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/ 18 January 2008
An eight-year-old Indonesian boy has died of bird flu, the Health Ministry said on Friday, bringing the toll to 97 in the nation worst hit by the H5N1 virus. The boy was the seventh person from the Jakarta satellite city of Tangerang to die of the disease since October. He died at 4am local time in a Jakarta hospital, the ministry’s bird-flu centre said.
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/ 18 January 2008
Australia were battling to avoid their first defeat since the 2005 Ashes series after India seized control of the third Test in Perth on Friday. The Indians piled on 294 in their second innings to set Australia a near-impossible target of 413 to win, then picked up two early wickets to leave the home team in deep trouble when play ended on the third day.
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/ 18 January 2008
Zambia has declared a national disaster after floods swept through the Southern African nation and several neighbouring countries, killing at least 45 people and destroying roads, bridges, crops and livestock. ”This is a national disaster and it requires concerted efforts of all of us to solve,” Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa said late on Thursday.
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/ 18 January 2008
Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota was on Friday sentenced to a R5Â 000 fine or 12 months’ imprisonment for reckless and negligent driving. Wearing a dark suit, glasses with gold frames and accompanied by his bodyguard, Lekota pleaded guilty to exceeding the national speed limit. Last Sunday Lekota was arrested for driving at 189km/h in a 120km/h zone.
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/ 18 January 2008
There is a ”rising tide” of corruption in the South African Police Service [SAPS], Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille alleged on Friday. ”Minister of Safety and Security [Charles Nqakula] and the leadership of the SAPS need to find the political will to acknowledge the grave threat that police corruption poses to our country,” she said in her weekly newsletter.
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/ 18 January 2008
The pilot of a British Airways jet that crash-landed at London’s Heathrow airport with more than 150 people on board was hailed as a hero on Friday as investigators began their probe into the incident. All 136 passengers and 16 crew escaped without serious injury when the aircraft was forced to land short of the runway on Thursday.
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/ 18 January 2008
Publishers of a popular Zimbabwean daily, which was ordered to close more than four years ago, have been invited to apply for authorisation to begin publishing again, government-run media said on Friday. The <i>Daily News</i> was a virulent critic of President Robert Mugabe’s government before being closed down in September 2003.
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/ 18 January 2008
There has been much debate about whether the African Cup of Nations should be held at the end of the European season so that there is not a club-versus-country clash. Two football experts discuss the pros and cons. The continental showpiece kicks off in Ghana on Sunday.
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/ 18 January 2008
Chief economist of Citigroup in South Africa Jean Mercier says foreigners see more political risk in South Africa now than they have over the past few years, and will be keenly monitoring any "new faces", especially in the key finance and Reserve Bank positions, as these people may be untested at high-level economic decision-making.
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/ 18 January 2008
Any country that wants to win the African Cup of Nations had better have a population of at least 15-million — or they might as well bury the thought. Since the inaugural tournament more than half a century ago, the Cup has only once been won by a country that boasts a population of less than 15-million — in 1972, four million-strong Congo-Brazzaville won it.