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/ 19 October 2005

Ziyakhipha Ekasi!

It is early in the morning outside house No 3426, in Chiawelo Extension Two, Soweto, and Lawrence Ramadisa is putting out his wares. He arranges boxes of shiny green apples, cabbages, beetroot and spinach. Radamisa is one of the growing number of entrepreneurs in Chiawelo and the fruit and vegetable stall is just one of his ventures.

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/ 19 October 2005

Ocean warming threatens Antarctic wildlife

Scientists working in Antarctica have discovered an alarming rise in sea temperature that threatens to disrupt populations of penguins, whales, seals and a host of smaller creatures within a few decades. This is the first evidence that the key Southern Ocean is getting warmer: a finding with potentially severe implications for wildlife.

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/ 19 October 2005

Silently, Malawi begins to starve

Farayi Mutsa is slumped in the shade outside Nsanje district hospital, gently holding his daughter, Azineyi. Her wrists are barely thicker than an adult thumb and her mouth is stained purple where nurses have applied zinc oxide cream to her sores. She looks six months old; she is three years.

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/ 19 October 2005

Peugeot’s teensy-weensy city runaround

The 107 is, it goes without saying, a small car; as small as a Peugeot gets. It replaces the 106, but don’t be fooled by the bigger number into expecting expansion on all fronts. The 107 is still one teensy-weensy little city runaround. It appears to partake of a design philosophy that wraps right around the car industry at present: that a little car must, by default, appear to be a car for little people.

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/ 19 October 2005

Blogs take giant step toward the mainstream

Internet blogs are getting a boost from the big search engines, which make the personal journals more accessible and move them toward mainstream journalism, analysts say. Yahoo this month said it would include blogs on all its news searches, saying it would give readers more access to "grassroots journalism."

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/ 19 October 2005

The great South African zombie challenge

Alright, you zombies. Recall, from a few months back, the glorious event when crowds of zombie fans heeded the call to dress up as a corpse and go stumble around a public place. Come on, dammit, you want to tell me Jo’burg doesn’t have at least 100 zombie fans who’d be willing to meet at Sandton City or Rosebank Mall and stumble through it, causing fear and horror?

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/ 19 October 2005

Giving my testicle the cut

At the tender age of 44 I developed a testicle. My husband made the diagnosis. I didn’t feel particularly masculine — I had a few dark hairs around my nipples that I tweezed away (when I remembered), a peachy complexion like my mother (in other words, a soft blonde beard) and a good sexual appetite.

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/ 19 October 2005

Escaping Africa’s longest civil war

The Nile has witnessed more centuries of human eccentricity than any of the world’s great rivers, but what it is now experiencing must rank high in its annals of misery. Hundreds of people laden with bags, bedding and bicycles wait disconsolately on wharves. Under the unremitting sun, anxious passengers crowd the flat decks of rickety barges meant only for cargo.

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/ 19 October 2005

Beware the ‘Chindia’ effect

Tracing a route through the folds of the eastern Himalayas, Motilall Lakhotia is explaining how Indian trade caravans used to ply the scenic Chumbi valley into Tibet. ”It was a big trade even then. The Tibetans sold us Indians silver, raw wool and Chinese silk. We had manufactured goods and cotton,” says the dapper Lakhotia.