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/ 7 September 2004
Papa Wemba, the world music star known as the King of Congolese rumba rock, will be tried in France in October for allegedly smuggling at least 150 people into the country by claiming they were members of his band, his French lawyer said on Monday.
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/ 7 September 2004
At first sight, the village appeared deserted. There was no sound of children laughing, or donkeys braying. The dry stone walls of the huts were blackened with fire. Within each hut, the thatched roof had tumbled in, leaving a carpet of black and grey ash which crunched and billowed underfoot. Then a ghostly figure in a white robe stepped out from the ruins.
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/ 7 September 2004
The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, on Monday night refused to order a public inquiry into how the Beslan school was captured by gunmen and then ended with such a high death toll, and told The Guardian that people who call for talks with Chechen leaders have no conscience.
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/ 7 September 2004
On May 10 in 1995, Beyers Naude, the man many South Africans came to know as ”Oom Bey”, celebrated his 80th birthday. At the time, president Nelson Mandela told the gathering: ”Beyers Naude became an outcast amongst the Afrikaners, amongst many whites and amongst the church that he loved. Such is the price that prophets are required to pay.”
‘A true son of Africa’
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/ 7 September 2004
As the Travelgate debate squabbled on, the real politics was taking place offstage in the corridors and rooms behind the National Assembly. Media attention was on the debate. As Speaker Baleka Mbete noted in her speech: “Our people are justifiably eager to know what happened.” Yet it was when the debate ended that the really interesting stuff began.
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/ 7 September 2004
The private sector is often unfavourably compared with the parastatals in meeting employment equity targets — Eskom, Telkom and Transnet have for the past decade put in place radical equity programmes and are largely black-led. In response, business argues that the parastatals have been able to embrace transformation because, as monopolies, they don’t have to worry about profitability.
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/ 7 September 2004
Comparing South Africa’s telecommunication charges to that of other countries, South Africa is generally more expensive and price increases in recent years were also generally higher than in most other countries, according to Efficient Research economist Dawie Roodt.
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/ 7 September 2004
Two years ago the international community gathered in Johannesburg for the World Summit on Sustainable Development and drew up a plan to protect resources for the benefit of the planet. Last week the government and various civil society organisations gathered at the Johannesburg +2 Sustainable Development Conference to assess progress. We spoke to Environmental Affairs Director General Chippy Olver.
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/ 7 September 2004
Some towns measure time as a state of constant expansion. In Eden, a mill town in North Carolina, life registers in terms of loss: the factories that closed and the jobs that went with them, the lives interrupted. Janice Armstrong lost her job when one of Eden’s last giant textile companies closed its gates. ”The day it closed, our insurance was gone, our pension was gone. It was devastating,” she says.
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/ 7 September 2004
South African Rugby Football Union (Sarfu) president Brian van Rooyen is set to lay a charge of crimen injuria against former Springbok centre Robbie Fleck. The Star reported on Tuesday that Van Rooyen is pursuing the action after derogatory comments attributed to Fleck appeared in an SA Sports Illustrated article.