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/ 24 October 2007
Asia’s space race heated up on Wednesday as China launched its first lunar orbiter, an event hailed in the world’s most populous nation as a milestone event in its global rise. China’s year-long expedition kicks off a programme that aims to land an unmanned rover on the moon’s surface by 2012 and put a man on the moon by about 2020.
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/ 24 October 2007
Her relationship with Greece may have been as tempestuous as her love affair with Aristotle Onassis, but three decades after her death Greeks, it seems, cannot get enough of Maria Callas. So much so, that the cash-strapped Athens government has unprecedented plans to snap up the last great collection of paraphernalia.
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/ 24 October 2007
The JSE remained in negative territory at midday on Wednesday, as banks took a dip on the release of discouraging CPI data and resources were lower on a firmer rand. At 11.59am, the all-share index was 0,25% lower, as resources dipped 0,35%. However, the gold and platinum mining indices advanced 0,28% and 0,35% respectively.
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/ 24 October 2007
Swaziland is in the grip of another drought, and withered maize stalks in dusty fields, rural women who spend ever more time searching for potable water, residents of urban informal settlements forced to use polluted streams, and dropping river levels all testify to a water crisis.
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/ 24 October 2007
The increase in South Africa’s CPIX (consumer inflation less mortgage costs) for metro and other areas, which is used by the South African Reserve Bank for its inflation target, was up 6,7% year-on-year (y/y) in September from 6,3% y/y in August, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said on Wednesday.
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/ 24 October 2007
A total of 54 miners were sheltering in emergency chambers underground after a fire broke out at an Australian gold mine on Wednesday. There were no reported injuries and mine officials said they were working to bring the miners to the surface.
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/ 24 October 2007
South African pathologist Lorna Martin told the inquest into the death of Bob Woolmer that the former Pakistan cricket coach apparently died of natural causes and mistakes were made in his autopsy. Woolmer died in Jamaica on March 18, hours after he was found unconscious in his hotel room.
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/ 24 October 2007
Ian Chappell has come out swinging over England legend Ian Botham’s claim that he decked the former Australian captain in a bar room brawl 30 years ago. Chappell disputed an anecdote in Botham’s autobiography Head On in which the former England all-rounder says he ”flattened” the Australian.
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/ 24 October 2007
The parents of a British girl who disappeared while on holiday in Portugual will launch a 24-hour hotline on Wednesday for information to help find their daughter. Kate and Gerry McCann were to go on Spanish television to urge people to call the hotline if they have any information about their four-year-old, Madeleine.
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/ 24 October 2007
Sri Lankan troops killed 11 Tamil Tiger rebels in a series of clashes in the island’s restive north and one soldier also died, the military said on Wednesday. Troops fought four separate engagements with Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam fighters in the northern district of Vavuniya late on Tuesday.