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/ 3 December 2007
South African Airways (SAA) apologised to a passenger after she broke a leg when her flight from Washington hit a patch of turbulence, a media report said on Monday. Ronel Stevens was asleep, stretched out over two seats, when the aircraft hit an air pocket.
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/ 3 December 2007
President Vladimir Putin appeared to be heading for a landslide victory in Russia’s parliamentary elections on Sunday night amid widespread reports that millions of citizens were coerced into voting for his party, United Russia. Early results from the Central Election Commission indicated the party was leading with 63% of votes.
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/ 3 December 2007
Muziwendoda Kunene, the man caught up in the ”hoax email” saga, is expected to appear in the Atteridgeville Magistrate’s Court on Monday facing charges of attempted murder. Kunene was arrested in Kranskop in KwaZulu-Natal on Thursday. The attempted murder charge was laid by his son.
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/ 3 December 2007
It is hard not to resort to clichés when writing about Mauritius: white, sandy beaches, sunny blue skies and swaying palm trees. This Indian Ocean island paradise is the stuff travel brochures are made of. Stepping off a plane filled with eager tourists and a group of honeymooners proudly flashing "just married" T-shirts, it is easy to see how tourism has become the main source of income.
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/ 3 December 2007
As tens of thousands more frightened and exhausted people fled the terrors of Mogadishu last week, a Somali community leader condemned the international community "for watching the cruelty in Somalia like a film and not bothering to help". He was mistaken. The international community has barely been watching the cruelty in Somalia at all.
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/ 3 December 2007
"I’m tired, tired of Farc, tired of the people, tired of communal life. Tired of never having anything for myself. It would be worth it if we knew why we were fighting. But the truth is I don’t believe in this any more." So wrote Tanja Nijmeijer, a 29-year-old, middle-class Dutch woman who is among a handful of Europeans who joined the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
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/ 3 December 2007
Eskom’s residential customers might soon be charged according to the time of day, if a new electricity tariff is implemented. The new tariff will make electricity more expensive from 7am to 10am and from 6pm to 8pm and cheaper outside these periods. Time-of-use tariffs encourage customers to switch consumption to off-peak periods and reduce demand at peak times, reducing the likelihood of a power outage.
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/ 3 December 2007
The head of the Competition Commission says he believes that anti-competitive practices are rife in South African business and need to be dealt with. The Competition Commission has hit the headlines in the past few weeks with its investigation into the fixing of bread prices. Commissioner Shan Ramburuth says for the first time there is a public perception that price fixing is not a victimless crime.
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/ 3 December 2007
United States house prices have suffered their worst plunge for two decades as defaults on sub-prime mortgages have shattered homebuyers’ confidence and lenders have withdrawn cheap loan deals. According to the key Standard & Poor’s housing index, released on Tuesday, third-quarter US prices were down 4,5% on 2006.
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/ 3 December 2007
A significant amount of resources has been channelled into Africa since the Millennium Development Goals were adopted in 2001. Between 2000 and 2005 an estimated $97-billion has reached the continent through official development assistance. African governments themselves have set aside various percentages of their budgets for expenditure in priority sectors to effect positive change in the lives of the poor.