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/ 17 September 2004
Work stopped at the South African Reserve Bank in Pretoria and a nearby branch of Absa bank for about an hour on Friday as police searched both buildings for bombs. The police’s dog unit and bomb disposal unit were sent to both scenes shortly after midday, said spokesperson Inspector Percy Morokane.
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/ 17 September 2004
A new system of sign language developed by deaf children in Nicaragua may hold clues about the evolution of languages. When the country’s first school for the deaf was established in 1977, children were not taught sign language but developed a system of signs to communicate.
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/ 17 September 2004
New Zealand beer consumption averages 80 litres per head a year, but community leaders in the North Island town of Masterton object to brewing experiments in a school science class, according to a newspaper report on Friday. Masterton deputy mayor Rod McKenzie said he was surprised that pupils were allowed to brew beer.
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/ 17 September 2004
South Africa’s trade negotiations with China should be suspended until their effect on the local economy had been studied, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said on Friday. Cosatu president Zwelinzima Vavi was addressing the Southern African Textile and Clothing Workers’ Union in Cape Town.
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/ 17 September 2004
Between 30 and 50 people were killed in an explosion at a fuel pipeline on the outskirts of the Nigerian commercial capital, Lagos, police said on Friday. ”People were stealing fuel from the pipeline when it caught fire and exploded,” said police spokesperson Emmanuel Ighodalo of Thursday’s blast in Amore.
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/ 17 September 2004
Shoppers in Sukhumvit Road, Bangkok, are greeted by gleaming white ivory statuettes and whole elephant tusks, but what tourists don’t know is they have probably been made from illegal African ivory. Conservationists are concerned that loopholes in Thailand’s laws allow the ivory trade to flourish in that country.
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/ 17 September 2004
Oil prices bubbled higher on Friday as traders assessed the impact of Hurricane Ivan on supplies, even as another storm loomed. The price of Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in November rose by 53 cents to ,28 a barrel in late-morning trading in London.
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/ 17 September 2004
Italy will stop applying European Union sanctions against Libya next week even if the measures are not lifted by the EU, Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said on Friday. He was referring to an issue that Tripoli has explicitly linked to efforts to prevent illegal immigration into Europe via its Mediterranean coastline.
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/ 17 September 2004
Hundreds of black peasant farmers in Zimbabwe were this week forcibly evicted from two formerly white-owned farms, witnesses, civic groups and police said on Friday. A witness said he saw scores of huts on fire after riot police had ordered all farmers without official permits to settle on the properties to vacate.
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/ 17 September 2004
An ingenious telephone service helping women in Moscow get rid of undesired suitors has become hugely popular. ”Hello. Welcome to the Moscow refusal service. The person who left you this telephone number does not want to speak to you. Goodbye,” is what an increasing number of men are hearing.