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/ 4 December 2007
A Greek Orthodox nunnery was turned into a marijuana plantation by two men posing as gardeners for elderly nuns, police said on Tuesday. Acting on a tip-off, officers raided the nunnery in the village of Filiro, near the northern port city of Thessaloniki, and found more than 30 large cannabis plants in the enclosed garden.
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/ 4 December 2007
In a further effort to protect South Africa’s fast-diminishing perlemoen stocks, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk has imposed a ban on scuba diving and snorkelling in certain areas along the Cape coast. The envisaged prohibition, subject to a process of public comment, will take effect from February 1 next year.
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/ 4 December 2007
United States and German navy ships have cornered Somali pirates who seized a Japanese-owned chemical tanker more than a month ago and are demanding a ransom, an official said on Tuesday. The Panama-registered Golden Nori was carrying benzene from Singapore to Israel when it was hijacked on October 28.
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/ 4 December 2007
The South African Civil Aviation Authority and Nationwide Airlines have agreed to a media blackout regarding the grounding of the carrier. They said they would no longer make independent statements to the press, but would speak jointly on the process, it was announced on Tuesday.
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/ 4 December 2007
The City of Tshwane will be ready to host the 2010 Soccer World Cup spectacle, mayor Gwen Ramakgopa said on Tuesday. ”We are confident that we are on track,” she said. She was addressing journalists at a press-club briefing in Pretoria about the city’s readiness to host the event.
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/ 4 December 2007
The United Nations says the humanitarian crisis caused by last month’s cyclone in Bangladesh is much worse than previously thought, with more than two million people in need of immediate life-saving assistance. ”As more information becomes available, an even grimmer reality is being revealed,” the UN said on Tuesday.
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/ 4 December 2007
The wife of a British man who disappeared more than five years ago but then turned up alive at the weekend has herself gone missing, media reports said on Tuesday. John Darwin (57), who was thought to have died in a canoeing accident, walked in to a London police station and declared he was a missing person, but had no memory of where he had been.
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/ 4 December 2007
The United Nations refugee agency on Tuesday warned that renewed fighting between government troops and rebels in eastern Chad has limited its access to refugee camps amid a heightened sense of insecurity. The fighting has not sparked any exodus but has ratcheted up tensions and worries among vulnerable sections of society, the UN said.
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/ 4 December 2007
KwaZulu-Natal traffic authorities on Tuesday launched their holiday road-safety plan by announcing a high-tech new system to trap speeding motorists and identify stolen vehicles. The summer holiday brings increased activity as locals, visitors and tourists traverse the length and breadth of the province.
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/ 4 December 2007
The joint estate of former Fidentia boss J Arthur Brown and his wife, Susan, was on Tuesday placed under provisional sequestration by the Cape High Court. This followed an application by the curators of the Fidentia group of companies, who claimed that the Browns owed Fidentia just over R24-million.