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/ 25 November 2004
A ”summit for a mine-free world” opens this weekend in Nairobi to take stock of progress since the signing five years ago of an international treaty banning the deadly devices, and to chart the road ahead. One-hundred-forty-three countries have ratified the 1997 Ottawa Convention on antipersonnel mines, which bans their use, production, stockpiling and transfer and calls for mined areas to be cleared within 10 years.
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/ 25 November 2004
Indian snake charmers have threatened to let loose thousands of snakes in eastern Bhubaneshwar city, alleging harassment by wildlife officials, it was reported on Thursday. While the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 bans the catching of snakes, the practise thrives.
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/ 25 November 2004
HIV and Aids are eroding the South African electoral base and the increase in the death rate could explain decreasing voter turn-out, said a report on Thursday. The Institute for Democracy in SA (Idasa) chairperson Paul Graham said in Pretoria that while there was a need to avoid the easy headline, this was an emergency.
Increase in number of patients on ARV
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/ 25 November 2004
Zimbabwe on Thursday reversed its decision not to allow 13 foreign journalists into the country in a bid to save England’s stalled cricket tour. The government’s Information Department has now cleared all 55 journalists who applied for accreditation to cover the tour, the state-run Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation reported.
Zimbabwe tour nears collapse
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/ 25 November 2004
The number of people receiving anti-retroviral (ARV) therapy in accredited government facilities increased from 11Â 250 at the end of August to 19Â 500 in October, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said on Thursday. She said the increase in the number of people on treatment was part of the steady progress of her department’s management plan for the care and treatment of HIV and Aids.
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/ 25 November 2004
Schabir Shaik’s Nkobi Holdings incurred no costs related to sister company Prodiba in 1999, despite reflecting this in annual financial statements, the Durban High Court heard on Thursday. The former general manager of Prodiba, Johann Vorster, is testifying in Shaik’s fraud and corruption trial. Prodiba was the company which was set up to tender for, and won, the contract to produce South Africa’s credit-card style driver’s licences.
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/ 25 November 2004
The JSE Securities Exchange was in positive territory in noon trade on Thursday, in defiance of a rampant rand, which was trading at its best level against the dollar in four months. Dealers said that a higher gold price and stronger world markets were combining with positive sentiment to boost the local bourse.
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/ 25 November 2004
Rwandan President Paul Kagame has threatened to renew the invasion threat that ignited Central Africa’s deadliest conflict, the 1998-2002 Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) war, saying the continuing presence of Rwandan Hutu rebels in the neighbouring DRC means that ”the war is already on”.
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/ 25 November 2004
Ethiopia accepts the outline of its frontiers with Eritrea as set by a joint commission after their 1998-2000 border war, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on Thursday. Although both countries agreed in a peace accord signed in Algiers in 2000 to accept the commission’s ruling as final and binding, Ethiopia rejected it as ”unjust” in September 2003.
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/ 25 November 2004
Climate change is a development issue for Africa, experts warned at a United Nations workshop in Nairobi this week. The developed countries might have created the problem of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but all countries, and especially African countries, were going to have to deal with the consequences, politicians and scientists agreed.