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/ 20 February 2004

Budget takes SA closer to prosperity

President Thabo Mbeki said the 2004/05 Budget, tabled in Parliament earlier this week, takes South Africans a step closer to realising their dreams of development and prosperity. Writing in the weekly online publication ANC Today, Mbeki said the Budget has provided for increased expenditure to meet the needs of the people.

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/ 20 February 2004

‘None of these businesses will continue’

Pharmaceutical wholesalers proposed on Friday a gradual reduction in the manufacturer’s exit price of medicines instead of the immediate 50% slash the government wants to come into effect by May 2. However, this alone will not enable the industry to survive, the National Association of Pharmaceutical Wholesalers said.

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/ 20 February 2004

Serial rapist found guilty — 23 times

Johannesburg serial rapist Fanwell Khumalo was on Friday found guilty on 23 of the 126 charges he faces — and Judge Max Labe is to continue delivering his judgement on Monday. On Friday the chef was found guilty of nine rapes, eight kidnappings, four indecent assaults, one attempted rape and a robbery.

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/ 20 February 2004

‘They rejected me because I am a woman’

Vera Chirwa is a prominent human rights activist in Malawi, a prison rapporteur for the African Union -– and someone who was imprisoned for speaking out against authoritarian rule under former head of state Hastings Kamuzu Banda. But, this pedigree wasn’t enough to earn her a shot at Malawi’s presidency during the May elections.

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/ 20 February 2004

Big bro is back

In the gory days of the total onslaught, when the Pan Africanist Congress was still banned and the only PACs active in the country were the performing arts councils with their battle cry of ”one settler, one ballet”, the apartheid regime sought to regiment even the artists in its indirect employ, writes Mike van Graan.

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/ 20 February 2004

Second ambulance hijacked in KZN this week

A second ambulance has been hijacked this week in KwaZulu-Natal after a hoax call, police said on Friday. Police spokesperson Superintendent Vishnu Naidoo said the latest incident happened on Thursday night at approximately 10pm in J-Section, Umlazi, near Durban. This first incident took place on Tuesday.

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/ 20 February 2004

Are Zim’s youths being brainwashed?

Since its inception in 2000, Zimbabwe’s national youth training programme has been dogged by a welter of criticism and demands for its disbandment. The main complaint is that it is simply a ruse by the ruling Zanu-PF government to brainwash hapless youths, and turn them into a militia for terrorising the opposition.