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/ 24 October 2005
Academics, economists, lawyers and the Harare-based ambassadors of Britain and the United States have been frantically shuttling between rival factions in the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the past week. Political scientist Brian Raftopolous, economics consultant Eric Bloch and lawyer Innocent Chagonda have attempted to mediate tensions over the November 26 Senate elections.
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/ 24 October 2005
Diplomats and civil society activists fear the second round of voting in Liberia’s first elections since the end of the civil war will spark a flurry of behind-the-scenes deal-making that could compromise the new government. The National Electoral Commission announced that former football star George Weah and ex-World Bank official Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf will face off for the presidency on November 8.
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/ 24 October 2005
Scientists working in Antarctica have discovered an alarming rise in sea temperature that threatens to disrupt populations of penguins, whales, seals and a host of smaller creatures within a few decades. The new study shows the ocean west of the Antarctic Peninsula has warmed by more than a degree since the 1960s
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/ 24 October 2005
The story of Europe’s pampered cows is a familiar one but always worth retelling. Each head of cattle in Europe gets a subsidy from the taxpayer worth ,20 a day at a time when half the world’s population — three billion people in all — scrapes by on an income of less that that.
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/ 24 October 2005
Europe is on high alert after Greece became the first European Union country to confirm a case of bird flu. Greek Minister of Agriculture Evangelos Basiakos reported the case on a turkey farm on the Aegean Sea island of Oinouses, near the coast of Turkey, on Tuesday last week.
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/ 24 October 2005
”South Africa is in the grip of national controversy over so-called delivery problems associated with the new push for public infrastructure investment. This controversy is to be welcomed. The infrastructure-investment initiative is of huge economic importance, and it is crucial that it not fail,” writes Don Ross, professor of economics at the University of Cape Town.
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/ 24 October 2005
”Opposition parties and the media often portray municipal managers as a bunch of inefficient, incompetent and useless idiots who have no interests in the communities they serve. Your article (‘Fat cats take the cream’) is no exception and I object strongly,” writes Khayo Mpungose, the municipal manager of the Ugu District municipality.
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/ 24 October 2005
A recent report suggesting that 5% of adult South Africans belong to a labour union has annoyed Congress of South African Trade Unions economist Neva Makgetla. She argued recently that ”Afrobarometer’s data diverges significantly from that of the government’s Labour Force Survey, which found almost three million union members in March 2005. That comes to 10% of adults.”
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/ 23 October 2005
Former Australian captain Steve Waugh says he felt betrayed by a drinking culture and let down by his brother Mark and Ian Healy on his first cricket tour in charge of the Australian cricket team. Waugh takes aims at several high-profile Australian cricket figures, including Shane Warne and Ian Chappell in his autobiography, Out Of My Comfort Zone.