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/ 12 December 2006
For many of us working in the gender-based violence sector, the defining images of 2006 will be those from the Jacob Zuma rape trial: headlines in newspapers promising details of the "15 minutes of delicious sex"; Zuma supporters burning pictures of the complainant outside the court; and the gruelling, humiliating cross-examination of the complainant about her sexual history in a packed courtroom, writes Liesl Gerntholtz.
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/ 12 December 2006
The Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Bill was passed by the portfolio committee on justice and constitutional development on November 10. But, on referral to the National Assembly on November 16, it was held up because of a technicality. It looks unlikely that the Bill will be passed this year.
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/ 12 December 2006
Despite recent controversies over the Koeberg nuclear power plant near Cape Town, locals in the coastal city have shown little resistance to the government’s plan to build another nuclear reactor on their doorstep. Last year the area was hit by several successive power failures. Indications were that a loose bolt that damaged a non-nuclear gas turbine at Koeberg was one of the causes.
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/ 12 December 2006
”Her anxiety reaches such distressing levels that she names her suitcase — Carlos, if it’s going to Spain, or Charles, if she’s travelling to England — and blesses it with a prayer before saying goodbye to it at the check-in counter.” Hila Bouzaglou investigates whether travellers should really pray for their luggage at OR Tambo International Airport.
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/ 11 December 2006
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan took a sharp farewell swipe at United States foreign policy on Monday, implying America had ditched core principles in its battle against global terrorism. In a striking speech, Annan also implied Bush administration policies had harmed his country’s reputation as a global human rights leader.
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/ 11 December 2006
The African National Congress (ANC) has dismissed as ”scurrilous” Congress of South African Trade Union (Cosatu) claims that President Thabo Mbeki has left the ANC ”fractious and deeply divided”. Cosatu’s criticism could not stand up to ”honest scrutiny”, the ANC said in a statement on Monday.
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/ 11 December 2006
Four South Africans have been abducted in Iraq, the South African Foreign Affairs Department said on Monday. Spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said the four were abducted in what was believed to have been a bogus roadblock to the north of Baghdad on Sunday. ”The four were part of a convoy of four vehicles, which included Iraqis.”
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/ 11 December 2006
Unidentified gunmen killed three sons of a Palestinian intelligence official loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas in Gaza on Monday, firing at a car as it dropped the boys at school, police and hospital officials said. An adult bystander was also killed in the attack in Gaza City, which came amid growing tension between Hamas, the governing militant group, and Abbas’s more moderate Fatah.
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/ 11 December 2006
South Africa’s slow land-reform programme is forcing commercial farmers out of the agricultural sector, according to the Transvaal Agricultural Union (TAU). In a memorandum the TAU said that the agricultural industry in most African states has slumped because governments are conducting their agricultural policy on ”a political-ideological basis rather than [on] sound economic principles”.