Staff Reporter
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/ 24 October 2006

Quake hits Istanbul, second in days

An earthquake measuring 5,2 on the Richter scale hit north-western Turkey on Tuesday and was felt in Istanbul, just days after another quake of the same size in the area, Turkey’s earthquake monitoring centre said. No injuries or damages were reported. The quake’s epicentre was in the Sea of Marmara, which lies alongside Istanbul.

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/ 24 October 2006

Germany: Iran could have nuclear bomb by 2015

Iran is unlikely to be able to develop a nuclear bomb before 2015, the chief of Germany’s BND foreign intelligence agency said on Tuesday. His estimate falls within the three to 10 year range of forecasts given by most international experts. ”It is difficult to give an exact estimate of the time,” BND head Ernst Uhrlau told a security conference.

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/ 24 October 2006

Ethiopia ‘technically’ at war with Somali Islamists

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on Tuesday Ethiopia was ”technically” at war with Somalia’s Islamists because they had declared jihad on his nation. ”The jihadist elements within the Islamic Court movement are spoiling for a fight. They’ve been declaring jihad against Ethiopia almost every other week,” Meles told Reuters in an interview. ”Technically we are at war.”

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/ 24 October 2006

Coalition protests against water privatisation

Protesters, led by the Coalition Against Water Privatisation, handed a memorandum of demands to officials at Johannesburg Water offices and the Johannesburg City Council on Tuesday. In the four-page memo they stated reasons for opposing the introduction of pre-paid water meters in Soweto. Tuesday’s protest began at the Library Gardens.

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/ 24 October 2006

DA calls for use of metal detectors at schools

If metal detectors are necessary in certain schools to guard the safety of pupils, they must be used, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Tuesday. DA education spokesperson David Quail said there had been over 20 deaths in schools this year, and that media statements of shock and sympathy from the department are not enough to solve the problem.

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/ 24 October 2006

Cosatu slams Perlman hearing

The South African Broadcasting Corporation’s disciplinary process against SAfm journalist John Perlman should be called off immediately, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said on Tuesday. Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven said Perlman should be praised rather than disciplined.

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/ 24 October 2006

Hearings into alleged French role in Rwanda genocide

Rwanda on Tuesday opened public hearings into an alleged French role in the 1994 genocide that left at least 800 000 people dead in the Central African nation. A former senior Rwandan official testified that Paris had indeed supported the perpetrators of the genocide in order to protect a French-speaking nation from rebels backed by an English-speaking country.