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/ 20 November 2006

What are people afraid of?

<i>The Vagina Monologues</i> continues to cause a stir each time the controversial play goes on stage, and the Zambian performances are no different. The very mention of the word vagina still shocks, and even some media are reluctant to publish this word, a biological term found in the dictionary. What is it about the word vagina that makes people so uneasy?

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/ 20 November 2006

Water for all (who can afford it)

Nearly two million children a year die for want of clean water and proper sanitation while the world’s poor often pay more for their water than people in Britain or the United States, according to a major new report. The United Nations Development Programme, in its annual Human Development Report, argues that 1,1-billion people do not have safe water and 2,6-billion suffer from inadequate sewerage.

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/ 20 November 2006

Meet SA’s fifth-richest man

Not many people can afford to slap down nearly R6-billion, even if it’s for a stake in South Africa’s biggest company. Larry Yung Chi Kun can. But then, he is China’s third-richest individual, and presumably had some cash to spare. China Vision Resources, Yung’s investment company, bought 1,13% of Anglo American from E Oppenheimer & Sons, the Oppenheimers’ family company.

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/ 20 November 2006

Algerian employers oppose ‘antiquated’ weekend

Many Algerian employers are lobbying for a return of their country’s weekends over Saturdays and Sundays, rather than Thursdays and Fridays, saying the current policy is cutting into foreign trade revenues. Algeria began observing its weekend from Thursday to Friday in 1976, in recognition of the fact that Friday is a holy day under Islam, the state religion of Algeria.

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/ 20 November 2006

Queen of the islands becomes queen of green

Put yourself in the shoes of Imelda Marcos. At the height of your power you are the wife of a president, one of the 10 richest women in the world, intimate with the world’s dictators and the owner of arguably the biggest private collection of art — and footwear — on the planet. Then try to squeeze into those sling-backs again today.