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/ 5 February 2004
South Africa’s largest clothing sector union has called for a boycott of ”unpatriotic” retailers and finance houses who it says do not support the ”buy local” campaign. This follows the launch last year of declarations, signed by 22 firms, in which they committed to give preference to locally-sourced goods.
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/ 5 February 2004
Zimbabwe’s Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku on Thursday postponed a ruling on an urgent government application to ban Zimbabwe’s biggest newspaper, the Daily News, but did not announce a new date for a hearing, lawyers said.
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/ 5 February 2004
The SA Medical Association’s planned march to Parliament on Friday afternoon to protest the declining state of public health services has received the support of various political parties and organisations. However, the health ministry has threatened participating doctors with dismissal or losing a day’s salary.
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/ 5 February 2004
China’s Agriculture Ministry on Thursday admitted problems in controlling an epidemic of bird flu, as it reported five new cases that took its total to 28 suspected or confirmed outbreaks. ”The way of [poultry] production is diversified, so this has brought some problems,” Vice-Minister of Agriculture Liu Jian said.
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/ 5 February 2004
Penis size came under scrutiny on Thursday when the Jali Commission of Inquiry into prison maladministration probed claims by a former inmate that he was forced to perform oral sex on a warder through a window. The commission heard it would have been impossible for the warder to get his penis through that particular window.
De Kock named in prison corruption
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/ 5 February 2004
Anant Singh’s DreamWorld consortium has been confirmed as the successful bidder to establish a multimillion-rand film city outside Cape Town. Construction is expected to start in the first quarter of next year, and finish early in 2006. Singh told a media briefing the consortium planned an investment of R400-million.
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/ 5 February 2004
Malawian President Bakili Muluzi said on Thursday endemic corruption has ”slowed down” economic growth in the poor Southern African nation and repeated a warning that offenders will be punished. Muluzi did not elaborate on how much the economy has sufferred due to graft.
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/ 5 February 2004
Zimbabwe’s highest court threw out a constitutional challenge to the country’s sweeping media laws on Thursday, making it a criminal offense to work as a journalist without a licence. The Supreme Court ruling effectively puts journalists under the direct control of the government.
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/ 5 February 2004
Official opposition deputy finance spokesperson Pierre Rabie said he was certain that President Thabo Mbeki would avoid the Zimbabwe issue in his State of the Nation speech on Friday — what Mbeki’s Director General Frank Chikane described as one of the four "Hs": Harare , Hefer, HIV, and Haiti.<br>
<li><a class="standardtextsmall" href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=30622">State of the Nation: What experts say</a>
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/ 5 February 2004
President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) has retained the parliamentary constituency seat held by former vice president Simon Muzenda who died last year, Zimbabwean state radio reported on Wednesday.