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/ 31 October 2003

Will Hefer’s commission reveal or fizzle?

It’s hard to imagine what will be the final outcome of the Hefer commission. Will it produce new information, uncover some previously unnoticed subterfuge or harshly illuminate an existing one? The commission seems hardly able to get itself off the ground. In fact it doesn’t even seem able to find the runway.

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/ 31 October 2003

We’ve come a long way, baby

‘Looks like we’ve made it – Look how far we’ve come my [governor]." These lyrics from Shania Twain would have been appropriate to sing the praises of Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni this week, as the country finally got one hand on the Holy Grail of the inflation target.

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/ 31 October 2003

Folly of vote boycott

The <i>Mail & Guardian</i> is committed to deepening and defending democracy in South Africa. This is perhaps why we fail to understand the eagerness of the leaders of the Landless People’s Movement (LPM) to disenfranchise the millions of poor and landless they claim to represent. This week the LPM called on South Africans not to register for — or vote in — next year’s general elections.

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/ 31 October 2003

One nation, many tongues

We regularly hear that one lingua franca, English, is necessary to prevent social disintegration on an ethnic basis, and to ensure the continuance of South Africa as a unitary state. This logic is strongly reminiscent of the ideas of an influential movement in the United States, the so-called "English only" movement.

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/ 31 October 2003

Economy for sale

Even while serious fighting continues, the economic destiny of Iraq is being decided — not by the Iraqis themselves, but by the occupying powers and the United States-appointed governing council, almost half of whom are exiles. As a result of Order 39, Iraq’s economy has been put up for sale.

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/ 31 October 2003

A win-win partnership

The <i>Mail & Guardian</i> and Open Communications (a part of the Open Group of marketing and communications companies) have joined forces, with Open Communications having been appointed as the advertising agency for the <i>M&G</i> with effect from October 1 this year.

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/ 31 October 2003

No time to be smug

Now we know that the grounds on which the Iraq war was fought were false, we cannot be blamed for wanting to wallow in self-righteousness. As director Michael Moore might bellow: ”We were right and they were wrong.” That is true, but we cannot leave it there. We have to do better than that. We have to move on.

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/ 31 October 2003

Bush tries to still doubts

President George W Bush this week tried to stifle rising doubts on the occupation of Iraq by insisting this week’s bombings were a sign that life had improved under the United States’s watch. Comparisons being made between the official justification for war in Vietnam and the administration’s media strategy in Iraq.