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/ 24 December 2003
The Zimbabwe government is investigating the country’s biggest private mobile phone company and could withdraw its operating licence for alleged ”subversive activities”, the state-run Herald newspaper said on Wednesday. The paper said this followed a probe into the foreign currency dealings of Econet Wireless Zimbabwe.
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/ 24 December 2003
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger toured the community hardest hit by California’s first deadly earthquake in nine years, declaring a local state of emergency even as aftershocks rattled beneath the central wine country. There had been 100 magnitude-3 or higher aftershocks by Wednesday morning.
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/ 24 December 2003
Two men whose disruptive begging at Cape Town’s premier shopping complex, the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, led to a court battle, have been given the city’s High Court’s permission to go back, but have been ordered to behave with the requisite decorum.
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/ 24 December 2003
Philippines rescuers rushed on Wednesday to save five people clinging to parts of a ferry that sank three days ago in a series of weather-related disasters that left about 300 people dead or missing. Efforts continued to reach villages isolated by weekend mudslides and floods in the central and southern regions of the country.
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/ 24 December 2003
Former Miss South Africa Diana Tilden-Davis underwent further surgery on Wednesday following an attack by a hippopotamus in the Botswana delta earlier this month. Tilden-Davis, who won the pageant in 1991, was attacked last Thursday while paddling in the remote northern reaches of the delta.
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/ 24 December 2003
Despite massive culling of chicken and ducks, a highly contagious bird flu continues to spread in South Korea with new cases confirmed and more suspected cases reported on Wednesday. Authorities have ordered the killing of all chickens and ducks within 3km of all affected farms.
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/ 24 December 2003
Countries across Asia banned the import of United States beef products on Wednesday after a cow on a Washington state farm tested positive for mad cow disease. Japan, the number-one importer of US beef, imposed an indefinite ban and planned to recall certain meat products already on the market.
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/ 24 December 2003
Queen Elizabeth II is mourning the death of one of her beloved corgis, mauled by a terrier belonging to her daughter, Princess Anne, a British newspaper reported on Wednesday. The Sun tabloid said Pharos the corgi was injured in an altercation with bull terrier Dotty on Monday.
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/ 24 December 2003
The JSE Securities Exchange South Africa ended a seven-day winning streak on Wednesday, closing marginally weaker after an abridged Christmas Eve trading day. With a large number of players away, volumes were exceptionally light. When the bourse closed at noon, the all-share index was a marginal 0,13% in the red.
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/ 24 December 2003
The change in leadership of global pulp and paper producer Sappi has gone smoothly and new CEO Jonathan Leslie has already made his mark on the organisation, chairperson Eugene van As says. Writing in the group’s annual report, Van As said Leslie has taken decisive actions to improve returns and reduce costs.