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/ 7 September 2004
Formula-one driver Jenson Button has revealed his decision to leave BAR and join Williams next season was because of unhappiness over contract differences, including bonus payments. The Englishman is in the middle of a tug of war between BAR and Williams over his future.
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/ 6 September 2004
Public-sector unions decided on Monday to embark on strike action following their rejection of the government’s 6% wage increase offer, said labour caucus chairperson Fikile Majola. All members of the eight unions will strike, except essential services. The unions represent 700 000 public-service employees.
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/ 6 September 2004
Pharmacists across the country are introducing a range of new charges now that they are limited in the prices they can ask for drugs, players in the industry said on Monday. ”We can charge for any service. Everything that you do for the patient, the patient must pay for,” said a pharmacist in Pretoria North. ”This is very sad.”
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/ 6 September 2004
The Democratic Alliance on Monday welcomed another six municipal councillors to its ranks, bring its total countrywide to 1 022. In a speech prepared for delivery to a meeting of the DA’s Cape Town Unicity caucus, Leon said 40 councillors have now crossed over to the DA in the two-week floor-crossing period.
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/ 6 September 2004
South Africa’s Justice and Constitutional Development Ministry has given permission to Equatorial Guinea’s authorities to question Mark Thatcher on his alleged role in a coup plot in that country, a ministry spokesperson said on Monday. The spokesperson added that there has been no discussion of extradition.
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/ 6 September 2004
An Italian couple undergoing fertility treatment gave birth to twins of colour following a mishap at a fertility clinic, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera said on Sunday. According to the daily, the eggs and sperm of two couples of different races receiving fertility treatment were mistakenly switched.
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/ 6 September 2004
In a harrowing feat high over the Utah desert on Wednesday, two helicopter stunt pilots will try to snatch a floating space capsule that holds ”a piece of the sun” and bring it safely down. Their biggest fear: what if they flub it on live television? And that’s entirely possible. The pilots rate it eight or nine on a difficulty scale of 10.
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/ 6 September 2004
Loyal fans of British author JK Rowling who managed to crack a code on Rowling’s official website have been rewarded with a sneak preview of the eagerly awaited sixth book in the Harry Potter series, according to reports on Monday. The book is entitled Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.
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/ 6 September 2004
A statement posted on an Islamist website, purportedly from the captors of two French journalists in Iraq, gave France 48 hours on Monday to accept three new conditions — agreeing to a recent truce offer by Osama bin Laden, payment of -million ransom and a pledge not to get involved in Iraq.