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/ 17 October 2007
An elderly Durban couple is in a critical condition in hospital after being drugged and robbed on Wednesday by men claiming to be traditional healers. Police said the man and woman were with their son at the time. The family had entered a Standard Bank branch in Amanzimtoti and withdrawn a large sum of money.
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/ 17 October 2007
The Public Servants’ Association of South Africa said on Wednesday that it foresaw chaos in the country’s prisons on weekends following failure of the Department of Correctional Services to compensate its employees who work on Saturdays and Sundays. Correctional services spokesperson Manelisi Wolela said the matter was still under discussion.
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/ 17 October 2007
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) army has orders to forcibly disarm soldiers loyal to renegade general Laurent Nkunda, President Joseph Kabila said on Wednesday, but he declined to say when the offensive would begin. ”The armed forces … have received the green light to begin, or rather to prepare, the forced disarmament of Mr Nkunda,” Kabila said.
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/ 17 October 2007
Vietnam’s Communist Party plans to switch its 20 000 desktop computers nationwide to open-source software next year, avoiding problems with copyright infringement, state media said on Friday. In Vietnam, an industry group has estimated more than 90% of all software is counterfeit.
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/ 17 October 2007
Like a gourmet chef who rarely eats out, Google feeds advertising services to hordes of other businesses while skimping on its own marketing. The recipe has been extremely fruitful. While the internet search leader has sold more than -billion in advertising since 2001, Google has become a household name without buying expensive ad campaigns.
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/ 17 October 2007
One of Germany’s greatest treasuries of books, the Bavarian State Library in Munich, said on Tuesday it had set a robot to work ”reading” the books and storing more than 7,5-million images of the pages in its digital memory. The device uses gentle suction and a breath of air to turn the pages.
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/ 17 October 2007
Embattled internet portal Yahoo! reported a slight drop in quarterly net profits on Tuesday as increased spending offset increased revenue. Yahoo! earned ,3-million, or 11 cents per share, compared with ,5-million, or 11 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter.
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/ 17 October 2007
Madonna’s landmark deal with concert promoter Live Nation marks the latest move by the music industry to find new ways to profit from artists as CD sales slip and the internet changes the way music is delivered. The deal, officially announced on Tuesday, gives the company an all-encompassing stake in her music.
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/ 17 October 2007
The leaders of Brazil, India and South Africa on Wednesday vowed to push the interests of poor nations in stalled international trade talks and said any agreement would have to benefit the developing world. Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and South African President Thabo Mbeki met at a summit in Pretoria.
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/ 17 October 2007
A military board of inquiry into an accident in which nine soldiers were killed has begun its work, Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said on Wednesday. Lekota was visiting seven troopers in various Bloemfontein hospitals, who were injured in the anti-aircraft gun accident at the Lohatla training area in the Northern Cape last Friday.