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/ 24 November 2004
Countries in northwest Africa are hoping cooler winter weather will give them the time they need to wipe out swarms of young locusts while they are still too immature to breed, delegates at a Rome conference said. The locusts are the offspring of the wave that devastated African crops and grazing land this summer.
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/ 24 November 2004
Ok, if you ignored that injunction and are still reading, you’re clearly a contrarian character. You’ve decided to pay no heed to the mental health warning on this column. That may make you an exception among most readers. The reason is because the ”don’t read” message is redundant for the majority of your peers. The mere sight of the word Aids in a headline is sufficient turn-off. Even the political controversies, driving most Aids coverage, have become passé.
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/ 24 November 2004
England’s ill-starred cricket tour of Zimbabwe was mired in fresh controversy on Tuesday night after Robert Mugabe’s government banned nine media organisations including the BBC from covering the five scheduled matches, due to begin on Friday. Michael Vaughan, the England captain, condemned the decision. ”I think it is totally wrong and I am flabbergasted by the decision.”
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/ 24 November 2004
An Israeli army officer who repeatedly shot a 13-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza dismissed a warning from another soldier that she was a child by saying he would have killed her even if she was three years old. The official account claimed that Iman al-Hams was shot as she walked towards an army post with her schoolbag because soldiers feared she was carrying a bomb.
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/ 24 November 2004
Ukraine’s political crisis deepened on Tuesday night after three days of street protests and political drama threatened to cause a diplomatic rift between Russia and the United States. The opposition leader, Viktor Yushchenko, declared himself the winner of Sunday’s presidential run-off against the Kremlin-backed prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich, by swearing himself in after an emergency parliamentary session.
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/ 24 November 2004
World number four gold miner Harmony Gold announced on Wednesday that the United States district court in manhattan, New York had denied a motion for preliminary injunction by rival Gold Fields, which sought to block Harmony’s offer to Gold Fields’ shareholders in the US.
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/ 24 November 2004
A recent letter in the <i>M&G</i> requires a response. In it Steward Spencer asks: "How can it be that Orania has its own currency? Do the national police have access to and jurisdiction over this self-created land?" The important point is Orania’s local currency, the "ora". The ora could become a regional local currency to the great benefit of one of the poorest regions in South Africa, writes Norman Reynolds.
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/ 24 November 2004
Housing is a major issue on the social agenda, but policy and planning are often gender-blind and fail to acknowledge that men and women have different housing needs. This often forces women to live in unsafe places or stay in abusive relationships. Women’s participation in housing policy and design is necessary to break these patterns, say organisations working in the field.
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/ 24 November 2004
The Eastern Cape High Court recently heard a matter in which the Attorneys Fidelity Fund and the minister of justice and constitutional development were sued by more than 100 clients for alleged theft. The fund won because a recently amended clause that determines that the fund cannot be held responsible for theft of money intended for investment by attorneys on behalf of clients. The clients argued that the amendment was invalid.