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/ 9 July 2004

Canning Kruger’s elephants

Professional hunters are capitalising on the Kruger National Park’s growing elephant population by selling "canned" elephant hunts to wealthy American clients. Police and conservation officials are investigating the "hunting" of a Kruger bull within hours of its delivery to a safari outfit in North West province.

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/ 9 July 2004

Something smells in soccerdom

February 26 2004. Johannesburg. The date and place where the seeds of the ongoing match-fixing scandal in South African football were sown. The event was a meeting of the Premier Soccer League (PSL) executive committee — made up of club chairmen and other club officials — at the PSL headquarters in Doornfontein. The meeting was called to discuss a spate of bad refereeing decisions.

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/ 9 July 2004

Giant government clearance sale

Second-hand book dealers, old-age homes and a whole assortment of so-called ”secondary merchants” are all eagerly awaiting the forthcoming Government Publications Warehouse Sales. As each fulfilling decade of the South African rainbow democracy comes to an end, government storage houses will be kicking off the next 10 years with a major clean-out. I managed to get a look at some.

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/ 9 July 2004

Coming down harder on loony Bob

"A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday " — Alexander Pope (1688 to 1744). By happy synchronicity, the above quotation popped up on the Wordsmith website the very morning I was starting on this column. It couldn’t have been better suited to my subject.

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/ 9 July 2004

China, India ‘could boost SA jobs’

South Africa’s best prospects for growing employment lies in sectors that export primary products to rapidly industrialising countries such as China and India, suggests a new labour market analysis by the Reserve Bank. These include food and coal, according to Labour Market Frontiers, published last week.

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/ 9 July 2004

Rival brew stirs market

The arrival of a new premium beer and spirits distributor in South Africa may give SABMiller some grey hairs on the yuppie beer front. This week saw the launch of Brandhouse, a three-way joint venture between Diageo, Heineken and Namibian Breweries. The company will distribute premium beer brands including Heineken, Windhoek and Guinness, and whiskies Johnnie Walker, J&B and Bells.

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/ 9 July 2004

Usual suspects mug Africa

At this week’s annual gathering of leaders of the most troubled continent on the globe, a little change — better still, reduction — in conflict would have been welcome. But there they were again in Addis Ababa. The usual suspects. Sudan and DRC emerged at the top of the African Union’s list of hot spots.