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/ 2 December 2005

What a piece of work is a man

A few months shy of her 11th birthday, Vuyelwa bore in miniature all the noble traits of her race and gender. Stately and voluminous as a chubby-cheeked Zeppelin coated with Vaseline, she sailed through clear skies of her own making, deaf to the howls and grunts of the boy-children who crouched on all fours at her feet, snapping at each other as they fought over scraps of bone.

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/ 25 November 2005

The IEC and the Indian ink tender

A senior government official has conceded that a major Independent Electoral Commission tender for indelible ink, used in last year’s national elections, might have been marred by conflict of interest. In addition, a Mail & Guardian investigation suggests the tender requirements were breached.

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/ 9 September 2005

‘We can’t be a state mouthpiece’

It has taken about a month for Dali Mpofu, the new South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) chief executive, to figure out how hot his 28th-floor seat is, and stamp his authority on the corporation. The times seem to be, as the Chinese might say, interesting ones at the SABC’s Auckland Park headquarters. Someone’s head seems always to be on a chopping block or already rolling.

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/ 26 July 2005

Man allegedly ‘roasts flesh’ of niece

A suspected cannibal who allegedly murdered his niece and then roasted and ate her right thigh is expected to appear in the Harding Magistrate’s Court in southern KwaZulu-Natal on Tuesday. Police spokesperson Superintendent Zandra Hechter said the man was arrested on Sunday after he allegedly killed his sister’s three-year-old daughter and attempted to kill her other children.

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/ 15 July 2005

Three bits and a piece

I am enraged at the utter crassness, crudity and weapons-grade stupidity of whatever organisation now manufactures and sells the almost immortal game of Scrabble. I went to buy a new Scrabble set the other day. The box was marked Original Scrabble and, like a fool, I took that on trust.

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/ 29 March 2005

Zim torture victims pick up the pieces in SA

At first it appears as though the seriously ill Zimbabwean is speaking about someone else’s ordeal at the hands of the notorious Central Intelligence Organisation. Propped up in a hospital bed in South Africa two weeks after her release from Chikurubi Maximum Prison, it becomes apparent that the woman who wants to be known only as ”Itaai” is expressing her own traumatic experience.