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/ 17 December 2004
For all his extraordinary track record (movies, record albums, live performances, political interventions that have placed him centre stage in a number of extraordinary debates and confrontations) Harry Belafonte at the age of 77 remains his tall, handsome, gracious self.
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/ 17 December 2004
It was with a sense of grey despair that I read of a young father in England being forbidden, by some politically constipated magistrate, either to live in his home or to see his son for six months. Daddy had – in my opinion, quite rightly – given his son a smart couple of smacks on his backside when the boy tried walking in front of a moving car.
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/ 17 December 2004
In June, the <i>M&G</i> ran a series of letters and articles that claimed the social movements and "radical academics" do not get their facts right. Our research on water cut-offs was included in this criticism. In our 2002 publication, we argued that at least 5,5-million people, and as many as 9,8-million people, had been affected by water cut-offs over a seven-year period. David McDonald exercises his right to reply.
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/ 17 December 2004
The Department of Social Development launched a major anti-corruption campaign recently, asking for public support in its fight against fraud, but a large proportion of the fraud is committed by civil servants. The corruption takes many forms, including syndicates operated by corrupt government officials, doctors, lawyers and priests. We investigate how government officials collude with members of the public to defraud the state of millions of rands.
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/ 17 December 2004
The 16 days of activism against gender violence are behind us. And now we ask for another day to draw attention to violence against sex workers. December 17 is the second International Day of No Violence Against Sex Workers. Violence of sex workers is an international trend, but we do not need to look beyond our borders to find justification for the need to address violence perpetrated against sex workers.
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/ 17 December 2004
South Africa is in the grip of the worst drought in recent history, with the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry declaring that the lack of rain and falling dam levels are more acute now than they were during the droughts of 10 and 20 years ago. Recent downpours in parts of Gauteng, the Free State and North West have not had much impact.
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/ 17 December 2004
The Brazilian government is on a collision course with three multinational drug companies. It has threatened to declare HIV/Aids a national health emergency, enabling it to manufacture patent drugs. Brazilian Health Minister Humberto Costa told journalists last week the government would break patent laws if negotiations with Rocha, Merck and Abbott failed to reduce the prices of Aids drugs used in a treatment cocktail.
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/ 17 December 2004
Norman Reynolds recently argued in the <i>M&G</i> that alternative, community-based currencies keep wealth in communities ("Ora points the way"). But there is a better example of a localised economy — Cape Town’s Talent Exchange. Operating for almost two years, the exchange is essentially a bartering system. But people do not exchange goods directly. Instead, they trade in an invented currency called "Talents".
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/ 17 December 2004
Only six weeks after President George W Bush’svictory, the vibrations continue euphoric. Depressed Democrats wonder if they could ever win again. Pundits ponder theses about eternal Republican hegemony. Talk is of more Bush power, more neo-conservative solutions, more variations on a narrow agenda. But is that quite what unfolding events tell us? Or will the administration be filled with mere mediocrities?
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/ 17 December 2004
If you’re reading this late on a Friday afternoon — 5.30pm, say — then about 180 000 South African male prisoners have already been locked in their cells for the night. And after lock-up is when it happens: the sexual violence that characterises the incarcerations of many. Yet confusing interpretations of inter-male sex in South African prisons expose our inability to understand these activities.