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/ 29 September 2004

Mixing politics with food in Zimbabwe

Food and politics, as Zimbabweans are finding out, are not always mutually exclusive. If they were, what would explain official claims of a bumper harvest when independent assessments suggest otherwise? The clue seems to be parliamentary elections — now only six months away. A UN-led assessment mission says about five million of the country’s 12-million people will need food aid before the next harvest in March.

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/ 29 September 2004

Gathering steam

South Africa could be heading towards a crisis that will see the country being unable to meet its energy needs by 2007. Frequent power cuts at peak times may become the norm unless we develop alternative and efficient energy sources. But an innovative, locally produced stove is turning South Africa on to efficient alternatives to electricity.

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/ 29 September 2004

Harmony deal under threat

A landmark agreement binding mine bosses and labour in a shared commitment to saving thousands of mineworker’s jobs is under threat. The National Union of Mineworkers in the Free State has given notice to Harmony Gold Mining Company that about 20 000 mineworkers will embark on a strike on October 6 over the company’s plan to retrench more than 4 000 workers and close five shafts.

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/ 29 September 2004

Division of the spoils

Many will not need to be convinced of the link between United States corporations now helping themselves to Iraqi state assets and the military machine that prised Iraq open for global business. But what is less widely known is that a similar process is well under way in a part of the world where B52s were not so long ago dropping bombs in another ”liberation” mission.

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/ 29 September 2004

Oh, for the love of boys

When it became obvious that I was pregnant for the third time, one question predominated. Not the pertinent, ”What were you thinking?”, but, because we had two boys already, the more polite, ”Are you hoping for a girl?” I wondered whether, if I had two girls instead of boys, people would have felt so readily able to say, ”Are you hoping for a son?”

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/ 29 September 2004

Mandela congratulates SA’s Olympic medalists

Former president Nelson Mandela congratulated some of South Africa’s Olympic medalists on Wednesday, saying they had made the country very proud. The statuesque Mandela was almost dwarfed by the towering swimmers Ryk Neethling and Roland Schoeman, high jumper Hestrie Cloete, rowers Donovan Cech and Ramon di Clemente, and runner Mbulaeni Mulaudzi.

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/ 29 September 2004

By 2156, the fastest human will be a woman

Make a note for your descendants: the 2156 Olympics will be the one to watch, for it may well mark the first time in human history that women will overtake men as the fastest runners on the planet. That’s the confident prediction of British scientists who have plotted the times for the Olympic 100m since 1900 and say a century of ever-improving athletic prowess in this discipline is set to continue.