Staff Reporter
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/ 24 June 2004

‘It’s better to die’

Young South African women are being given false job offers to lure them into prostitution in Macau, a former Portuguese colony now under Chinese control, says the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). IOM official Jonathan Martens told a conference in Benoni that women were promised employment, luxury accommodation, and payment of between $10 000 and $20 000.

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/ 24 June 2004

SA space pilot was ‘deathly afraid’

Michael Melvill, the pilot of the first manned private trip to the edge of space this week, has told how he feared he would not return from the landmark mission.
The South African-born Melvill told the New York Times, that SpaceShipOne lurched to the left and suffered a key control system failure that left him feeling ”deathly afraid”.

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/ 24 June 2004

Nurse fired after babies ‘swapped’

A nurse at a Polokwane hospital was dismissed and her two colleagues were suspended following an incident where two babies were swapped in April, the Limpopo health department said on Wednesday. The baby swapping discovery was made by one of the mothers when she went home and found two name tags on a baby.

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/ 24 June 2004

AOL engineer sold 92m names to spammers

A software engineer working for America Online was on Wednesday night charged with stealing the internet service provider’s entire subscriber list and selling it to spammers, the senders of unsolicited junk e-mails. Jason Smathers (24) was arrested on conspiracy charges at his home in West Virginia, close to AOL’s headquarters, where he had worked since 1999.

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/ 24 June 2004

Security a shambles ahead of handover

Up to 30 000 Iraqi police officers are to be sacked for being incompetent and unreliable and given a -million payoff before the United States hands over to an Iraqi government, senior British military sources said on Wednesday. Many officers either deserted to the insurgents or simply stayed at home during the recent uprisings in Falluja and across the south.

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/ 24 June 2004

Another blow to press freedom in Zim

Journalists from three banned newspapers would not be able to find work under a government proposal to tighten a section of Zimbabwe’s sweeping media laws, warns the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition. The coalition says that such a move would be another blow to press freedom in the troubled southern African country.

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/ 24 June 2004

RIP Aggrey Klaaste

<i>Sowetan</i> editor Aggrey Klaaste, who died last week, arrived in Sophiatown as a teenager from Kimberley. But his love for, and link with, his Johannesburg stamping-ground were never lost. In keeping with the ethos of the unique urban melting-pot nicknamed "Kofifi", Klaaste was well known for his love of wine and song, dancing to jazz tunes and imbibing whatever was available — until he climbed on to the wagon.

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/ 24 June 2004

Varadero unveiled

Honda has launched a brand-new version of their big adventure twin, the Varadero. The 996cc V-twin engine – derived from the VTR 1000F – has shed its two big-bore flat-side carburettors in favour of Honda’s PGM-F1 programmed fuel-injection system