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/ 20 January 2005
United States theme-park visitors will get the chance to confront their phobias when the often stomach-churning reality television show <i>Fear Factor</i> becomes a live amusement-park game. Universal Studios is planning the opening of its <i>Fear Factor Live</i> shows at its Hollywood and Orlando, Florida, theme parks.
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/ 20 January 2005
United Kingdom banking group Barclays Bank plc, which is in talks with South African banking group Absa, said on Thursday that it has made an offer to acquire the wealth business of ING Securities Bank (France), consisting of ING Ferri and ING Private Banking.
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/ 20 January 2005
China is considering setting up a post office in Antarctica after several trial deliveries to the world’s southernmost continent, state media reported on Wednesday. The Beijing International Post Office plans to send an official to the Great Wall research station near the South Pole to investigate if there is a need for such a service.
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/ 20 January 2005
Shots were fired on Wednesday at a motorcade carrying Guinea President Lansana Conte in what security officials said was an attempt on the life of the ailing head of state of the troubled West African nation. Conte, apparently unscathed, alluded to a conspiracy ”by those who want to ransack Guinea” and who ”do not want Africa to develop”.
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/ 20 January 2005
Strong holiday sales caused eBay’s profit to surge 44% from the same period last year, and optimistic executives raised their outlook for the rest of 2005. But the online auction giant failed to meet Wall Street’s expectations by a penny per share and its shares fell.
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/ 20 January 2005
Two babies are among those missing after a bus was swept into the crocodile-infested Umbuluzi River in Swaziland earlier this week, police said on Thursday.
Swaziland police spokesperson Vusi Masuku said police divers and emergency personnel were combing the river and a nearby dam for seven people on Thursday.
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/ 20 January 2005
When the Great Moscow Circus rolled into Jozi town this week, it brought along its "beast wagons", leading to calls by welfare groups for a ban on using wild animals to perform in circuses. The circus moved to Johannesburg after a month in Cape Town, bringing with it two tigers and a pack of dogs.
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/ 20 January 2005
As infighting continued to plague the Independent Democrats, a renewed call for a postponement of the party’s Western Cape congress was made on Wednesday. Senior office bearers, including chairpersons of nine ID branches in Cape Town’s metropolis, have signed a statement calling for the postponement due to the ”chaotic planning and absence of a fair process”.
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/ 20 January 2005
Excited archaeologists are sifting through the contents of 150-year-old New Zealand toilets to get a better understanding of the everyday lives of early settlers. Although there is plenty of oral and written history, there are gaps that can only be answered by lifting the lid on the sanitary habits of pioneering families, they say.
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/ 20 January 2005
A group of Malaysian local government officials has cancelled an Egyptian cruise and a troupe of belly dancers amid outrage at their all-expenses paid trip, media reports said on Thursday. Dinner on board a cruise ship on the Nile and the belly dancing have been replaced on their itinerary by an extended visit to the Egypt Museum.