Staff Reporter
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/ 27 February 2007

Federer breaks 30-year-old record

Roger Federer took over the number one ranking in men’s tennis more than three years ago, and he shows no signs of letting it go. The 10-time Grand Slam champion reached a new milestone on Monday when he broke Jimmy Connors’s 30-year-old mark with his 161st week at the top of the ATP rankings.

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/ 27 February 2007

Cheney: ‘Loud boom’ sent me to bunker

United States Vice-President Dick Cheney said the suicide bombing at the gate of a US air base he was visiting in Afghanistan on Tuesday made a "loud boom" and drove him briefly into a bomb shelter. But Cheney said it was "never an option" to scrap plans to go on to the Afghan capital, Kabul, where he later held talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

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/ 27 February 2007

GDP quickens to 5,6%

South Africa’s economic growth rate quickened to 5,6% in the fourth quarter of 2006 on a seasonally adjusted and annualised basis, compared to 4,7% in the third quarter, official data showed on Tuesday. The number was well above a forecast from a Reuters poll of economists last week, which saw the economy growing by an unchanged 4,7%.

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/ 27 February 2007

Online tests for gun licences

Gun owners wishing to renew their gun licences will be able to do so by taking a test on the internet, a computer-based testing company said on Tuesday. ”With the introduction of the e-Test, it will be the first time that existing gun owners and first-time applicants can take the required test via computer,” said spokesperson Lyn van Haght.

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/ 27 February 2007

SA tourism shows ‘exponential growth’

South African tourism statistics for 2006 show a 14,5% increase in tourism arrivals compared with 2005 figures, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk said on Tuesday. ”What we have achieved together is reflected in the exponential growth of South Africa’s tourism industry since our transition to democracy in 1994,” Van Schalkwyk said.

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/ 27 February 2007

Britain switches tactics to undermine the Taliban

Britain has launched a "reconciliation" drive to undermine support for the Taliban after Whitehall strategists concluded that a decisive military victory in Afghanistan cannot be won. Senior British officials have stopped talking about winning a war. "We do not use the word ‘win’," one said. "We can’t kill our way out of this problem."