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/ 17 January 2007
Zimbabwe’s public health delivery system has ground to a halt as nurses and doctors in rural areas join their urban counterparts in a stayaway over low salaries and poor working conditions. Health personnel, on average, earn less than $240 a month and are demanding a salary hike of 8 000%.
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/ 17 January 2007
It has been drunk in Russia since the 15th century. But the country’s long love affair with vodka appears to be drawing to an end, with new figures showing that newly affluent Russians are preferring to drink other types of alcohol. Vodka sales in Russia have fallen 15% since 2000 with upwardly mobile Russians switching to brandy, cognac and tequila.
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/ 17 January 2007
An explosion outside a Baghdad university as students were heading home for the day killed at least 65 people on Tuesday in the deadliest of several attacks on predominantly Shi’ite areas. The attack came on a day the United Nations said more than 34 000 Iraqi civilians died last year in sectarian violence.
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/ 17 January 2007
Crime experts and victims have accused President Thabo Mbeki of being out of touch with reality with his denial that crime was out of hand, Beeld reported on Wednesday. A senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, Johan Burger, said Mbeki’s statement showed he was not clued up about the experiences of ordinary people.
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/ 17 January 2007
Tenders for all five new Soccer World Cup stadiums have come back at least R2-billion over budget, the Star reported on Wednesday. It said the same applied to the upgrade of the FNB stadium. The National Treasury had allocated R8,4-billion for the construction and renovation of the country’s 10 World Cup stadiums, but more money would be needed.
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/ 17 January 2007
The future of the Cape Town government will be decided in talks on Wednesday, the city’s executive mayor, Helen Zille, said. ”As this morning dawns, I am at the head of a minority government in Cape Town, which is never a comfortable place to be,” she told SAfm presenter John Perlman. ”Today will be decisive. There are lots of talks ongoing and we will see what emerges. At the end of the day we will know.”
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/ 17 January 2007
The leadership of the National Taxi Alliance is to call for a strike against the taxi recapitalisation programme, media reports said on Wednesday. A source said the week-long strike from Monday would be announced on Thursday. This could leave tens of thousands of workers, pupils and students in major cities stranded.
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/ 17 January 2007
The Democratic Alliance-led coalition in the Cape Town city council has approached the Independent Democrats (ID) to join them, South African Broadcasting Corporation radio news reported on Wednesday. Cape Town ID caucus leader Simon Grindrod told the broadcaster that a proposal had been forwarded to the party’s leaders.
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/ 17 January 2007
It was an extraordinary end to a tragic operation. When Lance Corporal Matthew Ford was shot during an assault on a Taliban fortress last Monday, his comrades mounted a dramatic rescue mission that saw soldiers being strapped to the wings of helicopter gunships as they crossed a river under heavy enemy fire.
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/ 17 January 2007
Roger Federer made sure he did not repeat his lapses from his opening match in Wednesday’s second-round win over Jonas Bjorkman at the Australian Open. Andy Roddick also lifted his act, and Serena Williams moved into the third round with another straight-sets win.