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/ 10 July 2007

How men can become partners in maternal health

What is a common factor in ensuring that women do not marry too young, do not have more children than they can cope with, do not die giving birth — and contract HIV in smaller numbers? The answer is men. That is the message for World Population Day 2007, which is being marked on Wednesday under the theme <i>Men as Partners in Maternal Health</i>.

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/ 10 July 2007

The exemption headache

Small businesses find themselves in a catch-22 when it comes to BEE verification. Officially, they are exempt from the heavy red tape and costs involved in scoring a business’s BEE compliance. But, increasingly, they find that they have to submit to red tape and costs just to prove that they are indeed exempt.

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/ 10 July 2007

Mickey Mouse in Mandarin

A cheeky, speaking vegetable is just weeks away from bounding on to Chinese cinema screens. When <i>The Magic Gourd</i> opens at the end of this month, the Chinese-language film will mark a departure for Walt Disney and a step-change in its charm offensive in emerging markets.

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/ 10 July 2007

An ideal economic world

I was not a South African according to the South African government. Now, did I consider myself a South African after 1994 or was I always a South African in my mind? I will never know the damage that was inflicted by a system that intended to deprive me of my national identity, and saw me as nothing more than a maid in someone’s home, writes businesswoman, Wendy Luhabe.

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/ 10 July 2007

Growing empowerment

With global diversified mining major Xstrata having met its 2014 targets in respect of ownership by historically disadvantaged South Africans (HDSAs), and making good progress on employment equity, you would expect them to be happy with the status quo. Not entirely, writes Erik Ratshikhopha.

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/ 10 July 2007

Fit to step down?

Thabo Mbeki says he is prepared to serve another term as ANC president if the ”leadership” asks him to stick around. But, in the face of strong opposition within his party, why is the president so determined to take it to the wire? A generous interpretation of the ANC policy conference, at least on the leadership issue, was that it registered a draw: half of the ANC wants Mbeki to continue as party president and the other half doesn’t.

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/ 10 July 2007

‘1 001 crooked ways to stay in power’

Zimbabwe’s leading dissident cleric said African efforts to mediate an end to his country’s political crisis are a hopeful step and he urged the international community on Tuesday to support them. ”Let’s give it a try,” Pius Ncube, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, told a news conference in Johannesburg.

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/ 10 July 2007

On hubris and pan-Africanism

It had to be Ghana, didn’t it? Fifty years after that country won independence, and with it ushered in hopes for a united Africa, Accra played host this week to yet another debate about African unity. At least we can take heart that this latest confab focused on the form such unity should take, rather than whether it is necessary.