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/ 24 September 2004
United States officials on Thursday night defended the deportation of Yusuf Islam, previously known as Cat Stevens, as it emerged that the former pop star met White House officials earlier this year. Jack Straw, the foreign secretary earlier intervened in the row by telling Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, that the decision to ban Islam ”should not have been taken”.
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/ 24 September 2004
The 86-year-old mother of the Iraq hostage Kenneth Bigley appeared in public for the first time to beg for his release on Thursday as the desperate waiting game entered its second week. Lil Bigley, supported by her sons Philip (49) and Stan (64) begged the Islamist group to free him.
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/ 24 September 2004
The government is checking up on public servants with a series of "mystery customer" visits to test service delivery. Joining the queues at government departments will be members of the Public Service Commission, while unannounced visits by ministers will test services as they happen — without a prior alert to frontline staff to be on their best behaviour.
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/ 24 September 2004
South Africa’s tourism industry has come a long way since braaivleis, rugby and sunny skies — it is a sophisticated machine contributing to a growing slice of the gross domestic product. But the sector has an underbelly: with few exceptions, pay is poor and empowerment a bit of a foreign concept. Spier wine estate is one of the exceptions.
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/ 24 September 2004
There is a growing body of evidence that Gauteng education minister Angie Motshekga and her family benefited financially from the trust that she helped to land a stake in the lucrative provincial pension payout contract. There is also now proof that the trust did not benefit only from the pension deal, but that it also applied for direct government funding when Motshekga was minister of the Gauteng department of social development.
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/ 24 September 2004
Meadowlands, Soweto, police have found a novel way of dealing with the high number of criminal cases withdrawn by complainants and the attendant sapping of staff morale. They have taken up 18 psychology interns from Rand Afrikaans University to help crime victims come to terms with their plight and make informed decisions about steps to take.
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/ 24 September 2004
Twice a year the Chrissiesmeer shop owners put up signs on their doors that say, "Gone Frogging". Instead of preparing for World Tourism Day on September 27 by publishing a set of platitudes about the most prominent places to visit, we decided to abide by the spirit of these intrepid merchants and prepare a portfolio of the country’s more unpredictable and out-of-the-ordinary travel destinations.
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/ 24 September 2004
"<i>Blackheart</i> is my attempt to delve into the place of what and where I am." Nadine Botha speaks to poet Lesego Rampolokeng about his first novel
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/ 24 September 2004
<strong>AUTHOR’S NOTES:</strong> "I tried to describe myself in one sentence once, and ended up writing a memoir." We swap sentences with Alexander Fuller.
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/ 24 September 2004
From the heart: An extract from Lesego Rampolokeng’s <i>Blackheart</i>