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/ 9 December 2004
Australian police said on Thursday they have smashed a gang of rogue hairdressing-industry workers that staged a string of firebombings aimed at a rival in Sydney’s hair-products supply market. Police arrested three men in a series of raids late on Wednesday and charged them over 12 arson attacks on hair-product warehouses.
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/ 9 December 2004
KwaZulu-Natal women who lay charges of domestic violence and then withdraw them could face prosecution this festive season, provincial minister for safety and security Bheki Cele said on Thursday. Unveiling his festive-season security strategy, Cele said domestic violence usually increases considerably during this time.
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/ 9 December 2004
Zimbabwe’s government is subverting the country’s legal system in order to stay in power, according to an international group of lawyers who recently visited the Southern African state. In a report, Stephen Irwin, chairperson of the Bar of England and Wales, says the group found that judges and the courts have been "profoundly compromised".
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/ 9 December 2004
Philippine rescuers were on Thursday frantically digging for more survivors after four people, including a toddler, were pulled alive from a building crushed by a landslide 11 days ago. More than 120 people trapped under the two-storey building near the north-eastern town of Real had been given up for dead days ago.
Survival saga not unprecedented
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/ 9 December 2004
The six-year-old boy struck by lightning on a Pretoria golf course on Wednesday is still in a very critical and unstable condition, the Pretoria East hospital said on Thursday. His internal organs have suffered from the heat and electricity that surged through him in the lightning strike that killed his father, paramedic Roger Owen-Ellis.
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/ 9 December 2004
The survival of four people who were trapped for 11 days in the rubble of a building demolished by storms in the northern Philippines is amazing but not unprecedented, doctors said on Thursday. An emergency specialist with an international agency said: ”To survive for 11 days in those conditions is amazing but not impossible.”
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/ 9 December 2004
Sixty-four suspected mercenaries accused of participating in a foiled coup plot in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea have won the right to appeal their sentences for minor offences in Zimbabwe, court officials said on Thursday. Judge Chenembiri Bhunu granted their request to appeal to the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
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/ 9 December 2004
Unied States President George Bush has asked treasury Secretary John Snow to remain in his job during the administration’s second term, scotching widespread speculation that he was about to be replaced. White House spokesperson Scott McClellan said that the two men met briefly on Wednesday in the White House.
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/ 9 December 2004
United States Secretary of State Colin Powell has pressed Europe to overcome its differences on the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and rebuild the country, as the Pentagon revealed that elite US troops abused Iraqi prisoners with stun guns. Meanwhile, Japan has extended its troop deployment in Iraq by 12 months.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-InternationalNews&ao=176269">Rumsfeld faces troop dissent</a>
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/ 9 December 2004
Listed life assurer and financial-services group Metropolitan on Thursday announced that Gloria Tomatoe Serobe is standing down as chairperson in favour of Eric Molobi — executive chairperson of Kagiso Trust Investments — to afford Kagiso greater scope for active involvement in the group’s future development.