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/ 4 December 2007
A soft landing for the residential property market is expected after strong double-digit growth between 2003 and 2006, Standard Bank said on Tuesday. The bank’s median house-price index moderated to 6,5% year-on-year in November following a relatively strong growth of 10,2% y/y recorded in October.
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/ 4 December 2007
Spain backed Britain on Tuesday in calling for Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to stay away from a European Union-Africa summit in Lisbon this week. "We would all prefer that he does not take part because he will not bring much and he would be a media distraction," Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos told reporters.
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/ 4 December 2007
Ethiopia has warned that the world’s disinterest in sending peacekeepers to Somalia was dampening hopes of achieving peace in the shattered African nation. Of the 8 000 peacekeepers the African Union pledged to send to bolster President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed’s weak government, only 1 500 Ugandan troops are actually on the ground.
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/ 4 December 2007
South Africa’s new vehicle sales dropped by 13,8% to 47 707 units in November compared with the same month last year, the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers (Naamsa) said on Tuesday. Naamsa said trading conditions remained under severe pressure mainly due to higher interest rates and record high household debt levels.
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/ 4 December 2007
A march by gender activists in protest at the African National Congress (ANC) Women’s League nominations of mostly men for the party’s top six positions would take place this week. Chief executive of the Gender and Media Southern Africa network Kubi Rama on Tuesday said the women would participate in the march on Wednesday.
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/ 4 December 2007
South Africa has abolished the use of border passes which were being used by Beitbridge residents to travel to Musina as part of their new immigration regulations. The use of the temporary travel document was scrapped with immediate effect from November 15 this year, a media report said.
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/ 4 December 2007
A blue pick-up truck pulls to a sudden halt outside Tiriri health centre in Uganda. Many hands surround it, lift the woman lying in the back and carry her inside to the examination room. She cannot speak and her breathing is laboured. Sister Mary Magdalene Anyait, the only member of the medical staff, has a look and takes the woman’s blood pressure.
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/ 4 December 2007
A British teacher jailed in Sudan for insulting Islam by naming a teddy bear Muhammad voiced relief at her release on Tuesday, as she arrived back home after a presidential pardon. ”I’m just an ordinary middle-aged primary school teacher. I went out there to have an adventure and got a lot more adventure than what I was looking for,” said Gillian Gibbons.
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/ 4 December 2007
Food prices may climb for years because of expansion of farming for fuel, climate changes, and demand from richer consumers in fast-growing developing nations, a report said on Tuesday. Biofuel expansions alone could push maize prices up over two-thirds by 2020 and increase oilseed costs by nearly half.
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/ 4 December 2007
Oil prices fell again on Monday, adding to last week’s 10% slump, on continued speculation that the producers’ cartel Opec would agree to increase output when it meets on Wednesday in Abu Dhabi. United States light crude futures fell by more than a dollar a barrel in busy trading to about ,50 a barrel — almost a barrel lower than the peak of ,29 set two weeks.