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/ 26 September 2003

Massive quake hits Japan

Two powerful earthquakes, one of them measuring 8,0 on the Richter scale, rocked northern Japan on Friday, injuring about 480 people and forcing thousands more to evacuate their homes. The bigger quake was the strongest to hit Japan in almost nine years.

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/ 26 September 2003

Death sentences in Morocco terrorism cases

Moroccan courts have sentenced two Islamic fundamentalists to death for murder and preparing terrorist acts, and passed heavy jail sentences on two fundamentalist preachers said to be the brains behind suicide attacks in May. Abdelouahab Rabii and Hamid Slimani were sentenced in Rabat late on Thursday for preparing acts of terrorism.

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/ 26 September 2003

Funding crisis: Millions face starvation

By as early as next month, millions of people in the southern African region will face ”massive food shortages” owing to what could only be described as a ”funding crisis” in the World Food Programme (WFP), the agency warned on Friday. ”The situation is incredibly serious,” said James Morris, WFP executive director.

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/ 26 September 2003

Aids ‘third wave’ hits economies

The third and most devastating wave of the HIV/Aids pandemic is now ravaging Eastern and Southern Africa. So warns a United Nations report presented at the 13th International Conference on Aids and STIs (sexually transmitted infections) in Africa, held this week in Nairobi, Kenya.

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/ 26 September 2003

Preferences the worm that lead to WTO failure

A detailed analysis of the recent World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks in Cancun, Mexico, show the preferences offered by the developed world to select developing world countries such as Mauritius were the worm that brought about the failure of the talks, SA Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin told Parliament on Friday.

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/ 26 September 2003

Gold stocks drag JSE down

Weaker gold stocks continued to weigh on the JSE Securities Exchange South Africa in late-morning trade on Friday, countering the positive affect of a softer rand on the broader market. Volumes were very light, with just more than R500-million-worth of shares changing hands.

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/ 26 September 2003

Trade unions threaten major strike

Major South African trade unions have vowed to go on strike next week in protest against massive job losses in various sectors of the country’s economy. The strike threat comes in the week that Statistics South Africa announced the worsening level of unemployment in the country.

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/ 26 September 2003

Mboweni addresses threats to inflation target

High inflation expectations among producers and consumers are one of the key threats to the South African Reserve Bank’s inflation target, according to SARB Governor Tito Mboweni. He also said the bank will continue to buy US dollars in the market to build up the country’s foreign exchange reserves.