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/ 20 April 2007

Tiger Brands to exit healthcare business

The board of Tiger Brands on Friday announced it is evaluating all options with regards to the separation of the company’s healthcare interests, which operate under the name of Adcock Ingram. These options include the potential sale, or unbundling and separate listing of the pharmaceutical and hospital products businesses.

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/ 20 April 2007

Exclusive Books acquires Van Schaik Bookstore

Johnnic Communications on Friday announced the acquisition by Exclusive Books of Van Schaik Bookstore, a division of VIA Afrika Limited, for an undisclosed sum, subject to certain conditions precedent, including Competition Commission approval. Prakash Desai, Johncom group CEO, commented: "Van Schaiks provides a natural synergistic fit with Exclusive Books."

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/ 20 April 2007

Darth Vader returns to samurai roots

Darth Vader has metamorphosed from an innocent boy to one of cinema’s quintessential symbols of evil. But now he’s getting back to his roots — in Japan. A Tokyo-based traditional doll maker, arguing that Darth Vader was inspired by Japan’s samurai knights, has designed a pitch-black set of armour fashioned after the Galactic Empire’s dreaded enforcer.

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/ 20 April 2007

Jimmy Wales’s big thoughts on Wikipedia

Wikipedia is not only one of the world’s biggest and most cited websites, but also probably the internet’s most daring project. Matthew Buckland, together with the South African blogosphere, posed some tough questions to Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, who is in South Africa for the Creative Commons Digital Freedom Expo.

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/ 20 April 2007

Coal in the spotlight

Sasol and Engen’s proposed merger received an unprecedented amount of attention last year from the competition authorities and was eventually rejected, despite initial recommendations that it go ahead. Government has been trying to ensure prices are competitive by increasing pressure, particularly on dominant suppliers

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/ 19 April 2007

April 13 to 19

One man’s religion… Drew Forrest’s article “Was Jesus the first socialist?” (April 5) misrepresents and undermines Christianity and the Bible in a manner that lays bare his scepticism of the religion. He consistently veers from the central subject of investigating “where Jesus might stand on today’s political spectrum” to criticise statements made by Paul, as […]

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/ 19 April 2007

Tutu urges Taiwan to face painful past

Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu on Thursday called on the people of Taiwan to face their painful history if they are to heal the wounds caused by a 1947 uprising in which thousands were massacred. The slaughter of islanders by Nationalist troops brought in from mainland China remained taboo for decades under Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek.

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/ 19 April 2007

Great Lakes nations adopt joint military plan

Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda have adopted a joint military strategy to fight rebel groups operating in the war-scarred Great Lakes region, officials said on Thursday. Military commanders from the four countries said those operations would be planned and carried out in conjunction with the country where the rebels are based.

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/ 19 April 2007

SA’s quiet war

No one should be surprised any longer to learn that South Africa is a front in the United States-led war on terror. The revelation that Khalid Rashid has been detained in Pakistan for alleged links to the London Underground bombings of July 7 2005 is only the most recent indication of the quiet battle going on in this country.

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/ 18 April 2007

Day of slaughter in Baghdad

Car bombs killed more than 170 people in Baghdad on Wednesday, hours after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Iraq will take security control of the whole country from foreign forces by the end of the year. One car bomb alone in the mainly Shi’ite al-Sadriya neighbourhood killed 122 people and wounded 155, police said.

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/ 18 April 2007

Last chance, Bush warns Sudan

United States President George Bush on Wednesday bluntly warned that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir had one "last chance" to help end violence in Darfur or face tougher US sanctions and other punishments. "The time for promises is over, President Bashir must act," Bush said in remarks at the Holocaust Museum in Washington.

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/ 18 April 2007

UK has worst drug problem in Europe, says study

Britain has the worst level of drug abuse in Europe, and the second highest level of drug-related deaths, a report said on Wednesday. The value of trade in illegal drugs is estimated at £5-billion a year, according to the study by Professor Peter Reuter of Maryland University in the United States and Alex Stevens of Kent University in Britain.

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/ 18 April 2007

SAB experiences ‘unusually high’ beer demand

South African Breweries (SAB) said on Wednesday that the company was experiencing "unusually high" demand for this time of the year, across its range of brands. "The increased volumes are obviously good news for us, but currently it’s proving quite difficult to keep up with demand in certain areas," said SAB spokesperson Shirley Scriven.

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/ 18 April 2007

Molten steel shower kills 32 workers in China

At least 32 workers were killed and two injured on Wednesday when they were engulfed by molten steel at a metal factory in north-east China, the government said. The accident was triggered when a steel ladle, with a capacity of 30 tonnes of liquid steel, sheared off from the blast furnace, spilling molten metal onto the factory floor about 3m below.

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/ 17 April 2007

What has happened to us?

What has happened to us that an adult can callously rape a baby? What possesses those who hijack a car and, even after the victim has handed over her keys and money, gratuitously mow her down with her helpless children, or who murder farmers so brutally? What has seemed to strip us of our very humanity so that we jettison our traditional values.

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/ 17 April 2007

Anglo chief on BEE and climate change

Black economic empowerment (BEE) in South Africa, climate change and Anglo American’s contribution to wider development are among the issues that are fundamental to the future of its business, Anglo chairperson Sir Mark Moody Stuart said on Tuesday at the group’s annual general meeting in London.

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/ 17 April 2007

Crime’s cost to business

Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka told parliamentarians recently that, while fighting crime was a priority, she did not feel it should be an objective of government’s growth initiative, Asgisa. However crime is analysed, the truth is that business growth has been sharply constrained by crime levels.

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/ 16 April 2007

Moscow: The era of US hegemony is now over

The news that an arms race may be under way once more between Washington and Moscow has brought back some unpleasant memories, but it is also a pointer to a more complicated future. The Kremlin’s threat to counter United States missile defence installations in Eastern Europe is a sign that Russia will no longer acquiesce in a Pax Americana.

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/ 16 April 2007

They should be so lucky!

The English tabloid, <i>The Sun</i>, complained, supposedly without their consent, that the British sailors and marines captured by the Iranians on the high seas were sent home in cheap suits supplied by none other than the Iranian president himself. On TV at least, those suits looked pretty good to me.

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/ 13 April 2007

Cell C not in ‘financial meltdown’

The country’s third cellphone services provider, Cell C, said on Friday there was "absolutely no truth" to claims that the company was in a "financial meltdown". Zeona Motshabi, chief corporate officer of Cell C, said in a statement that the company had registered very strong earnings growth over the past two years.

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/ 13 April 2007

Croc bites off Taiwan vet’s forearm

Surgeons in southern Taiwan have reattached the left forearm of a vet after it was bitten off by a sick crocodile he was tending in a zoo, they said on Thursday. Chang Po-yu was injecting the male Nile crocodile with anaesthetic in the zoo in the southern city of Kaohsiung on Wednesday when it turned on him.

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/ 13 April 2007

Zuma back to court over Mauritian documents

<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=zuma_report"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/243078/zuma.jpg" align=left border=0></a>Jacob Zuma’s lawyers will on Monday lodge an application for leave to appeal the Durban High Court’s decision allowing prosecutors to ask authorities in Mauritius to release documents about meetings believed to relate to arms-deal corruption. Meanwhile, the "unacceptable" behaviour of Zuma’s minders has been questioned by the Democratic Alliance.