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/ 4 February 2005
In the week that the African National Congress Youth League again endorsed Deputy President Jacob Zuma to succeed President Thabo Mbeki, a raft of new evidence concerning the allegedly corrupt relationship between Zuma and Durban businessman Schabir Shaik emerged at the Shaik trial.
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/ 4 February 2005
The wry Jo’burg adage "save face, not money" is again coming true as Harmony Gold extricates itself from its fast-failing bid for Gold Fields. The conundrum that Harmony now faces is how to put a positive spin on the expensive and embarrassing consequences of what promises to become an abortive bid.
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/ 4 February 2005
De Beers Consolidated Mines will most certainly start its planned job cuts in Koffiefontein. The <i>Mail & Guardian</i> reported three weeks ago that the diamond miner planned to cut 1 400 jobs in its South African operations. The Koffiefontein mine is located in the southern Free State and employs 795 people.
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/ 4 February 2005
Hundreds of thousands of hectares belonging to the elite lie fallow and unused, while impoverished Kenyans kill one another for access to tiny parcels of overworked land and muddy trickles that were once rivers. The flames of rebellion have been fanned by a drought, failed harvests and increasing competition between crop and cattle farmers.
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/ 3 February 2005
Days after seizing power, King Gyandendra moved on Thursday to tighten his grip over Nepal by clamping down on the media — issuing a ban on independent news broadcasts and threatening to punish newspapers for reports that run counter to the official monarchist line. Meanwhile, a Maoist call for a nationwide strike went unheeded.
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/ 3 February 2005
Cobras and green mambas endanger the lives of children at a ”jungle school” in KwaZulu-Natal, the principal complained on Thursday. ”You can’t leave your teaching aids in the classes because the monkeys run in and destroy everything,” said Anastacia Mhlongo, principal of Engweni Primary School in the Dukuduku forest near Mtubatuba.
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/ 3 February 2005
Leaders from Africa’s Congo Basin gather in Brazzaville with international officials on Saturday for a conference on the threats facing the region’s vast forest expanses, one of the world’s two lungs. The seven-nation meeting aims to breathe life into a conservation treaty signed in 1999, but which has so far made little progress.
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/ 3 February 2005
South Africans interviewed in a survey on education had some disagreeable things to say, with about two-thirds of respondents agreeing education is in crisis and standards are falling. Asked if schools are better today than 10 years ago, 48% agreed, 46% disagreed and 6% did not know.
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/ 3 February 2005
SA Rugby bosses and the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee executive emerged full of smiles from talks on Thursday, adamant that common ground had been reached. ”I think this was an excellent meeting — it was long overdue,” said SA Rugby president Brian van Rooyen.