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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
Africa’s biggest banking group by assets, Standard Bank, said on Tuesday it was in talks which if successfully concluded might affect its shares, sending the company’s stock higher. Standard Bank said in a statement that it expected to make an announcement soon.
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/ 24 October 2007
Australia slapped financial sanctions on Burma’s generals and their families on Wednesday as supporters of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi marked her 12 years in captivity with protests in 12 cities. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the measures would hit 418 people, including leader Senior General Than Shwe.
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/ 24 October 2007
Russia and the European Union (EU) have agreed to set up an early warning system which will alert them to any disruptions to gas and oil supplies flowing through Russian pipelines. Russia is one of the EU’s main energy suppliers, pumping oil and gas through its pipeline systems west across Belarus and Ukraine into Europe.
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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.
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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
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
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
Gauteng has made significant strides in the eradication of the unhygienic and inhumane bucket sanitation system, local government provincial minister Qedaeni Mahlangu said on Wednesday. Mahlangu announced the achievement during a bucket eradication roadshow in the Slovoville informal settlement in Nigel.