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/ 23 December 2005
A gas explosion inside a highway tunnel under construction killed 42 people and injured 11 others in south-west China’s Sichuan province, the government said on Friday. The explosion happened at an intersection of a highway being built to link the smaller cities of Dujiangyan and Wenchuan.
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/ 23 December 2005
Roger Kebble has resigned from the board of Simmer and Jack mines, it was announced on Thursday. Kebble told the gold-mining company his decision was prompted by the need to spend more time with his family following the murder of his son Brett in September.
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/ 23 December 2005
Another South African has been killed in Iraq, South African Broadcasting Corporation television news reported on Thursday. Jan Strauss (36) was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on Thursday morning while driving a car, alone. The former police officer has been working in the country for two years as a bodyguard.
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/ 23 December 2005
A North West man had both his hands amputated after a hand grenade he was playing with exploded on Wednesday afternoon, police said on Thursday. ”Apparently he picked this device up in the veld and had been playing around with it for the past two weeks,” a police spokesperson said.
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/ 23 December 2005
The Scorpions have been asked to investigate possible fraud relating to the fuel crisis that has gripped the country in recent days. South African Institute for Corporate Fraud Management president Bart Henderson said the shortages amounted to a national security issue.
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/ 23 December 2005
The much-hyped concept of ecotourism has lost its way, failing to deliver the promised benefits to the environment, indigenous people or tourists themselves, experts say. So-called eco-lodges, luxury hotels nestled in rainforests and tourist encounters with nature are often merely "green-washed".
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/ 23 December 2005
The challenge is set as you enter the city on the Avenida 25 Julho. For no apparent reason, the rattling chapa on the dual carriageway ahead swerves maniacally to the left. Peculiar, you think, just as your own vehicle submerges up to the axle into its first Mozambican crater. Welcome to Maputo. Hope you have a nice car insurance policy.
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/ 23 December 2005
During the month of April, the streets of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand set the scene for a slippery warfare, where the weapons are plastic guns, hosepipes, buckets and just about anything that can be used to carry water. Even the Buddhist nuns are in on the act — drenching unsuspecting tourists with bowls of icy H2O.
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/ 23 December 2005
Who is bottom of the class? Who are the stars? Who went AWOL? From Minister of Correctional Services Ngconde Balfour to Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk — as well as a trio of opposition leaders — we bring you the full Cabinet report card. Beware of imitations!
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/ 23 December 2005
By the time you read this, President Thabo Mbeki will be roaming the country’s quiet corners taking landscape photographs, and Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka will have assumed the roll of <i>makoti</i>. Arguably two of the hardest working Cabinet ministers, Mbeki and Mlambo-Ngcuka take ordinary holidays.