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/ 29 October 2004
Parrots in Sydney’s Royal Botanical Gardens are getting drunk on tree nectar that has fermented in the spring sunshine, it was reported on Friday. The Sydney Morning Herald said rainbow lorikeets in the central Sydney reserve were staggering around tipsy after eating nectar from the Schotia brachypetala tree.
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/ 29 October 2004
A total of 199 people have been diagnosed with cholera — a deadly but preventable disease that is generally contracted from polluted water supplies — and two have died in the West African state of Senegal, health officials said on Friday. Forty-eight new cases were reported between Thursday and Friday.
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/ 29 October 2004
Actress Helen Mirren. who has starred in the Prime Suspect television series for more than a decade, was named naturist of the year on Friday by Britain’s main nudist group. British Naturism said Mirren was selected from among ”a number of well-known celebrities who have made their love of a naturist lifestyle public”.
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/ 29 October 2004
”Feeling great” and accepting his award on behalf of all New Zealanders who fought apartheid, was how Trevor Richards expressed himself after receiving the Order of OR Tambo on Friday in Pretoria. Amid much pomp and ceremony, President Thabo Mbeki bestowed national orders on 30 recipients at the Union Buildings.
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/ 29 October 2004
The public protector ruled on Friday against a complaint that the Cabinet acted improperly when it approved the Department of Health’s plan for the treatment of HIV/Aids. This followed a complaint by Johannesburg woman Anita Allen, who said the assumption that HIV causes Aids has not been proved.
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/ 29 October 2004
Zambia has halted a dodgy deal in which former senior government officials connived to defraud the government of ,1-million. Marck Chona, chairperson of the task force on corruption, said in a statement on Thursday that some officials who served in a previous government had tried to pocket money by inflating state debts.
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/ 29 October 2004
NOT THE MOVIE OF THE WEEK: Did we even need a remake? The 1970s original is not as obsolete as this dire film implies. Peter Bradshaw is unimpressed with the new Stepford Wives that vandalises a gutsy satirical classic.
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/ 29 October 2004
A Brazilian legislator wants to make it illegal to give pets names that are common among people. Federal congressman Reinaldo Santos e Silva proposed the law after psychologists suggested that some children may get depressed when they learn they share their first name with someone’s pet.
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/ 29 October 2004
Mobs of angry youths brandishing machetes, sticks and Kalashnikov rifles rampaged through Liberia’s war-shattered capital on Friday in a rare outbreak of Muslim-Christian violence, prompting the country’s leader to order an immediate round-the-clock curfew. At least three churches and two mosques were set ablaze.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Africa&ao=124621">Riots rock Monrovia</a>
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/ 29 October 2004
Chocolate makers from as far away as Japan and New York have converged on Paris, seeking to carve out a niche in the French market at a five-day industry binge that runs until Monday. Tokyo’s Madame Setsuko, Kyoto’s Ponto and the assorted ”chocolatiers New Yorkais” are rubbing shoulders with European industry giants.