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/ 30 November 2004
The drought in South Africa’s western maize belt is becoming critical and planting time for those maize areas is running out, farmer body Grain South Africa (GSA) said in a statement on Monday. Although there was rain in some parts of the western maize belt on the weekend, it was too little and was not distributed widely enough to allow maize farmers to plant, GSA chairperson Bully Botma said.
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/ 30 November 2004
Up to 40% of all losses suffered by many companies occur during the year-end period because of inadequate security measures when staff levels are at their lowest, according to security company GriffithsReid managing director Jenny Reid. "Our research into stock loss trends alone shows that sometimes more than half of all theft occurs during the holiday periods, simply because the company has not taken any extra security measures over the holiday period," said Reid.
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/ 30 November 2004
Although the rand has breached five-year highs against the US dollar, its move is a dollar story rather than a rand story, says Vivienne Taberer, portfolio manager at Investec Asset Management. "If you look at the trade-weighted rand, it closed at 61,87 on Monday, a level that is still lower than the trade weighted high of 63,55 reached on the 21st of July, when the rand was trading at R6,31 to the dollar.
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/ 30 November 2004
Chicago is selling all the memorabilia it can get its hands on, from an original Playboy bunny outfit to old manhole covers and parking meters, in an eBay auction this week aimed at funding the arts in a budget crisis. The city claims to be the first to use a charity online auction to help solve its financial problems, in what it is calling the Great Chicago Fire Sale.
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/ 30 November 2004
A suicide car bomber attacked a police checkpoint in western Iraq on Monday, killing at least seven people and injuring nine. The seven dead men were Iraqi police or national guardsmen standing by the checkpoint in the town of Baghdadi, 160km northwest of the capital. One report suggested they were waiting to collect their salary when the bomber struck.
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/ 30 November 2004
A soft-spoken debit clerk convicted of hacking her mother and grandmother to death with an axe, smiled and laughed out loud as she hugged friends and family after the Pretoria High Court sentenced her to life imprisonment on Monday. Judge Chris Botha sentenced Marleen Bredenhann (29) to two terms of life imprisonment for the gruesome slaying of her mother, Elma and invalid grandmother Albertina ”Dassie” Wambach.
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/ 30 November 2004
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The former head of parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa), Gavin Woods, on Monday told the Durban High Court that the Defence Department’s former chief procurement officer, Chippy Shaik, lied to his committee.
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/ 30 November 2004
The Sudanese government appeared to bow to international pressure on Monday night and postponed its planned expulsion of senior staff at two British aid agencies, Save the Children and Oxfam. Sudan claimed they had breached the law by making political statements about the crisis in Darfur.
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/ 30 November 2004
The Ukrainian government made a significant climbdown on Monday night in its stand-off with the opposition when outgoing president Leonid Kuchma said another round of elections might be required because the ”country needs a legitimate president”.
Threat to split Ukraine in two
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/ 30 November 2004
As the year is hurtling to a close, it’s time to relax. So this week is dedicated to a large array of interestingly silly stuff, as well as fun things to idly look at — while killing time at the office and waiting to go on holiday. Perhaps … find out where you are in relation to overhead satellites? Or browse through the unusual gallery of artworks created with the female breast.