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/ 15 November 2004
Listed retailer Woolworths Holdings plans to repurchase R1-billion of its own shares using the proceeds from a securitisation of its in-store card book, the company revealed on Monday. The move could possibly be in preparation for a future black economic empowerment deal.
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/ 15 November 2004
The National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) said on Monday that an elderly swimmer had been reported missing after a ”huge” great white shark was spotted at Fish Hoek near Cape Town on Monday morning. NSRI spokesperson Craig Lambinon said a full-scale search was under way for the elderly woman.
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/ 15 November 2004
On their knees and begging for food, the women pleaded at the feet of the commander, Lam Akol, but there was little he could do. They offered him a chicken, one of the few remaining in their village, as a gift. Ignoring their tears, the Sudanese rebel commander offered them harsh advice, telling them to ”tighten their belts”.
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/ 15 November 2004
In the late Forties and early Fifties, during the height of McCarthyism, Alfred Kinsey’s investigations into sexual behaviour was so unsettling to the authorities that they branded him a communist, cut his funding and impounded his study aids. Half a century later, as a film into Kinsey’s life hit the screens on Friday, some in the field of sexual research in the United States believe they are once again under threat,
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/ 15 November 2004
Iraq’s deputy prime minister has indicated for the first time that the much-heralded elections due in January could be derailed by the country’s violent insurgency. Barham Salih said the authorities were determined to hold the vote, but admitted they would have to assess the security situation nearer the time.
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/ 15 November 2004
As a Zimbabwean, I can understand if middle-class South Africans have difficulty appreciating the magnitude of the food crisis in my country. For most middle-class South Africans, the luxury of three square meals a day is taken for granted. The mind boggles, however, when government officials fail or, rather, refuse to accept the reality on the ground.
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/ 15 November 2004
South African asset managers should use their collective power to demand disclosure on how to manage risk posed by climate change, says Frater Asset Management, a forward-looking fund manager on the issue of shareholder activism. Last week, the R4-billion fund upped the ante on governance and disclosure when it said that it would publish all its proxy voting decisions at company annual general meetings on its website.
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/ 15 November 2004
There is a continuous sequence of connections between all of us – “six degrees of separation” some have called it – and yet we seldom bother to look in the mirror and try to make sense of them. Like that song: “the foot bone connected to the ankle bone, the ankle bone connected to the leg bone, the leg bone connected to the knee bone”, et cetera, et cetera. How can we go on without recognising each other? And yet, willy-nilly, we do.
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/ 15 November 2004
The deepening all-round crisis in Zimbabwe is having a devastating impact on the lives of millions of Zimbabwean workers, peasants, the youth and middle strata professionals of all kinds. The crisis has also spilled over into our country, with an estimated three million Zimbabwean economic refugees now living in South Africa.” The SACP’s Blade Nzimande says Zanu-PF is caught in an ever narrowing laager mentality.
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/ 15 November 2004
Our inter-governmental system is not yet fully geared to deliver on nationally set policy in a coherent and effective manner. The recently debated Inter-Governmental Relations Bill provides a giant leap forward in resolving some of the key problems. A strong national centre is important because it can define policy direction with the benefit of a macro perspective, especially in a context of intensifying processes of globalisation, writes Ebrahim Rasool.