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/ 28 October 2005

Rwanda hopes to build nation on science and technology

The Rwandan government is working to transform its blood-soaked image from the genocide of 1994 into that of an educated and productive leader in central Africa. ”We are telling people some of the challenges we are meeting in rebuilding our country after the genocide and some of the successes we have made in particular in building a stable government,” said Romain Murenzi, Rwanda’s minister of education, science, technology and research.

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/ 28 October 2005

White House crisis grows

George Bush’s presidency hit a new low on Thursday when his supreme court nominee, Harriet Miers, was forced to withdraw in the face of overwhelming resistance from within Bush’s own party. The embarrassing rejection of the president’s former personal lawyer and White House counsel, despite his enthusiastic backing, helped make this week probably the most miserable of his five years in office.

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/ 28 October 2005

Motlanthe targeted in e-mail exchange

E-mail messages allegedly exchanged between senior African National Congress leaders outline a plan to work the financial destruction of ANC general secretary Kgalema Motlanthe, the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> established this week. The existence of the messages was confirmed at the weekend by Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils, and they are reported to have been unlawfully obtained by the National Intelligence Agency.

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/ 28 October 2005

Balls of steel required

"There’s something about watching the start of a mountain bike race that makes you want to burst out laughing. There’s this mob on jumped-up BMXs, most kitted out as though they were about to hit the Champs Elysées on the last day of the Tour de France , who, when the starter gives the word, all start pedalling madly," writes Julia Beffon.

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/ 28 October 2005

Law body ‘racist’

A black executive of the Law Society of South Africa has taken the organisation to the Labour Court, accusing the society of racial and gender discrimination against her. Anna Mkwena, the society’s communications director, accuses the society and its offshoot, the Attorneys Fidelity Fund, of a range of discriminatory practices including bias in the issuing of home and car loans.

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/ 28 October 2005

Towards the great leap forward

Finance Minister Trevor Manuel makes a virtue of being boring in October, when he updates his spending plans and economic projections in the medium-term budget policy statement. But there are clear signs in this year’s list of incremental changes that he is preparing the ground for the major policy statement to come with Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka’s ”accelerated and shared growth initiative”.

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/ 28 October 2005

Australian model goes on trial for drug trafficking in Bali

An Australian model accused of possessing ecstasy pills in Indonesia’s Bali resort island went on trial Friday and faces lengthy imprisonment if convicted. Appearing before the Denpasar district court wearing a Muslim veil, Michelle Leslie heard prosecutors accusing her of possessing two ecstasy tablets during a police raid on a party in Bali’s Jimbaran area in August.