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/ 8 October 2007

Egypt plan to green Sahara desert stirs controversy

It looks like a mirage but the lush fields of cauliflower, apricot trees and melon growing among a vast stretch of sand north of Cairo’s pyramids is all too real — proof of Egypt’s determination to turn its deserts green. While climate change and land overuse help many deserts across the world advance, Egypt is slowly greening the sand that covers almost all of its territory.

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/ 8 October 2007

Bolivian town cashes in on Che Guevara legacy

The bearded image of guerrilla leader Ernesto ”Che” Guevara has become a pop icon splashed on mugs, T-shirts and even bikinis 40 years after his death, and Vallegrande, a Bolivian town, is out to cash in on the marketing frenzy. In central Bolivia, where Guevara battled the army before he was captured and killed, tour operators offer a chance to retrace his final steps on the ”Che Trail”.

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/ 8 October 2007

Six shot dead at US high-school party

A police officer in a small town in northern Wisconsin on Sunday shot dead at least six young people, including a 14-year-old girl, at a house party before he was shot and killed by a police sniper. News reports from Crandon, a close-knit town of 2 000 people, suggested the suspected shooter and his victims were part of the same circle of friends.

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/ 8 October 2007

Miners die in underground fire

An underground fire has claimed the lives of 23 miners illegally working a disused shaft of the St Helena mine, in Welkom, on the Free State Goldfields, police said on Sunday. A number of illegal miners were feared to have suffocated or burned to death while trapped underground by the fire — which was thought to have started last month.

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/ 8 October 2007

Trevor shows red card

Finance Minister Trevor Manuel set the cat among the pigeons this week after the fallout over the disclosure that the PSL’s sponsorship negotiating team were set to share a R50-million payout from the recently announced R500-million PSL Absa sponsorship deal.

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/ 8 October 2007

‘Graft a driver of poverty’

While the annual ranking of perceptions of corruption attracts a lot of attention, the way in which corruption creates poverty is often overlooked. Transparency International’s (TI) 2007 Corruption Perceptions Index ranked South Africa at 5,1, compared with log leader Denmark at 9,4. While South Africa has improved on its ranking of 4,6 last year, any corruption is still a driver of poverty in the country.