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/ 24 November 2006

Chomping at the bit

Farmers have raised heavyweight objections to a steel barrier erected on the Crocodile River, at the Mpumalanga government’s request, to stop hippos from chomping canoeists. They say the metre-high steel cable — which will ensure the animals watch the Lowveld Croc canoe marathon from a safe distance — is environmentally unfriendly overkill for a race that happens once a year.

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/ 24 November 2006

A hero’s homecoming

Communist leader Moses Mabhida, who died in exile in Maputo in 1986, finally came home recently. Mabhida’s remains were exhumed in a special ceremony in the Mozambican capital attended by family members and ANC high-ups, including KwaZulu-Natal Premier S’bu Ndebele and Finance Minister Zweli Mkhize.

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/ 24 November 2006

Pogrund tour runs aground

A lecture tour by Benjamin Pogrund, a former South African journalist now living in Israel, and his Palestinian associate has been called off in the wake of the controversy around Israel’s shelling of Gaza. However, the fate of the tour was already in the balance after threats by the South African-based Palestine Solidarity Committee to demonstrate outside the lecture venues.

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/ 24 November 2006

Bloodshed in Baghdad

Gunmen attacked a Sunni Arab neighbourhood of Baghdad and burned mosques on Friday in apparent retaliation for the bloodiest bombing in more than three years of war that killed 202 in a Shi’ite area. Two suicide bombs ripped through a Shi’ite market in northern Iraq killing 22 people earlier on Friday and mortars crashed on rival Baghdad neighbourhoods.

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/ 24 November 2006

AgriSA welcomes probe into land delivery

The investigation into service delivery by the Department of Land Affairs was a welcome development, said AgriSA on Friday. ”AgriSA has been concerned for some time about processes that were delayed in the department and the commission on restitution of land rights,” said Dr Theo de Jager, chairperson of the AgriSA land-affairs committee.

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/ 24 November 2006

Aids body expresses concern over misinformation

Listing Aids as the cause of death on public death certificates will not in any way improve the collection of statistics on HIV-related deaths, the Aids Law Project (ALP) said on Friday. ”It is also a violation of the deceased’s right to confidentiality, which can have serious repercussions for surviving family members,” the ALP said in a statement.