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/ 15 January 2008
Sicily’s Mafia rakes in more than €1-billion a year through extortion, according to a study to be published on Friday. Between 2002 and 2006, the Cosa Nostra earned more than €6-billion from Sicilian businesses forced to pay ”pizzo”, according to extracts of the study published on Tuesday.
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/ 15 January 2008
India on Tuesday confirmed a bird-flu outbreak among poultry following the deaths of thousands of chickens in the past week in the state of West Bengal. It is the country’s third outbreak since 2006 and the first since India, home to 1,1-billion people, declared itself free of the disease last November.
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/ 15 January 2008
Belgium’s main political parties sat down on Tuesday to thrash out a new power-sharing agreement and try to avoid any repeat of the political crisis that shook the kingdom last year. The forum is dubbed the ”Octopus”, as its 20 members are drawn from the eight principal parties.
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/ 15 January 2008
The Cape High Court on Tuesday again postponed the Delft eviction case — the application will now take place on January 29. The court furthermore urged Democratic Alliance city councillor Frank Martin to engage a lawyer to represent him in proceedings.
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/ 15 January 2008
The bail applications of five people accused of murdering and robbing conservationist Franz Richter were postponed due to a power failure at the Krugersdorp Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday. Earlier, all five accused pleaded not guilty to the charges of murder and robbery with aggravating circumstances.
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/ 15 January 2008
Kenya’s new government and opposition clashed in Parliament for the first time on Tuesday in a bad-tempered session reflecting deep bitterness over the disputed re-election of President Mwai Kibaki. Despite demands for urgent action to end a crisis in which hundreds have been killed, opposition and government legislators argued for an hour.
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/ 15 January 2008
President Thabo Mbeki should explain to Parliament why he is reluctant to reinstate suspended National Prosecution Authority head Vusi Pikoli, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Tuesday. ”President Mbeki needs to clarify his position on the DA’s call for him to brief Parliament on his refusal to review his decision to suspend advocate Vusi Pikoli,” the DA said.
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/ 15 January 2008
Turkish warplanes attacked Kurdish guerrilla targets in northern Iraq on Tuesday, Turkey’s General Staff said, but there were no reports of casualties or serious damage. The latest strike follows a series of cross-border raids on Kurdistan Workers’ Party positions in the mountainous region in December.
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/ 15 January 2008
Video games in freight containers won a Sowetan entrepreneur a cash prize of R100Â 000 at a Johannesburg business college on Tuesday. Between October and December last year, more than 50 hopeful Sowetan business people entered the Soweto Entrepreneur Business Plan competition.
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/ 15 January 2008
The United Nations on Tuesday warned of the worsening situation in flood-affected parts of Southern Africa as more rain was expected in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi over the next 24 hours. In Geneva, the UN Children’s Fund launched an emergency appeal for almost ,5-million for Malawi, where more than a million people face food shortages.