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/ 23 January 2006
Political parties have until Tuesday to rectify mistakes on their lists of proportional representation candidates for the March 1 election, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) said at Monday’s handover to Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa of the 2004 electoral atlas on poll behaviour in South Africa.
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/ 2 December 2005
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
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
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.
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.
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.
Representatives of civil society on Monday during a public debate said the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is a state apparatus whose job it is to serve the government as a ”mouthpiece”. This is in contrast to how the SABC describes itself — as a public broadcaster.
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.
This past weekend saw a new military operation underway in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Reports from the central African country say about 800 United Nations troops have been deployed in the north-eastern Ituri region to disarm local militias held responsible for the death of nine peacekeepers last month. The militias have also attacked local Congolese, prompting 70Â 000 to flee their homes.
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/ 27 January 2005
In a promising development, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army, the rebel movement that took up arms against Khartoum in 1983, appears to be giving priority to education. Schooling for girls will receive particular attention. The emphasis on educating girls reflects a larger strategy within the movement to address cultural factors that undermine the status of women.