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/ 8 February 2006
Anyone planning a holiday in Italy and thinking of enjoying a quiet spliff while, let’s say, watching the sun go down over the Bay of Naples, had better think again. A vote in the Italian Parliament on Tuesday means that a new, zero-tolerance policy on drugs is almost certain to become law within the next couple of months.
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/ 8 February 2006
A ”highly pathogenic” strain of the H5N1 bird-flu virus has been found in poultry stocks in Nigeria — the first reported case of the disease in Africa, the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health said on Wednesday. Nigeria reported the outbreak among commercial, battery-cage poultry in a village in Kaduna state.
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/ 8 February 2006
Turkey’s press blasted Fifa on Wednesday over the sanctions meted out by football’s governing body for the country’s part in the brawl that marred their November World Cup qualifier against Switzerland. Fifa ordered Turkey to play their next six home games behind closed doors at a neutral venue and pay all organisational costs.
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/ 8 February 2006
South African banking group Standard Bank has donated R1,2-million to help in the reconstruction of tsunami-ravaged Somalia. That country’s fishing industry was severely devastated by the tsunami that killed thousands and left a trail of destruction in Asia and parts of Africa in December 2004.
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/ 8 February 2006
Botswana’s San Bushmen fighting for rights to Kalahari land went back to court on Wednesday with lawyers mooting the possibility of an out-of-court settlement. The Bushmen are taking the government to court to challenge their eviction four years ago from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.
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/ 8 February 2006
Extending the basic income grant (BIG) to all citizens and a halt on cutting personal and company taxes are some of the Budget 2006/07 proposals that a coalition of three civil formations has made in a bid to eradicate poverty. Financing a universal BIG to all South Africans, the coalition said, would require between R15-billion and R32-billion a year.
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/ 8 February 2006
Strong South African government revenue growth should allow Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel to cut personal taxes by about R20-billion when he announces the 2006/07 Budget on Wednesday February 15. But economists are divided on whether the tax relief will come in the form of adjusting brackets or a reduction in the top marginal tax rate.
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/ 8 February 2006
Readers in the Mail & Guardian Online‘s discussion forums have been sharply divided in the past week regarding the world’s reactions to the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that first appeared in a Danish newspaper last year. The M&G is the only South African newspaper to have printed one of the cartoons.
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/ 8 February 2006
One of Zimbabwe’s new ruling party senators has been picked up for questioning on suspicion of diverting scarce wheat to the lucrative parallel market, the state-controlled Herald reported on Wednesday. Wheat, like maize, is a controlled product but some producers complain they are not getting realistic prices for the commodity in Zimbabwe’s high-inflation environment.
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/ 8 February 2006
At least 12 people were killed and more than 20 injured when a blast ripped through a barracks for elite troops in Chechnya, Russian military and local emergency ministry officials said early on Wednesday. The explosion late on Tuesday collapsed the two-storey barracks of the Vostok Battalion in Kurchaloi in the east of the war-torn province.