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/ 5 September 2005
Medical-aid scheme payments to brokers increased by 21% last year to R704-million without any perceptible increase in the number of new members joining, the Medical Schemes Council said on Monday. Council head Patrick Masobe was speaking at the release of an annual report into medical-aid schemes.
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/ 5 September 2005
Oil prices fell on Monday after industrialised nations agreed to release 60-million barrels of crude from their strategic stockpiles to help avert a severe fuel shortage in the United States. The US refinery system is struggling to recover from Hurricane Katrina.
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/ 5 September 2005
Nazi German saboteurs plotted unsuccessfully during World War II to ship explosives into Britain hidden in bars of chocolate and other products as well as in dead rats, archivists said on Monday. British intelligence files released into the public domain at the National Archives in the last six months provided details of the plots accompanied by diagrams.
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/ 5 September 2005
Kenya will hold its first-ever nationwide referendum on November 21 when voters cast ballots on a new Constitution that has already deeply split the East African nation, officials said on Monday. On that date, 11,8-million voters will be asked to accept or reject a draft Constitution containing sweeping changes to Kenya’s founding document.
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/ 5 September 2005
United States President George Bush on Monday nominated conservative Judge John Roberts, already his choice for a seat on the US Supreme Court, to replace the late chief justice William Rehnquist. ”I’m confident that the Senate can complete hearings and confirm him as chief justice within a month,” when the court resumes work, Bush said.
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/ 5 September 2005
Employees of a pine furniture shop in Woodmead were beaten and held at gunpoint in the third reported armed robbery of a business in Johannesburg on Monday morning. On Sunday, about 12 robbers stole an undisclosed amount of cash from the Emperor’s Palace casino near the Johannesburg International airport.
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/ 5 September 2005
A University of Oxford law graduate who works for Sotheby’s is living in a ditch to prove people can do without all the mod-cons, a British newspaper said on Sunday. Hugh Sawyer (32) always turns up impeccably dressed for his high-flier auction-house job in London while sleeping in the woods in Oxfordshire, southern England.
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/ 5 September 2005
You need a tough backside and points are awarded for hiding your pain when you flop into the water — welcome to the weird world of "dive-bombing", which held its world championships on Sunday. The event attracted competitors from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and The Netherlands.
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/ 5 September 2005
Insurgents launched a surprise attack on Baghdad’s heavily guarded interior ministry building early on Monday, killing two police officers and wounding several others, officials said. Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein’s lawyers complained they will not have enough time to prepare for his trial, which starts on October 19.
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/ 5 September 2005
The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) last week approved Telkom’s new tariff structure in spite of the rise in installation and rental fees, it was announced on Monday. The government is planning to hold a second colloquium on telecommunications pricing next month.