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/ 24 December 2007
A national plan is in place to give thousands of matriculants who are not expected to pass this year a second chance, a newspaper reported on Monday. ”Education departments confirmed on Sunday that the plan was being finalised at provincial level,” the report in Beeld said.
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/ 24 December 2007
Five bodies were pulled from the ruins of a 12-storey apartment building that collapsed on Monday in the northern Egyptian port city of Alexandria, police said. Ambulances and civil defence teams rushed to the site of the collapse in the Loran district in the east of the coastal city and began rescue operations, a source said.
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/ 24 December 2007
The Scottish government said on Monday it will pay to insert advertisements discouraging drinking and driving into video games. The trial project will see the ads appear on virtual billboards within several games for Microsoft Xbox consoles, including Need for Speed: Carbon, Project Gotham Racing IV and NBA Live.
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/ 24 December 2007
A heavy snowstorm pelted the American Midwest, causing deadly road accidents and power failures and grounding flights for Christmas holiday travellers, United States media reported on Monday. The storm left at least 11 dead in car crashes across the central US over the weekend, local papers said.
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/ 24 December 2007
Gloom was banished from Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem for the first time in years on Monday as Christian pilgrims from all over the world flocked here to celebrate the birth of Jesus in an atmosphere of renewed tranquillity. In the Gaza Strip, however, the mood was much more somber than in Bethlehem.
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/ 24 December 2007
For many in inflation-riddled Zimbabwe this year, Christmas isn’t quite what it used to be. In a glitzy department store on Harare’s main First Street, there are no customers at the almost bare perfume counters. Upstairs in the toy department, Santa has disappeared from his grotto. Outside, about 500 weary customers queue for cash at a bank.
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/ 24 December 2007
Santa Claus will have to slide down slippery chimneys on Christmas Day as thunderstorms are expected in most parts of South Africa on Tuesday. Rain and thunderstorms across several parts of the country have been predicted by the South African Weather Service.
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/ 24 December 2007
Campaigners say they are eyeing legal action ”sooner rather than later” to block a bid to change Grahamstown’s name to iRhini. ”All such name changes have to be fully motivated and must reflect the views of the community,” one of the coordinators of the Keep Grahamstown Campaign said in a statement on Monday.
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/ 24 December 2007
Gauteng drownings are a cause for concern, as the province’s number of instances of drowning is higher than on the coast, provincial minister of local government Qedani Dorothy Mahlangu said on Monday. Mahlangu said 15 more people have recently drowned in Gauteng than at the coast.
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/ 24 December 2007
Several hundred people who have occupied homes at Delft on the Cape Flats were on Monday on their way to the Cape High Court in a bid to block their impending eviction, a spokesperson said. The occupiers had been unable to secure an interdict at the Bellville Magistrate’s Court earlier in the day.