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/ 27 January 2004
Two-thirds of the Great Wall of China has been destroyed by sightseers, developers and erosion, Beijing’s media reported on Monday in a warning that the world heritage site is crumbling out of existence. Survey teams are said to have found large new breaches in the ramparts, which are believed to have once stretched almost 6 400km.
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/ 27 January 2004
The epidemic of bird flu in south-east Asia has spread to Pakistan, with senior officials revealing that the virus has killed millions of chickens in the port city of Karachi in recent weeks. A six-year-old Thai boy died of the disease in Bangkok on Monday, raising the epidemic’s confirmed human death toll to seven.
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/ 27 January 2004
As in Lewis Carroll’s <i>Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland</i>, nothing is ever as it appears on the surface in what one journalistic wag has nicknamed "Mugabeland". This is Zimbabwe, the politically and economically tattered Southern African country President Robert Mugabe has straddled like a Colossus since independence in in 1980.
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/ 27 January 2004
The entry of a new low-fare airline, and the price war that has erupted between budget carriers, may lead to "someone getting hurt", John Morrison, CEO of the Airline Association of Southern Africa warned last week. Morrison’s comments came as a new airline, 1Time, started selling tickets for the Johannesburg to Cape Town route.
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/ 27 January 2004
Executive airline Sun Air will cap its first year under new ownership with a profit, a new investment partner and expansion plans. General manager Robalt Keselder confirmed that a European investor has bought into the airline, "but would not like to be identified at this stage".
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/ 27 January 2004
I would like to thank the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> for the attention it has given to the drought and to respond to issues raised in your recent editorial ("A water-stressed future"). In particular, I would like to respond to your statement that "what is politically blameworthy is the failure to provide for drought in a water-scarce country … "
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/ 27 January 2004
Of all birds, the albatross is perhaps the most enigmatic – mystical even. Sean Zintl talks to a crusty seaman who has taken to the high seas for a year to raise awareness about the dire plight of the world’s albatrosses — and how easy it could be to save them from extinction
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/ 27 January 2004
Hobbits, wizards and elves are marching on the Academy Awards, with The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King emerging as front-runner for Hollywood’s top honour. Voters in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences never have crowned a fantasy film as best picture.
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/ 27 January 2004
A heated debate is underway in Swaziland about whether children who fail English should be forced to repeat the academic year. ”The English language requirement is a millstone around the neck of every Swazi school child,” says Agnes Khumalo, a public school teacher in the northern Hhohho province.
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/ 27 January 2004
There is a dispiriting resemblance between recent news about former Yugoslavia and news about Iraq, the two places that bracket the modern era of intervention. Several factors suggest the necessity not only for reform, but for a new modesty
in the West’s approach to intervention.