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/ 23 February 2008
African Union Commission chief Jean Ping pushed on Friday for a quick resolution of Kenya’s political crisis, but there was no sign that a power-sharing deal was imminent. Opposition leader Raila Odinga, however, insisted he was Kenya’s rightful leader and refused to rule out further mass protests planned for next week.
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/ 22 February 2008
Turkish troops have crossed into northern Iraq in their hunt for Kurdish PKK guerrillas, the military said on Friday, but the United States and the European Union urged Ankara to keep the campaign limited. The White House said the US had been informed in advance of the incursion and urged Turkey to limit the operation to ”precise targeting” of the PKK rebels.
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/ 22 February 2008
A domestic passenger plane carrying 46 people was ”practically pulverised” when it crashed into Venezuela’s western Andes Mountains overnight and the chances of finding survivors was nil, officials said on Friday. ”The plane was practically pulverised and [crashed] head-on,” a fire-services officer said.
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/ 22 February 2008
”I saw nothing wrong,” said African National Congress president Jacob Zuma when asked whether he approved of the exclusion of white journalists from an address at the Forum of Black Journalists (FBJ) on Friday. Zuma was addressing journalists after the FBJ re-launch held at the Sandton Sun hotel in Johannesburg.
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/ 22 February 2008
Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Helen Zille on Friday dismissed as ”posturing” Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool’s threat to sue the DA over recent land invasions in Delft. ”A threat to sue the DA for allegedly encouraging land invasions in Delft is just posturing,” she said in a statement.
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/ 22 February 2008
South Africa’s privately owned Samancor Chrome, the world’s second-biggest producer of ferrochrome, said on Friday it had shut a furnace at its plant after a worker was killed in an explosion on Sunday. Sunel Pretorius, a spokesperson at Samancor, said she could not yet say how much output had been affected by the closure of the furnace.
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/ 22 February 2008
A month-old peace accord in east Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) faced a fresh hitch on Friday when Tutsi rebels halted participation in a ceasefire commission in protest at United Nations allegations they had massacred civilians. The move announced by renegade Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda posed a potential threat to the January 23 ceasefire.
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/ 22 February 2008
Controversial businessman Charles Modise was denied bail in the Kimberly Magistrate’s Court on Friday. Modise is being investigated by the Scorpions and faces various charges, including fraud, forgery and corruption in the Northern Cape. Magistrate Andre Williams postponed the matter to July 9 for further investigations.
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/ 22 February 2008
The assault of a woman at a taxi rank for wearing a miniskirt indicates just how necessary it is for the taxi industry to transform, Transport Minister Jeff Radebe said on Friday. ”Unfortunately, this very sad incident has reinforced the view that taxi drivers are a law unto themselves,” said Radebe in Durban.
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/ 22 February 2008
A cyclone that swept across Madagascar this week killed 29 people and left nearly 70 000 homeless or otherwise affected, local authorities said on Friday. Dia Stivanley, spokesperson for the National Office for Management of Risks and Catastrophes, said 12 of the island’s 22 regions had been hit by Cyclone Ivan, a category-three storm.