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/ 24 January 2004
Zimbabwean police on Friday raided the offices of the country’s main opposition party, the MDC, in search of ”subversive publications”. This comes a day after Mbeki proudly announced that talks between the MDC and the ruling party of Mugabe aimed at ending Zimbabwe’s political crisis would start ”soon”.
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/ 24 January 2004
Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Thoko Didiza has rejected foreign media reports that South African farmers are bracing themselves for a wave of land grabs similar to those in Zimbabwe. A New York-based daily reported that much of South Africa’s commercial farmland had been claimed for restitution.
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/ 24 January 2004
Judge President of the Cape, Justice John Hlophe, says the continued use of English and Afrikaans in South African courts is hampering the transformation of justice. The judge said about 90% of cases heard in the lower courts involved indigenous language speakers.
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/ 24 January 2004
South Africa could teach newly democratic countries in Europe a thing or two about the Constitution making progress, although the Europeans are arguably more adept at stimulating economic development, says ambassador Michael Lake, Head of the Delegation of the European Commission in South Africa.
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/ 24 January 2004
The United States Department of Defence on Friday announced that it was to conduct what it called foreign comparative testing on two types of South African artillery ammunition. The Pentagon annually selects a number of promising military technologies from around the world.
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/ 24 January 2004
The strike at major airports in South Africa will continue until the airports baggage handling company meets workers’ demands, the SA Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) declared on Friday.
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/ 24 January 2004
Nigeria launched an anti-corruption drive on Friday when five former government officials charged with accepting bribes appeared in court for a test case of the country’s desire to clean up its image. Nigeria is second from the bottom in a corruption index of 133 countries. The joke goes that Nigeria bribed the corruption watchdog to rank Bangladesh lower.
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/ 24 January 2004
A former bank manager jailed for the murder of Mozambique journalist Carlos Cardoso, who was probing the country’s biggest bank fraud, admitted on Friday that he was involved in the -million scandal.
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/ 24 January 2004
Africa will witness several key elections this year, with some constituting a litmus test for nations emerging from war and unrest and others marking a milestone, as in South Africa which fetes the 10th anniversary of the end of apartheid. Many nations will see veteran rulers stepping down — a sign that things are changing.
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/ 24 January 2004
The European mission to Mars has found the first hard evidence of water on the planet, a discovery which raises questions about the possibility of life on other planets. Mars was once much more like Earth: it had active volcanos and probably a denser atmosphere.