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/ 17 October 2005
Scientists have perfected a way of making embryonic stem cells without destroying the embryos from which they derive, a breakthrough that will challenge United States President George Bush’s opposition to the research. The discovery of a technique to extract stem cells without impairing the embryos could remove a major hurdle facing scientists who are trying to develop treatments for diseases such as diabetes and motor neurone disease.
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/ 17 October 2005
A black building contractor from Brits alleges he is facing bankruptcy after refusing to pay a R400Â 000 backhander to a local council official. After not answering <i>Mail & Guardian</i> questions for three weeks, council spokesperson KS Ngubegusha described the claim as "laughable".
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/ 17 October 2005
I must say, I was wondering how the Jews and the whites were going to get away with it this time. With the blacks having taken over the media in a general way, there didn’t seem to be much left that blacks couldn’t say about what they really thought about oppression, exploitation and all those other things that are said to have happened back in the bad old fairy-tale days.
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/ 17 October 2005
Two Chinese astronauts returned safely to Earth on Monday, touching down to a hero’s welcome as China’s second-ever manned space mission marked another step in its drive to becoming a space power. Astronauts Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng came back from a five-day flight, parachuting softly onto a field in Inner Mongolia in the the capsule of their <i>Shenzhou VI</i> spacecraft.
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/ 17 October 2005
Finally, the great pharmaceutical case has drawn to a close. In May last year two applications were launched challenging regulations promulgated by the Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang that gave effect to a pricing system for the sale of medicines. The matter was initially heard by three judges of the Cape High Court as a matter of urgency in May 2004.
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/ 17 October 2005
For a company as usually sure-footed as Sony, it was a bit of a faux pas. The electronics giant marked a decade of PlayStation two weeks ago with full-page ads in Italian newspapers and magazines featuring a smirking young man wearing a "crown of thorns" and the legend "Ten years of Passion".
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/ 17 October 2005
The Pension Funds Adjudicator issued a further 14 rulings relating to retirement annuities recently, of which four were settled by the life companies. This brings the total number of RA rulings to 68. According to the PFA’s office, it has seen a substantial increase in the number of complaints received over the past six months.
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/ 17 October 2005
Darfur seems hell-bent on regaining its appellation earned two years ago as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Three African Union peacekeepers and two contractors attached to the force were killed, recently — the first fatalities for the 6 600 strong continental force in the troubled west of Sudan.
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/ 17 October 2005
It is up to 40% cheaper to buy South African-made steel in foreign countries than it is in the local market, even after shipping, wharfage and other costs have been paid. That’s because Mittal Steel (previously Iscor) prices its goods in the domestic market as if they were imported — known as import parity pricing.
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/ 17 October 2005
Staff at the Universal Services Agency, which is charged with rolling out information communications technology access to poor communities, say that the agency unfairly backs Microsoft’s proprietary software rather than non-Â proprietary open source software.