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/ 21 September 2005

Mortlock, Young dropped from Wallabies tour squad

Wallabies centre Stirling Mortlock and prop Bill Young were dropped on Tuesday from the squad to tour Europe in November and told to work on their conditioning. The pair’s exclusion comes after hooker Jeremey Paul was ruled out of the tour earlier this week because of a neck injury and rookie forward Al Kanaar’s three month suspension for stomping on an opponent’s head.

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/ 21 September 2005

Parliament takes up reforms after Koizumi landslide

Japan’s Parliament went to work on Wednesday on breaking up the massive post office after the landslide election victory of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, whose popularity keeps on rising. Hours before the 42-day special session opened, Koizumi’s Cabinet resigned, a formality in the wake of the September 11 general election, in which reforming the Japanese economy was the key issue.

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/ 21 September 2005

PIC acquires 20% stake in Acsa

South Africa’s Public Investment Corporation (PIC) has concluded negotiations for the acquisition of a 20% stake in state-owned airports operator Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) at a cost of R1,675-billion, the two companies announced on Wednesday. The PIC manages funds on behalf of government employees.

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/ 21 September 2005

With moon mission, US seeks to remain leader in space

Plans by the United States to return to manned space exploration, with the moon as the first step in 2018, reflect a desire to maintain US leadership in the scientific world and, some day, to set foot on other planets in the solar system. The US space agency on Monday unveiled a billion project to send astronauts to the moon by 2018 with a design inspired by the Apollo programme of the 1960s, which put the first men on the lunar surface.

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/ 21 September 2005

‘Golf is a puzzle without an answer’

Tiger Woods is likely to receive the Presidents Cup pairings he seeks this week with Jim Furyk and Fred Couples and David Toms is fit and ready to play, United States captain Jack Nicklaus said on Tuesday. Woods, the Masters and British Open champion, played a practice round with Couples on Tuesday at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club, where 12-man US and International squads begin their biennial matches on Thursday.

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/ 21 September 2005

Du Preez injury ‘simply not true’

Both SA Rugby and the Springbok management on Tuesday dismissed newspaper reports that Blue Bulls scrumhalf Fourie du Preez sustained an injury during the recent Springboks’ fitness testing in Bloemfontein. The entire group of contracted Springboks attended the two-day medical evaluation and fitness testing.

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/ 21 September 2005

Nasa sees possible ‘Mars quake’

A Nasa orbiter has detected a series of dynamic geological and thermal changes on the surface of the red planet, possibly caused by a ”Mars quake”, mission scientists said on Tuesday. The Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft found gullies on a sand dune that did not exist in 2002 and fresh tracks left by tumbling boulders.

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/ 21 September 2005

Gulf Coast on alert as Rita roars in

As Hurricane Rita lashed the Florida Keys on Tuesday with strong winds and driving rain, inhabitants along the already-battered Gulf coast began to flee the storm. Rita became a category-one hurricane on Tuesday morning with a top wind speed of 136kph, dumping up to 20cm of water on the low-lying Florida Keys island chain.