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/ 26 October 2004
An unemployed ex-gangster in Japan in love with a 15-year-old girl chopped off his little finger and mailed it to her father twice in an unsuccessful bid to prove his commitment, police said on Tuesday. Hiroyuki Yoshikawa (36) was arrested on Monday after the teenager’s father told police the finger had been sent to him again.
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/ 26 October 2004
Modern-day Indian English or ”Hinglish”, as the variety of English spoken in India is called, has a distinct time-capsule flavour — harking back to the days of the British Raj. Phrases that are dying out elsewhere remain in common parlance on the subcontinent, where ”sleuths nab” their man, ”miscreants abscond,” youths engage in ”tomfoolery” and politicians say their opponents speak ”balderdash”.
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/ 26 October 2004
The JSE Securities Exchange was in the black in noon trade on Tuesday after a weakening in the rand from a three-month best seen on Monday morning and an
uptick in world markets helped it bounce from an oversold position. Volumes were light ahead of Finance Minister Trevor Manuel’s medium term budget policy statement due at 2pm.
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/ 26 October 2004
At the Dallas/Fort Worth airport, the lights are controlled by sensors that measure sunlight. They dim immediately when it’s sunny and brighten when a passing cloud blocks the sun. At a new middle school in Washington, DC, the air conditioner shuts off when a window is open.
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/ 26 October 2004
Zimbabwe home affairs officials expelled 13 members of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) on Tuesday, the day after they arrived in the capital, Harare. The Cosatu delegation was present for discussions with its Zimbabwean counterparts in the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions.
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/ 26 October 2004
Microsoft plans a December 1 release for the latest version of its server software that aims to give companies more secure instant messaging and other corporate communications tools. The standard version of Microsoft’s Live Communications Server 2005 will start at around , said Taylor Collyer, senior director of product management, about the same as the previous version.
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/ 26 October 2004
The world’s biggest platinum miner, Anglo Platinum, said on Tuesday that the recent strike at its operations has resulted in a reduction in mining output equal to about 50 000 ounces of refined platinum and a proportionate reduction of associated metals.
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/ 26 October 2004
There have been no shortage of insane, overambitious ideas on the internet. Most of them never make it further than the pub they are conceived in. However, every so often, one sneaks through. It has no editors, no fact checkers and anyone can contribute an entry — or delete one. It should have been a recipe for disaster, but instead Wikipedia became one of the internet’s most inspiring success stories.
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/ 26 October 2004
President Thabo Mbeki has caused a race row by making a scathing attack on white people who link HIV/Aids to the alleged promiscuous and predatory behaviour of black Africans. Mbeki turned a parliamentary debate on HIV and rape into a broadside against ”bigots” who he said regarded black people as ”sub-human disease-carriers”.
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/ 26 October 2004
The publication of ThisDay newspaper has been suspended until Monday, major stakeholder Nduka Obaigbena said on Tuesday. ”A comprehensive plan to deal with all the debt is being put in place and all debt to staff and others will be cleared over the next few weeks,” Obaigbena said at a press conference in Johannesburg.