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/ 13 January 2005

Factories close: Thousands jobless in Lesotho

Six textile factories have closed and their foreign owners fled Lesotho, leaving about 6 650 workers jobless in the small mountain kingdom in Southern Africa, the Factory Workers’ Union said on Wednesday. The union’s secretary general, Billy Macaefa, blamed the closures on the end of worldwide textile quotas that limited competition from cheap Asian exports to the United States and European Union.

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/ 13 January 2005

Thatcher the wayward son

Mark Thatcher, set to plead guilty in a plea bargaining deal to charges of bankrolling an alleged African coup plot, first hit the headlines in 1982 when he disappeared in the Sahara desert for six days during the Paris to Dakar car rally. As it turned out, Thatcher and his co-driver had simply broken an axle on their Peugeot 504.

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/ 13 January 2005

Dustmen thought modern art was a load of old rubbish

To the dustmen of Frankfurt, they were a mess that needed to be cleared from the streets of their spotless city. The yellow plastic sheets were swiftly scooped up, crushed and burned. But the diligence of the rubbish collectors was little consolation to the city’s prestigious art academy, which is now ruing the loss of an important work.

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/ 13 January 2005

Aids vaccine possible by 2012, Brown tells Africa

An effective Aids vaccine could be found as early as 2012, saving six million lives if the world is willing to put £10-billion a year into a new programme, the British chancellor, Gordon Brown, said in a speech on Wednesday night in Tanzania. Brown put forward a four-point package to fight HIV/Aids as a central strand of Britain’s presidency of the G8 this year.

  • British minister wants more aid for Africa
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    / 13 January 2005

    Mammal devoured dinosaur for last meal

    Villagers digging in China’s rich fossil beds have uncovered the remains of a tiny dinosaur in the belly of a mammal, a startling discovery for scientists who have long believed early mammals couldn’t possibly attack and eat a dinosaur. Scientists say the animal’s last meal probably is the first proof that mammals hunted small dinosaurs about 130-million years ago.

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    / 13 January 2005

    Scratcher’s wasted wonga

    Among the many ironies surrounding last year’s abortive coup in Equatorial Guinea is that the helicopter funded by Sir Mark Thatcher never got off the ground. Plans to use a hired chopper as a gunship and air ambulance were abandoned less than a month before South African mercenaries launched a British-backed assault on the oil-rich West African state’s island capital of Malabo on March 7

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    / 13 January 2005

    An axe and some EQ

    As Maria Ramos completes her first year as Transnet chief executive she is becoming bolder, undertaking an often ruthless set of cost-cutting and repositioning exercises at this most important and difficult of parastatals. As her axe is sharpened and vested interests feel its cut, the lobby to throw momma from the train is growing louder.

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    / 13 January 2005

    A little closer to God

    It is Baghdad on a winter morning chilled by yet another power cut and parents are dropping off their children for school. A vast generator rumbles so loudly in the street that it shakes the pink swings and blue roundabouts in the small grass playground outside.