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/ 29 September 2004
Ethiopia and Eritrea — two of the world’s poorest countries — are paying ”a big price” for failing to resolve a simmering border dispute, a United Nations envoy said on Wednesday. Lloyd Axworthy, the UN Secretary General’s special envoy to Ethiopia and Eritrea, said his staff are trying to determine how much the ongoing dispute has cost the two countries.
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/ 29 September 2004
Kanellie Hatzikonstandinou, accused of murdering an 81-year-old shopper at the Cresta shopping centre in Johannesburg on Monday, appeared in the Randburg Regional Court on Wednesday. Her tearful father, Iounno Hatzikonstandinou, entered the dock and before giving her a hug, said in a Greek accent: ”I want to apologise for what happened… I am saying sorry to the family.”
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/ 29 September 2004
Switzerland on Wednesday gave French authorities bank documents seized in an investigation of alleged money laundering linked to illicit arms sales to Angola. The Justice Ministry said the handover included information on seven frozen bank accounts and was made possible by a government decision that helping France in its ”Angolagate” inquiry would not compromise Switzerland’s national interests.
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/ 29 September 2004
Experts say childhood obesity has reached epidemic proportions worldwide, with 155-million school age kids overweight or just plain fat. South Africa is no exception. According to the Heart Foundation, 12% of children in the country are
obese.
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/ 29 September 2004
South African President Thabo Mbeki has poked fun at newspaper speculation about his successor, saying two correct predictions had been made. He stated at the South African Local Government Association conference at a convention centre in Cape Town on Wednesday: ”I have been told that some in our media have very recently been involved in a strange debate evidently to answer the question — what happens when Mbeki goes?!”
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/ 29 September 2004
HIV/Aids rates in northern Uganda are nearly twice as high as the rest of the country because of an 18-year war.
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/ 29 September 2004
Draped in white shawls, thousands of Asmarinos thronged September Square, the largest in the Eritrean capital, to mark the Meskel, the highlight of the orthodox religious calendar, which commemorates the discovery of Christ’s cross by Saint Helen. About half of Eritrea’s four million inhabitants are Orthodox Christians, according to the government.
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/ 29 September 2004
For now, the ”hygiene kit” — soap, candles, matches, two mosquito nets and basic clothing — is all that stands between the family of six and disease as this summer’s catastrophic monsoon floodwaters finally recede. ”We tried to stay in our home, but it was too dangerous and we had to go to the relief shelter [in a neighbouring school],” Helena (27) says.
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/ 29 September 2004
Trade liberalisation alone will not boost growth and poverty reduction in Africa, says the United Nations (UN) in its Economic Report on Africa 2004 (ERA 2004), published by the UN’s Economic Commission for Africa and released on Wednesday.
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/ 29 September 2004
South Africa’s CPIX inflation (headline inflation excluding mortgage costs) was up 3,7% year-on-year (y/y) for metro and other areas in August compared with 4,8% y/y in July, 5% y/y in June and 4,4% y/y in May, April and March, 4,8% y/y in February, and 4,2% y/y in January, Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said on Wednesday.