time teams from the same country feature in the climax of a Confederation of African Football competition.
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/ 29 December 2004
Two decades after the rubber-legs act in Rome, a decade after the allegations of match-fixing and two years after his financial ruin, Bruce Grobbelaar — the so-called clown prince of English football — has wound up coaching a team on the southern tip of Africa, broke, unrepentant and defiant.
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/ 29 December 2004
Schabir Shaik’s supporters have long claimed that the case against him is political. In particular, they argue that it is driven by a desire to tarnish the reputation of Deputy President Jacob Zuma. Few of them, however, have been willing to go public about the shadowy figure they believe to be behind this alleged vendetta.
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/ 29 December 2004
It all just gets worse. Reports from places you have barely heard of, where hundreds of thousands of people eked out livings beside the ocean, now tell of scores of thousands of dead. All of a sudden, in the space between public holidays, we have witnessed the greatest natural disaster of our lifetime.
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/ 29 December 2004
Sir Alex Ferguson has done his best to heap the pressure on title rivals Chelsea and Arsenal by warning they have still to travel to Aston Villa after seeing Manchester United side go third in the Premier League with a hard-fought 1-0 away win against the Midlands club.