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/ 16 January 2006
Socialist president-elect Michelle Bachelet was praised on Monday as a symbol of reconciliation who can help Chile come to terms with its traumatic political past. Bachelet, who was imprisoned and tortured under the right-wing dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, decisively beat her conservative challenger.
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/ 16 January 2006
Rival clan militias battled for control of Kismayo, Somalia’s third-largest town, on Monday after disputes over how it should be run and the fate of 48 Asian fishermen who have been held by one faction since August. Hundreds of people fled the Indian Ocean port town to escape the violence.
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/ 16 January 2006
No malice was intended when gazetting draft constitutional amendments for public comment over the Christmas holiday period, the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development said on Monday. The draft document, which proposes changes to the judicial system, was published for comment on December 14.
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/ 16 January 2006
There was no clarity on Monday on whether a protest campaign by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance (GLA) against a ban on gay blood donors actually took place. The GLA claimed it had recruited more than 100 gay men to donate blood to the South African National Blood Service without disclosing their sexual activities.
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/ 16 January 2006
A woman in a wheelchair died at the Johannesburg International airport on Sunday, possibly from falling down an escalator. According to a witness who did not want to be named, Ponto’s husband was pushing her in a wheelchair in the domestic departure terminal. ”She tipped over, she fell down and then she died,” said the witness.
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/ 16 January 2006
A six-year-old boy was killed and another child seriously injured after being hit by snow that fell from the roof of their kindergarten in north-eastern Japan, police said on Monday, as reports put the death toll from extreme weather at 100. The boy died in hospital late on Monday.
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/ 16 January 2006
The recent power outages reported in areas of Johannesburg have increased awareness of the necessity for businesses to have a strategic contingency plan, says Paul Skivington, a director of Enterprise Risk at Alexander Forbes Risk Services. Power failures in the city have regularly left businesses powerless.
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/ 16 January 2006
Europe and the United States pressed China and Russia on Monday to shed their reservations and agree to a tougher line on Iran that could see Tehran hauled before the United Nations Security Council over its suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons. Senior officials were meeting behind closed doors in London as diplomatic efforts gathered pace.
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/ 16 January 2006
Is Raju Raghuvanshi alive or dead? Believed by his friends and family to have died in prison, Raghuvanshi returned home earlier this month from his short jail stint to shouts of ”Help! Ghost!” and the sounds of neighbours locking their doors in his home village of Katra.
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/ 16 January 2006
Loan sharks are posing a threat to South Africa’s micro-finance industry by charging people interest rates of 100% and more, the Consumer Profile Bureau said on Monday. ”They leave the perception in the market place that all micro-lenders, including legitimate ones, operate the same,” the bureau said.