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/ 22 February 2005
More than a decade after its last headcount, Nigeria is preparing to conduct the country’s fifth census this year. However, religion and ethnicity — long the bane of national life — appear set to bedevil the process. The eventual publication of statistics on religion and ethnicity could deepen existing divisions along these lines — and even lead to social unrest.
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/ 22 February 2005
In the annals of utterly shameless wartime propaganda, Britain’s casting of the Kenyan Mau Mau as bloodthirsty savages, and its own colonial administrators as heroic benefactors, is pretty much the gold standard. Now an Oxford scholar has unearthed new evidence of Britain’s ruthless response to the Mau Mau rebellion.
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/ 21 February 2005
It is understandable that the independent media should celebrate Jonathan Moyo’s political slide for he epitomised probably the worst form of abuse of power to settle both personal and state scores in recent times. As a Zimbabwean weekly noted, the information minister ”personalised his crusade against media freedom”.
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/ 21 February 2005
"They stand aside, and they say that these things just trickle off your tongue. To burn so bright, and to die so young. Phaswane Mpe never told us this, not in so many words, anyway, but what he was writing out was the process of his own possible dilemma." John Matshikiza writes about Mpe and K Sello Duiker.
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/ 21 February 2005
A bureaucratic hiatus is stalling plans to bring digitally interactive pay-television broadcasts to South Africa, while Namibia already enjoys this cutting-edge technology. The technology is proven also for South Africa, but there is no regulatory framework yet to run things.
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/ 21 February 2005
A Norwegian family’s swimming pool wasn’t just bolted down, it was in the ground. But that didn’t stop a band of determined thieves. When the Nicolaysen family visited their mountain cabin over the weekend, they discovered a big hole in the yard in place of the swimming pool that had been installed 20 years ago.
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/ 21 February 2005
A constitutional duty rests on the state to prosecute alleged human rights abusers such as apartheid-era chemical and biological warfare expert Dr Wouter Basson, the Constitutional Court heard on Monday. The state is applying for leave to appeal against certain legal issues arising from Basson’s acquittal.
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/ 21 February 2005
Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille on Monday refused to identify her confidential Scorpions source, at the disciplinary hearing of the party’s ousted Western Cape leader, Lennit Max. ”I shall not disclose the source,” said De Lille during cross-examination by Leon van Rensburg, representing Max at the hearing in Parliament.
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/ 21 February 2005
Settlers vowed on Monday they will not allow Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to drag Israel towards ”disaster” after the historic vote to leave the Gaza Strip, as hundreds of Palestinians were released from prison. ”The disaster that Sharon plans on bringing on to Israel is immoral for human beings,” said a settlers’ spokesperson.