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/ 8 December 2004
For wine snobs, it could be the ultimate vintage guaranteed to impress: a 9 000-year-old prehistoric preserved wine dug up from the Neolithic village of Jiahu in northern China. The vintage Chinese brew was discovered by an international team of researchers including University of Pennsylvania Museum archaeochemist Patrick McGovern.
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/ 8 December 2004
Punxsutawney Phil tried his hand in politics on Tuesday and, in one day, managed to taste it all — the media spotlight, backstabbing, and a trip back home under lock and key. The world’s most famous groundhog, who every year predicts the length of winter, was brought to the national capital by a powerful patron, Representative John Peterson, who managed to slip 000 into this year’s budget for a museum showcasing the weather beast.
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/ 8 December 2004
If there’s one thing that Americans love more than their cars, it’s other people’s cars. That explains why there were a staggering 1,3-million cars stolen nationwide last year, or about one every 25 seconds, according to a recent study by the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB).
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/ 8 December 2004
A newly designed airbag can ”hear” an accident and will go into series production at a major German car manufacturer next year, the VDO Automotive AG has announced. The airbag is ten times faster than a conventional airbag and can be re-used after a light accident, VDO said.
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/ 8 December 2004
To the United States military he was a turncoat and a traitor, the soldier who defected to communist North Korea and lived as a fugitive during the height of the Cold War. On Tuesday, though, Charles Jenkins finally started his new life, having served a short court-martial sentence after deserting from the US army almost 40 years ago.
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/ 8 December 2004
Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai warned on Tuesday that any ”carelessness” by the government ahead of the March elections could lead to an ”inferno” in the southern African country. Tsvangirai, in a weekly newsletter, called for ”sensitive political management” especially in the run-up to the parliamentary elections in the politically divided and crisis-ridden nation.
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/ 8 December 2004
Have you ever wondered what it takes to start up a World War II museum-piece tank? Surprisingly little, in many instances. Curators at the SA National Museum of Military History regularly start up a selection of their restored fleet of armoured and other vehicles to keep them in running order. Recently, it was the turn of a Soviet T34/85 medium tank of World War II vintage.
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/ 8 December 2004
A South African editor tells this story: ”I asked my newsroom when a story should not identify a victim of abuse. One answer: ‘In cases of bestiality, the pet should not be named.”’ It’s a true tale and one that predates the rise, and rise, of tabloid journalism — which is the really appropriate context in which to discuss such species distinctions.
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/ 8 December 2004
The price of oil could hover around per barrel with a significant effect on the global economic outlook, the SA Reserve Bank said on Tuesday. Speaking at the annual dinner in honour of ambassadors and high commissioners to South Africa in Pretoria, Governor Tito Mboweni said: ”The behaviour of the oil prices has changed the global economic outlook in a real way.”
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/ 8 December 2004
The wine industry in the Western Cape has been stunned by the illegal-flavourant scandal at KWV, the province’s agriculture minister, Cobus Dowry, said on Tuesday. "A scandal such as this has the potential to fundamentally damage this industry and if not addressed properly, take years to mend."
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=176153">Silver lining to SA’s wine scandal
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<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-National&ao=176088">KWV names, shames winemakers</a>