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/ 8 February 2006
In 10 years of Super 12 rugby no South African team was able to capture the southern hemisphere’s most sought-after provincial trophy. Injuries to key players have already set the five sides back, while the increased workload on the Australasian leg of the tournament means home fixtures have become even more important than in the past.
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/ 8 February 2006
New Zealand, one of the few developed countries to allow imports of second-hand vehicles from Japan, is becoming a dumping ground for worn-out old cars, according to the Motor Industry Association. Although more than 103 400 new vehicles were sold in the country of 4,1-million people last year, the total fleet is getting older and older.
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/ 8 February 2006
Despite laws governing fireworks in South Africa, licensed wholesale dealers abuse the system and illegally sell fireworks to hawkers. "Street hawkers easily get access to fireworks by purchasing a limited quantity for [their] own use from a retail dealer, and then illegally sell it to passers-by," says a police spokesperson.
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/ 8 February 2006
Vote counting began in Haiti on Tuesday, in some areas by candlelight, after elections that were free of the political violence many had feared but were marked by stampedes that left four dead. As the counting was under way in some centres late on Tuesday, voters elsewhere still waited their turn to fill ballots out at the small cardboard voting booths.
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/ 8 February 2006
Sheriff’s officials said on Tuesday they were working on a computerised plan to identify and isolate the most dangerous jail inmates but warned it would not prevent all future violence in an overcrowded system that exploded into deadly racial riots.
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/ 8 February 2006
Fossil hunters in China say they have found the earliest known forerunner of the Tyrannosaurus rex, the mighty flesh-ripping dinosaur beloved of children and Hollywood. Uncovered in Wucaiwan in the western province of Xinjiang, the species has been dubbed Guanlong wucaii — which means ”crowned dragon of the five-coloured rocks”.
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/ 8 February 2006
A South African who scored perfect 10s navigating near 12m waves won the Mavericks surf contest, besting California riders in an event many refer to as ”the Super Bowl of surfing”. Online voters decided that he deserved a crack at the big waves — and he responded by scoring a perfect 10 on two rides in front of thousands of onlookers on Tuesday.
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/ 8 February 2006
At least eleven people have been killed and several others were injured in a bus accident near Beaufort West in the Karoo on Wednesday morning, South African Broadcasting Corporation news reported. A Cape Town Metro Rescue official said the accident happened on the R-61 just outside Aberdeen in the Eastern Cape on the way to Beaufort West.
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/ 8 February 2006
One-by-one the words, bizarre and horrific, spout from the mouth of Alice as she recounts the terror and abuse she suffered as a child slave for Uganda’s notorious Lord’s Resistance Army. ”They cut off three [people’s] heads and I was forced to use them as stones to hold the saucepan,” the 17-year-old said, describing her punishment for trying to run away.
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/ 8 February 2006
BMW engineers are working on a steam-powered auxiliary drive system that reduces fuel consumption by up to 15% and boosts performance at the same time, the car maker said. The ”Turbosteamer” concept applied to a 1,8 litre, four-cylinder petrol engine recycles the waste heat in the exhaust gases and cooling system.