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/ 11 October 2006
Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, vowed on Tuesday to pursue the killers of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, calling her murder a ”disgustingly cruel crime” which would not go unpunished, whatever the motive. Putin said the killing had inflicted much greater damage on his government than any of the journalist’s sharply critical writing.
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/ 11 October 2006
The Tourism Business Council of South Africa has a new CEO, Mmatsatsi Marobe, who stepped into her role on October 1. ”I am committed to taking the TBCSA to a new level of service delivery and to bringing together public and private partners to realise the potential of tourism in the country,” Marobe said in a statement.
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/ 11 October 2006
The British-based author and former publisher Carmen Callil has become embroiled in a growing dispute over the limits of freedom of speech in the United States after a party celebrating her new book on Vichy France was cancelled because of the opinion she expresses about the modern state of Israel.
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/ 11 October 2006
About 153-million poor people with vision problems have no access to basic eye care, causing missed educational and work opportunities, the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday. The United Nations agency said a sight test and glasses or contact lenses could improve children’s prospects at school and their parents’ job successes across the developing world.
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/ 11 October 2006
Pay-channel M-Net is inviting people to enter for Culture Shock, a new reality television show which will see families from two different cultures swapping homes and lives for two weeks. Carl Fischer, head of M-Net original productions, said on Wednesday the show would not seek to pit stereotypes against each other.
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/ 11 October 2006
Hundreds of people prayed for rain on Wednesday in an Indonesian province hard-hit by forest fires as south-east Asian environment ministers prepared to gather to discuss ways to tackle smoke haze covering the region. Dry season fires caused by farmers and big businesses such as plantations have been burning for weeks in parts of Indonesia.
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/ 11 October 2006
South African retail sales rose by 9,7% year-on-year in July at constant prices, accelerating from the previous month and signalling spending remained robust despite a rate hike, official data showed. Statistics South Africa also said on Wednesday the annual retail sales increase for June was revised down to 8,7%.
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/ 11 October 2006
At least 11 000 children are still with armed groups or unaccounted for more than two years after the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) launched a programme to release and re-integrate child soldiers back into civilian life, Amnesty International said on Wednesday. Girls in particular were worst affected, with most of those snatched by armed groups still unaccounted for.
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/ 11 October 2006
Cash-in-transit security guards threatened to strike in response to the recent spate of violent heists, the Motor Transport Workers’ Union (MTWU) said on Wednesday. ”The union met with shop stewards from around the country today [Wednesday] on the crisis. It has had enough,” said union general secretary Emily Fourie.
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/ 11 October 2006
A light aircraft that went missing after it took off from Pietermaritzburg was found on Wednesday morning with no survivors on board, rescue services said. The plane, with the bodies of three occupants, was found at Rhino’s Peak in the southern Drakensberg, near Underberg in KwaZulu-Natal, said Santjie White, a spokesperson for the South African Search and Rescue Organisation.