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/ 21 October 2004
Retail giant Wal-Mart has cancelled an order for a bestselling book by a comedian and the writers of his show after executives learned that it contains a photo of nine naked, aged bodies, each with the superimposed head of a Supreme Court justice. America (The Book), is a mock school text by Jon Stewart and the writers of The Daily Show.
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/ 21 October 2004
An underground gas explosion has ripped through a mine in central China, killing at least 56 workers and leaving nearly 100 missing in one of the worst mining disasters in recent memory, officials said on Thursday. The shafts of the Daping coal mine near Xinmi in Henan province were packed with about 450 workers when disaster struck.
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/ 21 October 2004
President Thabo Mbeki deflected a question about the relationship of rape and the spread of HIV/Aids by accusing a Democratic Alliance MP of not understanding the scourge of racial oppression. In a lively debate in the National Assembly on Thursday, Mbeki repeatedly accused DA health spokesperson Ryan Coetzee of not listening.
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/ 21 October 2004
Steel producer Ispat Iscor on Thursday reported a 15% increase in operating profit for the September quarter to R2,235-billion, up from R1,945-billion in the June quarter. September headline earnings were R1,575-billion, up R882-million from the June quarter.
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/ 21 October 2004
The small frogs that croaked in Diane Butler’s backyard pond had been silenced and her goldfish were disappearing. But she had bagged the culprit, and stashed the body in her freezer. Butler’s capture of an 11cm Cuban tree frog in coastal Savannah has caused a nervous stir among wildlife biologists in Georgia and Florida.
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/ 21 October 2004
Japan was searching for survivors on Thursday after the country’s deadliest typhoon in more than a decade killed at least 61 people as it crushed houses, overturned trains and stranded passengers on flooded highways. Typhoon Tokage tore up the archipelago for a day before easing on Thursday morning.
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/ 21 October 2004
Prince Harry was involved in an early-morning scuffle with a photographer outside a London nightclub on Thursday, the palace said, revealing the photographer had received a cut lip in the fracas. The photographer reported the incident to the police and said he was considering whether to make a formal complaint.
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/ 21 October 2004
Austrian police evacuated hundreds of people from Linz’s main train station on Thursday after finding a large, unexploded World War II bomb — the second such discovery in two weeks, authorities said. The bomb was found at about 8.30am near the newly opened station in Linz, about 200km west of Vienna.
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/ 21 October 2004
International ratings agency Fitch Ratings on Thursday revised the outlook on South Africa’s sovereign ratings to positive from stable. Nico Kelder, economist at Efficient Research, said: "It is obviously positive news for South Africa. But the next serious rating we need is an investment grade rating."
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/ 21 October 2004
Forty years after independence, Zambians are poorer, their country having missed an opportunity to boost its economy with its rich copper reserves. When the southern African country broke free from British colonial rule in 1964, its economy was on par with that of South Korea and ranked second to South Africa in the region.