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/ 23 December 2005
The JSE once again climbed to a new high, breaking the 18 000 mark for the first time ever. Meanwhile, derivatives tracked world markets higher while the rand was range bound against the dollar in dull trade with bonds going softer ahead of abridged trade on Friday.
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/ 23 December 2005
I was woken in the small hours of the morning by the sound of a strangely familiar voice hitherto only heard on the television. The voice went like this: ”On behalf of the government and people of this country, I am here to wish you a Happy New Year.”
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/ 23 December 2005
A decomposed body discovered in a Brussels canal a week ago is that of a Rwandan former minister indicted by a United Nations tribunal on charges of genocide, a family lawyer said on Thursday. The naked body was discovered by a passer-by in the Brussels-Charleroi canal in the heart of the Belgian capital.
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/ 23 December 2005
Chadian President Idriss Deby on Thursday accused his Sudanese counterpart of plotting to destabilise his country, blaming Khartoum for a rebel attack on the frontier town of Adre. ”The attack against the locality of Adre was not the doing of presumed rebels, but was direct aggression by [the] Sudanese defence minister,” Deby said.
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/ 23 December 2005
Champagne corks popped all over the Catalan town of Vic on Thursday after the world’s biggest lottery draw paid out â,¬510-million (R3,8-billion) to its inhabitants. The deluge of money is expected to transform Vic, a Catalan hill town of 36 000 people 96km inland from Barcelona.
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/ 23 December 2005
United States President George Bush faced a rare challenge from the judiciary on Thursday when two courts questioned the legality of his expansion of presidential powers in the war on terror. In a startling rebuke, a federal appeals court refused to allow the transfer of a terror suspect, Jose Padilla, from military to civilian custody.
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/ 23 December 2005
Her exit had been thunderous and swirling, but as she sat in the wicker chair on the porch and watched the ice melt in her drink, Mrs Claus felt none of the satisfaction that aggrieved righteousness usually brought her. The patronising old bastard was becoming more intransigent with every year.
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/ 23 December 2005
A man was arrested after he allegedly set fire to a house, killing four people in Bez Valley, Johannesburg, on Friday morning. Three of the victims were children, said Johannesburg emergency services spokesperson Steven Kirk. The man allegedly started the fire shortly after midnight after having an argument with his girlfriend.
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/ 23 December 2005
A British artist has outraged Roman Catholics around the world by advertising a statuette of the Virgin Mary enveloped in a condom in a respected Jesuit weekly. The artist, Steve Rosenthal, offered readers a chance to buy a ”a stunning 22cm statue of the Virgin Mary standing atop a serpent, wearing a delicate veil of latex”.
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/ 23 December 2005
An Israeli woman was jailed for three years on Thursday after pleading guilty to meeting one of the most wanted Palestinian militants and spending time in the West Bank town of Jenin. Tali Fahima was arrested last year after repeated visits to Jenin refugee camp to meet Zakaria Zubeidi, the leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.