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/ 7 October 2004

Beware of (Samoan) ghost in the machine

Last month, Durban entrepreneur, Tracey Collier, was shocked to find her phone bill dotted with phone calls to Samoa, on occasions when she believed she was dialing out to a local internet service provider. The culprit was a "rogue dialler" — a spyware variant that surreptitiously loads itself onto your hard drive and changes the default settings that allow you to connect to the internet.

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/ 7 October 2004

Wage resolution at Northam

Unions and management have agreed on wage increases at the Northam Platinum mine in Limpopo, while a deadlock continued at two other large platinum mines near Rustenburg on Thursday. Lower level workers at Northam would get an 8,5% increase, middle level 8,25%, and higher level workers 8%, National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) general secretary Archie Palane said.

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/ 7 October 2004

Softer rand buoys JSE

The JSE Securities Exchange South Africa, which reached a record high in early trade, remained in positive territory in noon trade on Thursday buoyed by a weaker rand. By 12h00, the all share index was up 0,74% at 12,012.990 after hitting an historic high of 12,054.690 in opening trade. Industrials were 0,71% stronger.

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/ 7 October 2004

Africa’s Nobel laureates gather in Dakar

African Nobel Prize laureates and heads of state gathered on Wednesday in the Senegalese capital for an African Union-sponsored conference on peace and the continent’s renaissance. Former South African president FW de Klerk, who earned the peace prize in 1993 with icon Nelson Mandela for their efforts to end apartheid in South Africa, and Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka, who won the Nobel prize for literature in 1986, were on hand for a gala evening in their honour.

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/ 7 October 2004

Ghana to weed out child labour on cocoa farms

Cocoa producers have until July 1, 2005 to prove that their beans were produced without child labour, to be able to sell on the international market, the Ghana News Agency reported on Wednesday. Kwame Sarpong, chief executive of the Ghana Cocoa Board said that the certification had become necessary because of concerns raised by global consumers over the use of child labour in the cultivation of cocoa beans.

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/ 7 October 2004

Australia’s horror house may become tourist trap

A British entrepreneur has proposed turning a Sydney house where a Filipino-Australian slaughtered his family into a gruesome museum commemorating one of the city’s grisliest crimes. The neat brick home in the affluent suburb of Epping has been dubbed Australia’s house of horrors after student Sef Gonzales (24) killed his father, mother and teenage sister in 2001.

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/ 7 October 2004

Jo’burg city applauds ruling on landlords

The City of Johannesburg has expressed satisfaction with the Constitutional Court’s ruling holding landlords responsible for non-payment of municipal services by their tenants. City of Johannesburg spokesperson Gabu Tugwana said the judgement confirmed that the city was applying best practises in dealing with its clients.