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/ 10 January 2006
The spot price of gold was quoted marginally lower on Tuesday, after breaking above $550 a troy ounce for the first time since January 1981 on Monday evening. Fund buying on Tuesday morning took the spot price of platinum to $1 018 an ounce, which was the metal’s highest level since March 1980.
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/ 10 January 2006
An Australian man had to be rescued after becoming wedged in a washing machine while playing with his children, a newspaper reported on Tuesday. Robin Toom (38) had to be pulled from the 8kg-capacity machine by a local fire officer after he became trapped while playing hide-and-seek with his children.
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/ 10 January 2006
A former Rwandan soldier was convicted on Monday of killing a group of Western tourists, including four Britons, who were on a gorilla-spotting trip in the jungles of southern Uganda. Jean-Paul Bizimana, also known as Xavier van Dame, was a member of a gang that hacked and bludgeoned the tourists to death in a remote rainforest.
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/ 10 January 2006
New York is in the midst of a diabetes epidemic with more than one in eight of the city’s population developing the condition, according to a report in The New York Times. The problem has become so acute that doctors are warning diabetes could overwhelm the city’s health service.
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/ 10 January 2006
The Senate showdown over the nomination of Samuel Alito to the United States Supreme Court began on Monday, the first day of what is expected to be a bruising week of hearings, with Democrats signalling their intent to haul the conservative judge over the coals for his views on abortion rights and executive power.
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/ 10 January 2006
South African taxpayers paid about R400 000 to send Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and her family on holiday to the United Arab Emirates in December, Afrikaans daily newspaper Beeld reported on Tuesday. A presidential spokesperson confirmed that Mlambo-Ngcuka had not been on official business.
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/ 10 January 2006
Promises of aid to Africa must be kept in 2006 or millions of people will die needlessly, the top United Nations adviser on poverty said on Monday, while insisting that every penny must be accounted for to ensure it is used properly. ”2006 has to be the year of real action on the ground,” said Jeffrey Sachs, director of the UN Millennium Project and adviser to the UN secretary general.
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/ 10 January 2006
Rollersport South Africa president Willie van Heerden and his wife, Madeleine, have been identified as the couple killed in Monday’s bus crash in the Free State. Van Heerden was one of South Africa’s top sport administrators, Minister of Sport and Recreation Makhenkesi Stofile said.
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/ 10 January 2006
Doctors treating Ariel Sharon were on Tuesday to continue the process of waking the critically ill Israeli leader from a coma a day after he responded positively to initial tests to assess the damage caused by a massive brain haemorrhage. Medics on Monday began the process of trying to rouse the ailing premier.
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/ 10 January 2006
Environmental group Earthlife Africa on Monday attacked power utility Eskom’s lack of clear identification and disclosure of the problems at South Africa’s only nuclear power station, Koeberg. Electricity supply in the Western Cape was disrupted four times in November last year — on November 11, 16, 24 and 25.