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/ 28 October 2004
Judgement was reserved on Thursday in Mark Thatcher’s Cape High Court bid to avoid answering questions from Equatorial Guinea prosecutors. Lawyers involved in the three-day hearing said that given the complexity of the case and the judges’ other commitments, judgement is unlikely to be handed down in the near future.
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/ 28 October 2004
A Bangladeshi court has built up an astonishing backlog of 44Â 457 cases, a news report said on Thursday. Eighteen of the 41 judges’ positions at Chittagong court in the country’s south-east have remained vacant for years, resulting in lengthy delays for those awaiting justice, the official BSS news agency said.
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/ 28 October 2004
Backers of Côte d’Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo have destroyed opposition newspapers seized from newsagents and street vendors, claiming on Thursday that the publications are inciting rebellion. A European-born bookstore owner in Abidjan, the country’s economic capital, said he was threatened with killing and rape.
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/ 28 October 2004
Russia’s Lower House of Parliament has passed legislation that will make it illegal to drink beer in public, news reports said on Thursday. The Bill, which comes in the wake of legislation passed earlier this year that clamps down on beer commercials and advertising, was approved on Wednesday.
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/ 28 October 2004
As the country holds its breath for confirmation of a fuel hike on Friday, economist Mike Schussler believes it will not break the R5 barrier this year. Preliminary figures released this week show that motorists should expect to pay an additional 19c a litre from next Wednesday. This means Gauteng drivers will be paying R4,87 a litre for petrol.
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/ 28 October 2004
Armed men wearing military-style jackets abducted three foreign United Nations election workers in broad daylight in Kabul on Thursday as vote-counting ended in Afghanistan’s landmark election. A group calling itself the Army of Muslims claimed responsibility, Arabic satellite television station Al-Jazeera reported.
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/ 28 October 2004
Boeremag members had prayed and assured each other they were doing the right thing before planting bombs in Soweto in October 2002, the treason trial in the Pretoria High Court heard on Thursday. Self-confessed coup plotter Deon Crous said he and five of the Boeremag accused had planned and planted 10 bombs in the Soweto area.
Bombers did it for ‘Boer nation’
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/ 28 October 2004
Eight New National Party MPs will cross the floor to the African National Congress during the defection window period in September next year, ANC chief whip Mbulelo Goniwe said on Thursday. The eight — including party leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk — will defect to the ANC as individuals, not as a group, he said.
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/ 28 October 2004
This week’s short-lived fact-finding mission by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) to Zimbabwe proved things are not well in Zimbabwe, Cosatu deputy secretary general Bheki Ntshalintshali said on Thursday. The 13-member Cosatu mission was deported from Zimbabwe on Tuesday.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=124509">Govt regrets outcome of Cosatu visit</a>
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/ 28 October 2004
After putting up with pangs of conscience for 24 years, a Norwegian finally settled a hotel bill he skipped out on in 1980. The Clarion Hotel Ernst in the southern town of Kristiansand received a handwritten anonymous letter of apology with a 500 kroner note (about R490) attached, hotel director Kay Johnsen said by telephone on Thursday.