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/ 24 May 2008

An angel who started cooking

It is lunchtime and two police officers from the Alexandra station have arrived to collect 50 loaves of bread and four enormous plastic tubs filled with fresh stew for the refugees who have sought sanctuary at the police station from the violence.The officers pack the lunch into the back of a police van and drive off.

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/ 24 May 2008

The 21-st century pencil test

In a practice that recalls the humiliating "tests" used by apartheid officials to classify coloureds as white or black, reports came in that South African mobs were using similar techniques to identify foreigners. A language test is first, where one is asked to label certain body parts in isiZulu. Certain words in the Zulu language are no longer used on a daily basis.

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/ 20 May 2008

‘I do not want to die in South Africa’

It’s just another sunny afternoon in Alex, and foreigners are taking the opportunity to salvage what is left of their possessions. When the sun goes down, they’ll need to be back in their tents behind the palisade fence of the parking lot of the Alexandra police station, which has been turned into a tent city.

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/ 16 May 2008

‘They must leave or die …’

Many say Alex is the last place they expected this kind of violence to erupt. It is known as multi-cultural and multi-national, a melting pot where South Africans and foreigners from different race and ethnic groups have lived together for years. One life-long resident, 25-year-old Thandi Madlala, says she has always had Mozambican neighbours, "and it’s never been an issue".

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/ 21 April 2008

Petrol to top R9 a litre

Economists say it is only a matter of time before the rising price of oil puts pressure on the petrol price, causing it to rise yet again. Econometrix’s senior economist, Tony Twine, says that it is too late for the oil price to affect the current petrol price, but that it would certainly take the petrol price up in May by another 25c.

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/ 14 April 2008

Killer cure too pricey for poor

Cervical cancer still kills thousands of women in South Africa, mostly poor women in their 40s and 50s, many of whom are the breadwinners in their families. Last week pharmaceutical company Merck Sharp & Dohme launched a cervical cancer vaccine, known as the quadrivalent human papillomavirus recombinant vaccine.

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/ 25 March 2008

Patient or prisoner?

For thousands of patients quarantined for up to a year with multidrug-resistant or extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, the Easter holiday period only reinforces their loneliness. Last December, patients in Gauteng and the Eastern Cape broke out of TB hospitals to be with their families during the festive season.

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/ 20 February 2008

Bringing back Soweto’s wetlands

Small deeds, despite the sceptics, can make a difference. In Soweto, a community clean-up campaign is helping to restore wetlands that have suffered from decades of pollution. Members of organisations such as the Mayibuye Wetlands Programme are spending hours cleaning up the Klip River, which has been described as one of the most polluted rivers in Gauteng.