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/ 14 October 2004

Shaik trial: ID deputy leader testifies

The first witness in the Schabir Shaik fraud and corruption trial, Independent Democrats deputy leader Themba Sono, was in the witness box in the Durban High Court on Thursday. Sono said he met Shaik in 1996 through a colleague.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=123695">Tangled web of intrigue at Shaik trial</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=123679">Zuma debt aired in Shaik trial</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=123667">State shows link between Shaik, Zuma</a>

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/ 14 October 2004

The world according to George

On a trip to South Africa last week, British environmentalist George Monbiot spoke to the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> about his ideas for a just and democratic world regime. Aimed at breaking the economic and political hegemony of the great powers — principally the United States — Monbiot’s proposed dispensation would rest on the four pillars of a directly elected world parliament, a democratised United Nations, a fair trade organisation and an international clearing union.

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/ 14 October 2004

Strike threatens Nigeria’s oil production

Trade unions in Nigeria on Wednesday threatened to extend a three-day general strike which has shut down much of the country and driven world oil prices to a record high. The stoppage was due to end on Thursday but labour leaders said it would continue if the government used heavy-handed tactics against strikers.

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/ 14 October 2004

Iraq’s killing fields

United States investigators preparing war crimes trials against Saddam Hussein and his deputies have uncovered the bodies of hundreds of Kurdish men, women and children in the first forensic exhumation of a mass grave in Iraq. The grave site, in Hatra, near the ancient city of Nineveh, is thought to hold the bodies of several thousand Kurds in nine separate trenches.

  • More South Africans to die in Iraq
  • Dozens queue to hand over weapons
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    / 14 October 2004

    The ways we must leave behind

    The trial of Schabir Shaik underscores the fact that we are still a nation in transition between yesterday and tomorrow. Rich traditions from the liberation struggle will always form part of the South African body politic. But it is now time to leave many ways of the past behind. What Shaik’s early testimony reveals is a view that old bonds of struggle loyalty and networks of power cannot be questioned in the new order.