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/ 25 October 2004

The new Caddy will take you places

In the sixties and seventies Volkswagen’s Kombi was amazingly popular amongst young men, and for good reason. Legions of girls entered thousands of converted VW panel van campers, only to emerge shortly afterwards as full-blown women. The new Volkswagen Caddy may not be quite as rebellious or spacious as the Kombi, but it’s just as sexy.

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/ 25 October 2004

A need to serve

Bukelwa Selema didn’t train as a teacher. She trained as a nurse and then taught nurses. But in 1989, when she went on maternity leave, she realised that her real interest lay in community work – and decided not to return to nursing.

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/ 25 October 2004

A social pressure cooker

"For most Koreans, school days are a stressful time filled with pressure and expectations. While Western children are hitting the beaches or relaxing at malls, Korean students are hitting the books – hard." Richard Kirby describes the unforgiving culture of excellence in South Korean schools.

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/ 25 October 2004

Manuel planning forex surprise?

Budget reform has made the government’s tax and spending plans so predictable that markets now tend to react to the annual Medium Term Budget Policy Statement with a yawn. But the private sector is hoping that Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel will spice up his speech today with an announcement on foreign exchange regulations.

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/ 25 October 2004

What Tito could have done

The Reserve Bank should have announced another 50 basis point reduction in the repo rate after the meeting of its monetary policy committee recently. After making a strong case for a benign inflation outlook and indicating that inflation was likely to stay within the 3% to 6% boundaries of the target range over the next two years, the committee did an about-face, writes economist Basil Moore.

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/ 25 October 2004

The president without a capital

When Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed was sworn in as Somalia’s new president earlier this month in Kenya, cautious optimism was expressed at the fact that a new chapter appeared to be opening for the embattled East African country. Diplomats and political analysts warn now that it is essential for Yusuf to return to the Somali capital, Mogadishu, as soon as possible to cement the legitimacy of his government.

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/ 25 October 2004

By any means necessary

When it comes to fixing elections, the Bush administration has a way of making the lame walk. With little more than a week to go to the presidential election, efforts to obstruct and deny the vote, particularly to African-American and Latino voters, are intensifying. In the 1960s, police dogs and billy clubs kept African-Americans from the polls. Today’s methods are more refined.