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/ 30 October 2007
South Africa will record a budget surplus for the next three years due to higher-than-expected tax revenues and would invest more to boost infrastructure, the National Treasury said on Tuesday. In its Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement, the Treasury said robust economic growth over the past five years had provided for a more expansionary fiscal stance.
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/ 30 October 2007
South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki held talks with his Namibian counterpart, Hifikepunye Pohamba, in Windhoek on Tuesday on a visit designed to boost cross-border trade and cooperation in the energy sector. The proposed development of Namibia’s offshore Kudu gas-field project was among the topics in the initial round of discussions.
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/ 30 October 2007
Conjoined twin Mpho Mathibela was glad to meet former president Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg on Tuesday. Mpho is the surviving twin of the famous Mathibela conjoined twins, Mpho and Mphonyana. They hit headlines when they were born joined at the head at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital on December 7 1986.
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/ 30 October 2007
South Africa’s World Cup-winning coach Jake White has shown interest in the vacant Wallabies post via his agent, the Australian Rugby Union (ARU) said on Tuesday. ARU high-performance manager Pat Howard confirmed that agent Craig Livingstone contacted him on White’s behalf last week, but he had heard nothing further.
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/ 30 October 2007
Spain ”disagrees” with charges filed against seven Spaniards in Chad over an alleged operation by a French charity to abduct 103 children to France, its Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday. ”The government disagrees with this accusation,” Spain’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Bernardino Leon, told Spanish public radio RNE.
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/ 30 October 2007
British opposition chief David Cameron has sparked a minor diplomatic spat over a reported off-the-cuff remark about ”one-legged Lithuanian lesbians”, officials said on Tuesday. The former Soviet republic’s ambassador in London has written to the Conservative Party seeking an explanation for the remarks.
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/ 30 October 2007
At least 500 people packed a local soccer stadium in Matatiele as the second day of public hearings on the region’s controversial incorporation into the Eastern Cape started on Tuesday. Matatiele was incorporated into the Eastern Cape on February 28, hours before voting started in the local government election of 2006.
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/ 30 October 2007
A 37-year-old man has been arrested for arson after a family of four burned to death in Khayelitsha on Tuesday, Western Cape police said. Spokesperson Constable Siphokazi Mawisa said the house at Hempe Street in Makhaza, Khayelitsha, burned down at midnight.
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/ 30 October 2007
The Turkish army pounded Kurdish rebels near the Iraqi border on Tuesday as Ankara warned that ties with Washington would suffer as long as the separatists enjoyed sanctuary in northern Iraq. Cobra helicopters fired missiles at rebel positions on the Cudi Mountains, which border Iraq, where fighting continued for a second day.
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/ 30 October 2007
South African investment firm Mvelaphanda has reached agreement with fund management group Allan Gray to buy up to 30% of Johnnic Communications’ media unit, it said on Tuesday. Mvelaphanda said it will buy a minumum of 25,1% and a maximum of 30% of Johncom’s media business, provisionally named Opco.