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/ 19 October 2004

Death toll climbs as Fallujah siege continues

The death toll from suicide car bombings in Iraq continued to rise on Monday with at least 13 people killed in Baghdad and Mosul in the last two days, as the United States and Iraqi army siege of Fallujah continued unabated. A car bomb detonated on a bridge in the northern city of Mosul on Sunday morning, killing five Iraqis and wounding 15 others, the US military said.

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/ 19 October 2004

India’s most wanted fugitive shot dead

India’s most wanted fugitive, Koose Muniswamy Veerappan, accused of more than 100 murders and on the run for decades, has been shot dead after driving into a police trap, officials said on Tuesday. The death of Veerappan, known for his trademark handlebar moustache and said to be around 60 years old, brings to a close the longest manhunt in Indian police history.

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/ 19 October 2004

Qatar to use robot jockeys in camel races

Qatar is set to substitute robots for jockeys in camel races, a favourite sport in the oil-rich Gulf region that has faced widespread criticism over the use of child jockeys from the Indian subcontinent. But the sport’s supremo in Doha insists the plan to use ”robot jockeys” within the coming year is not in response to protests by human rights groups.

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/ 19 October 2004

Rise of the giant guinea pigs

After 34 years of patient tinkering, researchers at Peru’s most prestigious agrarian university have bred a new culinary export they hope will scamper on to dinner plates throughout the United States and the world: the super-size guinea pig. Peruvians consume an estimated 65-million guinea pigs each year.

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/ 19 October 2004

Tests reveal chemical cocktail in EU ministers’ blood

Blood tests have revealed that environment ministers from 13 European Union countries are contaminated with chemical pollutants from sofas, pizza boxes and pesticides, the environmental group WWF said Tuesday. All the ministers bore traces of 22 poly-chlorinated biphenyls, a category of toxic chemicals banned in Europe during the 1970s and among the ”dirty dozen” being phased out internationally.

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/ 19 October 2004

Reuters reports 4,4% drop in core revenue

Reuters, the British news and financial information provider, on Tuesday reported a 4,4% drop in core subscription revenue to 528-million pounds ( million) during the third quarter from the same period of last year. Reuters had itself forecast subscription income, or underlying core recurring revenue, to fall by 5% during the third quarter.

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/ 19 October 2004

JSE firmer despite rand strength

The JSE Securities Exchange (JSE) was in positive territory in noon trade on Tuesday although a strengthening rand threatened to pare the bourse’s gains. Dealers said that the market was difficult to call and that there were no clear trends. At noon, the rand was quoted at R6,35 per dollar from R6,37 when the JSE closed on Monday.