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/ 30 December 2003
A Frenchman who had been set to become the first blind person to compete in the famous Dakar Rally on Tuesday called on French President Jacques Chirac to intervene after world motor sports governing body FIA withdrew his licence days before the race begins.
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/ 29 December 2003
Italian prosecutors are accusing Calisto Tanzi, the founder of insolvent Italian food giant Parmalat, of stealing €800-million from the company for his own use, Italian press reports alleged on Monday. Tanzi, arrested in Milan in the north of the country on Saturday, was interrogated at length in prison on Sunday.
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/ 29 December 2003
As a South African team hastens to assist tens of thousands of Iranians reeling from an earthquake, what could South African citizens expect the government’s response to be in the event of a major catastrophe at home? New disaster management legislation will possibly come into effect in early 2004.
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/ 29 December 2003
Lightning hit a church in Zambia over the weekend, killing one worshipper and injuring several others, a police spokesperson said on Monday. The sermon at the Seventh Day Adventist Church in the capital was about to start on Saturday when it was struck by a lightning bolt.
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/ 29 December 2003
The risk of the deadly ebola virus being found in the remains of a man who died in a hospital in Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls is quite low and people should not panic, a microbiologist involved with the investigation said on Monday. A South African laboratory is investigating the death of a trader in the resort town on Christmas Day.
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/ 29 December 2003
Israeli soldiers stationed in the tense West Bank city of Hebron have recently been battling an enemy they define as more scary than Palestinian militants: enormous rats. The rodents have grown so large that soldiers are calling them the Hebrew equivalent of ”crats” due to their increasing similarity to stray cats.
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/ 29 December 2003
A Japanese demolition firm has found a smashing way of making a name for itself — through its company song, with lyrics like ”We will destroy houses! We will destroy bridges! We will destroy buildings!”. It is the first time that a ”shaka”, or corporate anthem, has made the charts.
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/ 29 December 2003
South African-listed life insurer and financial services group Liberty (LGL) needs to use some of its excess capital, estimated to be as much as R2,5-billion, in order to improve its capital efficiency, according to global investment bank Merrill Lynch.
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/ 29 December 2003
Unidentified assailants on Monday shelled the studios of a top independent television station, damaging the building but hurting no one as the ex-Soviet republic is preparing for parliamentary elections. The offices of the Rustavi-2 station were shelled from a grenade launcher shortly before dawn on Monday.
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/ 29 December 2003
Indonesian villagers claim to have captured a python that is almost 15m long and weighs nearly 450kg, a local official said on Monday. If confirmed, it will be the largest snake to date kept in captivity. Hundreds of people have flocked to see the snake at a primitive zoo in Curugsewu on the island of Java.