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/ 4 February 2005
Residents of Kinshasa could be forgiven for rubbing their eyes in disbelief. First, a statue of the late Belgian king Leopold II, whose rapacious colonial rule of the Congo caused the death of millions of Africans, was reinstated in the heart of the Congolese capital.
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/ 4 February 2005
The Israeli government agreed on Thursday to release about 900 Palestinian prisoners and hand control of Jericho to the Palestinian security forces, the first of a series of confidence-building measures before the two prime ministers, Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas, meet next week.
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/ 4 February 2005
The Syrian and Iranian governments reacted angrily on Thursday to George Bush’s vow to confront them over their alleged harbouring of terrorists and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. The US president has identified Syria and Iran as the primary obstacles to the Bush administration’s declared mission to spread peace and democracy in the Middle East.
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/ 4 February 2005
The lack of quality South African strikers, especially in the Premier Soccer League, is giving national coach Stuart Baxter and his selection panel endless headaches. So when a gem like Dynamos striker Sandile Ndlovu comes along and scores 11 goals in the league — three short of last season’s top goalscorer — someone is bound to notice.
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/ 4 February 2005
A curious thing happened in Bloemfontein on Wednesday night, just as Herschelle Gibbs was caught at short fine leg. Of course it was obscured in the excitement that followed — excitement first created, and then drowned in, by Justin Kemp. But it remained, nagging and only half-recognised, as Kemp preempted the wrong shot (Who’d have thought Darren Gough would bowl a yorker at the death? Fiend!)
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/ 4 February 2005
The Cape Town Container Terminal has delivered on its promise to have a total of 2Â 000 "reefer points" — power points for refrigerated containers — in place by the end of January 2005, ahead of the peak season for exports of fruit from the Western Cape.
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/ 4 February 2005
More than 130 years after South Africa’s first diamond rush, hundreds of prospectors are hoping to strike it rich on the booming international market by taking picks and shovels to the rocky terrain of the country’s veld. The weather-beaten workers sort small, heavy stones with hand-cranked washers and sieving pans — the same tools used in the diamond rush of 1871.
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/ 4 February 2005
Nelson Mandela looked tired and stiff as he walked down the steps in front of the National Gallery on Thursday to speak to the crowd, one careful step at a time. He looked old. Perhaps he will not come to London again.
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/ 4 February 2005
A R1,2-million scandal dubbed ”Flatgate”, involving 22 members of the KwaZulu-Natal legislature and 40 squatters, has erupted in the province. The KwaZulu-Natal legislature’s public accounts committee is to bring the members of the legislature before the disciplinary and ethics committee to account for R400 000 they owe to the legislature in unpaid rent for government-owned flats in Ulundi.
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/ 4 February 2005
The South African Communist Party will discuss contesting elections under its own banner at its forthcoming special congress in Durban. The party says that the discussion does not mean opposition to alliance partner, the African National Congress, despite differences of approaches on Zimbabwe and black economic empowerment.