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/ 25 January 2008
Zimbabwe’s main opposition party described a decision on Friday by President Robert Mugabe to call general elections for March 29 an "act of madness", but stopped short of calling for a boycott. "It’s an act of madness and arrogance," Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) spokesperson Nelson Chamisa said.
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/ 25 January 2008
South African gold producers and the world’s biggest platinum miner suspended production at all their mines in the country on Friday due to a power crisis, helping send precious metal prices to new highs. Shares in most of the affected firms dived as the government said the power cuts were ”a national emergency”.
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/ 25 January 2008
An IT worker, after receiving a letter on January 3 that was sent on December 20 as priority mail, calculated that a snail would have made it even faster to his home than the letter. Daily Gazeta Wyborcza said Michal Szybalski calculated that it took 294 hours for the letter to arrive at his home. He also said the distance between his home and the sender was 11,1km.
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/ 25 January 2008
Roger Federer’s invincibility was pierced, then pummelled and finally pulled apart at Melbourne Park on Friday, the world number one being brutally ejected from the Australian Open semifinals by Novak Djokovic. The Swiss champion and top seed fell 7-5 6-3 7-6, ending his bid to reach an 11th consecutive Grand Slam final.
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/ 25 January 2008
Tourist arrivals in Uganda have dropped by up to 30% since post-election violence in neighbouring Kenya rocked the region, tourism officials said on Friday. ”Our numbers [of tourists] have gone down by 20, 30%,” Edwin Muzahura, spokesperson for the Uganda Tourist Board, said.
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/ 25 January 2008
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki declared ”final war” on al-Qaeda on Friday after dozens of people including a police chief were killed in bomb attacks blamed on the jihadists in Mosul city. Iraqi forces were moving towards Mosul, 370km north of Baghdad, for a major assault that would become a ”decisive battle”, Maliki told a gathering in the central shrine city of Karbala.
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/ 25 January 2008
Gold and platinum mining stocks were sharply in the red by midday, led by news that local mines had halted production over power supply concerns. However, the JSE was still holding onto its gains, which was underpinned by the rally in Asian markets.
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/ 25 January 2008
Switch off your lights is what the government is urging South Africans to do to immediately address what it calls a ”national electricity emergency”. On Friday, Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin and Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica outlined several plans to alleviate the country’s electricity shortage.
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/ 25 January 2008
The Clinton strategy of marginalising Barack Obama as an African-American candidate showed signs of success on the eve of Saturday’s Democratic primary in South Carolina. Polls suggest Obama is in line to add South Carolina to his win in Iowa, but they also show a sharp drop in his support from white voters.
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/ 25 January 2008
Six months ago, everything was rosy — robust global growth fuelled by seemingly limitless demand from China and India, strong corporate balance sheets, record prices across most asset classes, and enormous infrastructure spend anticipated in South Africa. Now appetite for risk has disappeared and any bad news stokes further panic.