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/ 27 March 2008

Tutu calls for arms-deal probe

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Thursday added his voice to calls for a judicial inquiry into the multibillion-rand arms deal. In the text of his speech for the Dullah Omar memorial lecture at the University of the Western Cape, he said South Africans could not pretend corruption was no longer a serious problem.

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/ 15 February 2008

Mbeki on tightrope as left’s influence rises

South Africa’s left is riding high as the government prepares to unveil a budget that is expected to raise spending on social programmes and shift policy more towards fighting unemployment and poverty. Powerful trade unions and the South African Communist Party have recently seen their influence within the ruling African National Congress rise.

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/ 27 January 2008

Tributes pour in for Don Pasquallie

The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) said on Sunday that the death of Don Pasquallie (41), the union’s deputy general-secretary, was a ”profound loss” to the organisation. Pasquallie died in a car accident in Napier, near Bredasdorp in the Western Cape, at about 6am on Sunday morning.

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/ 14 November 2007

Yesterday and today, but what of tomorrow?

The 2007 Community ­Survey conducted by Statistics South Africa gives an impressive account of our developmental progress, concluding that ”today is better than yesterday”. The survey also makes it clear that our society is undergoing massive changes. From the most intimate relations to the most abstract levels of social interaction, communities are in flux.

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/ 11 September 2007

Act discriminates against elderly men, court hears

The Social Assistance Act unfairly discriminates against a group of men who are among the poorest of the poor in South Africa, the Pretoria High Court heard on Tuesday. The Act entitled men to apply for state old-age pensions, based on a needs test, when they reached the age of 65, but entitled women to start receiving the pension at the of 60.