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/ 8 February 2005
Western Cape education minister Cameron Dugmore and his officials had acted like schoolyard bullies in the Mikro primary-school affair, the Cape High Court heard on Tuesday. Mikro’s governing body is asking the court to overturn the provincial department of education’s instruction to create an English-medium class at the school.
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/ 8 February 2005
After a flat start, the JSE Securities Exchange (JSE) was firmer at midday on Tuesday as the weaker currency gave dual-listed stocks a boost. By noon, the all-share index was up 0,43% and the all-share industrial index was up 0,52%. Resources added 0,50% and the platinum-mining index collected 1,99%.
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/ 8 February 2005
The share price of media and entertainment group Primedia surged by 7,27% on Tuesday following its trading update in which the company said it expects interim headline earnings per share and earnings per share to be between 30% and 50% higher than the previous comparable period.
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/ 8 February 2005
Somalia’s transitional government has announced plans to relocate in phases to Somalia, giving up the relative safety of neighbouring Kenya for a chaotic land torn apart by war. In Somalia there is no army, no civil service and no buildings, the deputy prime minister said.
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/ 8 February 2005
The Sudanese government has failed to meet the two most important demands of the United Nations Security Council — disarm militias and arrest those responsible for attacks on civilians in Darfur, which have recently intensified, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said in a report.
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/ 8 February 2005
Pirate attacks on maritime shipping were much more deadly in 2004 despite a reduction in the total number of reported incidents, the International Maritime Bureau disclosed on Monday. Pirates killed 30 seafarers last year compared with 21 in 2003, with 30 going missing and 148 taken hostage.
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/ 8 February 2005
As a frail Pope John Paul II marked his seventh day in hospital on Tuesday, with no news yet on his eventual release, comments by the Vatican’s top official brought the question of the 84-year-old’s possible resignation — an old Vatican taboo — into the open.
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/ 8 February 2005
British energy giant BP reported on Tuesday a 26% rise in pro-forma net annual profit to ,21-billion in the wake of record high oil prices and strong demand. Alongside its results, BP said it will return up to -billion in excess cash to investors in 2005 and 2006 via share buybacks and dividends.
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/ 8 February 2005
A 65-year-old woman who was raped in a ward in the Pretoria Academic hospital has died, police said on Tuesday. The woman was attacked, allegedly by a 30-year-old Mozambican national, as she slept in an otherwise empty ward on the fourth floor at 4am on Monday, police said. Two nurses on duty were doing their rounds at the time.
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/ 8 February 2005
Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF party called South African cleric Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu a ”sellout” on Tuesday, for saying that Zimbabwe made a mockery of African democracy. The Nobel Peace laureate made the remarks in a weekend newspaper article, prompting senior Zanu-PF officials to respond with a stinging rebuke.