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/ 23 December 2004
A hunting boom driven by wealthy tourists is pushing black South Africans off the land to make way for game, generating anger that, a decade after apartheid, whites still own most of the countryside. Hundreds of commercial farms have evicted their labourers and converted into game parks, turning swaths of arable land into fenced wilderness for trophy animals such as lions and antelopes.
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/ 23 December 2004
Microsoft on Wednesday failed to suspend antitrust sanctions ordered by the European commission and must now disclose secret protocols of its Windows software to rivals and market a version of Windows without its Media Player. The European Union’s second-highest court dismissed Microsoft’s application in its entirety.
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/ 23 December 2004
It was supposed to be the future of journalism, but on Wednesday Slate, the online magazine owned by Microsoft, was sold to a rather more traditional publisher, the Washington Post. Its editor, Jacob Weisberg, said: ”We just came to the realisation that at this stage in our growth and the development of the magazine, it made sense for us to be at a more traditional media company.”
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/ 23 December 2004
European policymakers have been advised to prepare for ”sudden change” in North Korea amid growing speculation among diplomats and observers that Kim Jong-il is losing his grip on power. A European Union delegation to Pyongyang recommended a review of the union’s policy towards the peninsula, including proposals for closer engagement with North Korea.
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/ 23 December 2004
Mars, the red planet, may not after all be the dead planet. New research today by European scientists suggests that volcanoes on Mars last erupted only two million years ago and could erupt again. Last week, Nature‘s United States rival Science named the confirmation of water on Mars as the scientific breakthrough of 2004.
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/ 23 December 2004
He doesn’t do undercover. And he does not easily melt into the background. But when an industry thinks it is about to become the latest target of the filmmaker Michael Moore, precautions have to be taken. At least six large pharmaceutical firms have warned their workforces to be on the lookout for ”a scruffy guy in a baseball cap”.
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/ 23 December 2004
World number-six gold miner Harmony Gold on Thursday fell to a fresh three-year low as the rand touched another six-year best and the rand gold price fell below R80 000 per kilogram for the first time since August 11 2004. Harmony is also under pressure due to its hostile takeover bid for world number-four gold miner Gold Fields.
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/ 23 December 2004
It has been a contradictory year, pulling us between the heights of optimism and the depths of despair. At home, 2004 started as a year of celebration. Ten years of freedom was a beacon that cast a glittering light on the achievement of a normal society. The world beyond proved a darker place.
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/ 23 December 2004
The European Union has grown to 25 diverse states, with five more waiting in the wings and at least another 14 sniffing around the periphery. Should Turkey be allowed to join the European Union? That decision has divided Europeans. But where does Europe end? James Meek finds that cases can be made for many other countries, from Tunisia to Iraq.
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/ 23 December 2004
A former member of the South African cricket selection committee, Hugh Page, came out in support of captain Graeme Smith’s call for greater stability in the cricket set-up in South Africa. Page said on Thursday that South Africa are amateurs in a world of professionals.