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/ 27 September 2005

Rita rescuers witness devastating damage

Hurricane Rita’s path of devastation along the Texas-Louisiana coast became shockingly clear on Monday, as rescuers pulled stranded bayou residents out on skiffs and army helicopters searched for thousands of cattle feared drowned. In Terrebonne Parish, the count of severely damaged or destroyed homes stood at nearly 9 900.

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/ 27 September 2005

An incoherent opposition

Opposition politics in South Africa is now in real crisis. Not only has the opposition’s share of the vote been going steadily down election-on-election since 1994, but the minority parties appear determined to weaken themselves further by self-induced fragmentation — a trend sharply accentuated by the apparently irresistible charms of the recent floor-crossing period.

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/ 27 September 2005

Unemployment is worse, says DA

Figures released by Statistics South Africa show that "expanded unemployment" stood at 8,1-million people in South Africa by March this year — compared to 6,4-million in September 2000. Things have become much worse on the unemployment front, the Democratic Alliance said in reaction.

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/ 27 September 2005

6 000 tuskers in firing line

The Kruger National Park wants to shoot up to 6 000 elephants as part of a national culling programme that could start next winter, the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> has learnt. Thousands of elephants in other state and private reserves around the country will also be culled, if a South African National Parks report on elephant management is endorsed by the public.

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/ 27 September 2005

Breathing life into the city

After 15 years of living in the city, Gcina Mahlatashana says his three months at the new Brickfields residential complex in Newtown has been his best inner-city-living experience yet. "In comparison to the buildings I have experienced living in, this is much better," he says, staring out across the Brickfields car park. The <i>M&G</i> investigates the various options available to those who are keen on inner-city living.

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/ 27 September 2005

Asia embraces five-day working week

Asians work harder than just about anyone else on Earth, but their societies and economies are being transformed as many nations shift to a five-day working week and citizens discover the weekend. Offices are being abandoned on Saturdays, allowing workers to flock to shopping centres and vacation destinations — triggering profound changes that will continue unfolding for decades, economists say.

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/ 27 September 2005

UK works on ‘exit ticket’

Diplomats in the British Foreign Office are working frantically in private on what they refer to as the ”exit ticket” from Iraq. In contrast to the official line that British forces will remain until the job is done, the Foreign Office wants to engineer a set of circumstances in which both Britain and the United States can begin to reduce troops next year. But the speed with which unrest is growing is making this harder.