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/ 12 November 2004
Presidents and dignitaries from more than 50 countries flew into Cairo on Friday morning for a half-hour funeral service for the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, before his body was flown to his headquarters in Ramallah for burial. On Thursday night, Palestinian workers were still preparing the grave site in the battered compound.
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/ 12 November 2004
In the world of covert action and diplomacy it is called "plausible denial". In court it’s known as establishing reasonable doubt. In the Schabir Shaik trial this week, defence counsel François van Zyl focused on one crucial aspect of the state’s case — the alleged March 2000, R500 000 bribe agreement between Shaik, Deputy President Jacob Zuma and Alain Thetard, the local representative of the French Thales/Thomson Group.
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/ 12 November 2004
Sudan’s government has vehemently denied claims by the United Nations that it is forcibly relocating internally displaced persons from camps in the strife-torn western region of Darfur. "It is the responsibility of a country to relocate its internally displaced persons. We have not violated any international law," the country’s Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Ibrahim Mahmoud Hamid, said at a press briefing in Nairobi on Tuesday.
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/ 12 November 2004
After 15 years of independence Namibians seem set to stick with the old adage — better the devil you know. They look certain to keep the ruling South West African People’s Organisation (Swapo) in charge for another five years when they go to the polls on November 15 and 16. The only difference in these presidential and parliamentary elections will be the name on the ballot paper: Hifikepunye Pohamba will be the Swapo frontman.
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/ 12 November 2004
Far-reaching measures, including penalties for driving passenger cars into congested areas, an end to public transport subsidies that encourage people to live far from their work, and an overhaul of state funding for bus, taxi and rail services, are being planned as the government revives its bid to reconfigure the commuter transport system. But Minister of Transport Jeff Radebe will have to sell a number of politically unpalatable reforms if he is to give effect to these plans.
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/ 12 November 2004
New cliques will form, fresh grievances will fester, but for now, as spring erupts into summer and the winter’s constrictions fade into long evenings, South African cricket seems to be genuinely, impossibly, happy. A little pragmatism, it seems, goes a very long way.
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/ 12 November 2004
It’s not déjà vu. It’s yet another Mamelodi Sundowns versus Orlando Pirates showdown at the Loftus stadium on Sunday. It is now history that Sundowns won 3-1 in the Coca-Cola Cup last Sunday in what was rightly billed as the match of the round.
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/ 12 November 2004
The grand old lady of international rugby venues is closing down for refurbishment and the Springboks have been invited to the going away party. For those used to the matchless amenities of modern sports stadia, Lansdowne Road is a bit of a joke, but for those who relish the atmosphere that stands — as opposed to seats — confer, there’s nowhere else quite like it.
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/ 12 November 2004
Dying from a brain tumour is a rotten way for anyone to go. For a professional sports person, it is a particularly unkind exit. For Emlyn Hughes, it was the lousiest trick of fate. Hughes was a self-made footballer with ambition. To limited ability he added an unlimited zest.
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/ 12 November 2004
”It has often surprised me how difficult it is to speak across colour barriers, to people who do not understand your reality. Communication barriers arise when one does not recognise the other’s experience as authentic, real and true. I have started to feel quite oppressed by the presence of ”whiteness” in my world, or perhaps my presence in the white world.” A black professional in Cape Town feels like a foreigner in her own land.