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/ 22 February 2008
COUNTERPOINT: When the Olympic Games were held in Moscow in 1980, the British team did not take part in the opening ceremony. As a first-time Olympian I was mildly disappointed, perhaps more so because it hadn’t been orchestrated by Steven Spielberg. That is now also true of Beijing and I doubt whether many Olympians lost much sleep over his decision.
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/ 22 February 2008
POINT: The Olympic Games have their anthem, their rings, their heroes and their sponsors. And now, with the Beijing 2008 Games, they have their prisoners. The Chinese government is not just building fine stadiums, it is also arresting those who dare to condemn the countless human rights violations taking place in China.
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/ 22 February 2008
Profit-taking helped the JSE catch its breath on Friday after its good rally on Thursday, which led the bourse to dip 0,82% by midday. The platinum-mining index gave up 2,09%, resources lost 1,11% and the gold-mining index eased 0,09%. Industrials weakened 0,69%, financials shed 0,17% and banks picked up 0,15%.
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/ 22 February 2008
Tonnes of fish, from carp to exotic tropical specimens, have washed up dead along 320km of beach on Taiwan’s outlying islands because of cold temperatures, a local official said on Friday. About 45 tonnes of fish, some wild and some farmed, appeared on the tourism-dependent Penghu Island archipelago in the Taiwan Strait from February 14.
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/ 22 February 2008
Zimbabwe could save up to 300MW of power daily if consumers become more responsible and switch off lights and other gadgets when not needed, the state-controlled Herald reported on Friday. ”Zimbabwe … is in the middle of a severe power crisis. On two occasions already this year, the entire nation was completely switched off,” the Herald said.
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/ 22 February 2008
The Under-19 Cricket World Cup hasn’t been a particularly happy hunting ground for South Africa in the past — they lost to those irksome Nepalese in the plate final of the last edition in 2006. Looking back, it seems the only highlight for South Africa came when the side reached the final in 2002.
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/ 22 February 2008
The A1 Grand Prix (A1GP) series makes its way to Durban this weekend for another round of racing. Being the only street circuit on the A1GP schedule, the Durban race is often called ”the Monaco of A1GP”. Local favourite Adrian Zaugg gives his views on the A1GP series and his Formula One aspirations.
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/ 22 February 2008
This year’s budget for health appeared to keep pace with overall national expenditure. But although it outstrips inflation, it doesn’t attempt to deal with the backlog of the past few years caused by population growth and inflation. The budget for healthcare is set to rise by more than 10% a year for the next three years.
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/ 22 February 2008
Wladimir Klitschko and Sultan Ibragimov bid to bring some clarity to the muddled heavyweight division on Saturday when they put their world titles on the line at Madison Square Garden. Trainer Emanuel Steward believes the fight could be Ukrainian Klitschko’s first step toward dominating the division.
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/ 22 February 2008
For the viewers of Turkmenistan’s popular nightly news programme, Vatan, it was another routine bulletin. But as the newsreader began the 9pm broadcast, viewers across the central Asian country spotted something unusual crawling across the studio table: a large brown cockroach.