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/ 25 November 2004
Schabir Shaik’s Nkobi Holdings incurred no costs related to sister company Prodiba in 1999, despite reflecting this in annual financial statements, the Durban High Court heard on Thursday. The former general manager of Prodiba, Johann Vorster, is testifying in Shaik’s fraud and corruption trial. Prodiba was the company which was set up to tender for, and won, the contract to produce South Africa’s credit-card style driver’s licences.
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/ 25 November 2004
The JSE Securities Exchange was in positive territory in noon trade on Thursday, in defiance of a rampant rand, which was trading at its best level against the dollar in four months. Dealers said that a higher gold price and stronger world markets were combining with positive sentiment to boost the local bourse.
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/ 25 November 2004
Rwandan President Paul Kagame has threatened to renew the invasion threat that ignited Central Africa’s deadliest conflict, the 1998-2002 Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) war, saying the continuing presence of Rwandan Hutu rebels in the neighbouring DRC means that ”the war is already on”.
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/ 25 November 2004
Ethiopia accepts the outline of its frontiers with Eritrea as set by a joint commission after their 1998-2000 border war, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on Thursday. Although both countries agreed in a peace accord signed in Algiers in 2000 to accept the commission’s ruling as final and binding, Ethiopia rejected it as ”unjust” in September 2003.
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/ 25 November 2004
Climate change is a development issue for Africa, experts warned at a United Nations workshop in Nairobi this week. The developed countries might have created the problem of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but all countries, and especially African countries, were going to have to deal with the consequences, politicians and scientists agreed.
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/ 25 November 2004
Media and entertainment group Johnnic Communications on Wednesday reported an increase of 727% in headline earnings to R124-million for the six-month period to 30 September 2004. Revenue for the period rose by 52% to R1953-million from R1284-million in 2003, while profit from continuing operations before exceptional items leapt by 800% from R17-million in 2003 to R153-million.
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/ 25 November 2004
Zimbabwe’s government is to unveil a 2005 budget on Thursday that will seek to reduce poverty affecting close to 80% of the population. Acting Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa is to present the budget covering the 2005 calendar year that will also aim to attract investment and improve crumbling social services.
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/ 25 November 2004
The South African criminal case against alleged coup plotter Mark Thatcher has been postponed to April 8 next year after a brief appearance in a Wynberg court on Thursday. Alan Bruce-Brand, a member of Thatcher’s legal team, said on Thursday that the conditions under which Thatcher had been released were extended, including a R2-million surety.
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/ 25 November 2004
A gang of 30 to 40 hungry monkeys surrounded a group of frightened passengers when they stepped off a bus at a rural Hong Kong bus stop. Panicked passengers dialled police for help when the monkeys, believed to be scavenging for food, rushed towards them at bus stop near the territory’s Lion Rock Country Park on Wednesday.
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/ 25 November 2004
The three-day power failure in western Johannesburg was not a surprise, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said, and the party was seeking answers from the council on events surrounding the power failure. The latest development is the discovery that oil spilled from the power station through storm water drains into the nearby Westdene dam, a statement from the DA read.