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/ 15 November 2006
The Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) will lead a march to the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) offices on Thursday to demand that the broadcaster be transparent and accountable, the FXI said. It said in a statement on Wednesday that the working-class and poor communities would hand over a memorandum of grievances.
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/ 15 November 2006
Small tsunami waves hit Japan’s northern-most island late on Wednesday after a major quake in the north Pacific triggered a full-scale tsunami warning for areas of northern Japan and Russia’s sparsely populated Kurile islands. An initial tsunami of 40cm came ashore near Nemuro on the Pacific Coast of Hokkaido Island just before 10pm local time (1pm GMT).
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/ 15 November 2006
South Africa coach Jake White made several changes to his side for Saturday’s opening Test against England, bringing in six players to his starting line-up from the team that ran out in last weekend’s tour-opening 32-15 defeat against Ireland.
Wite also made several positional switches for what will be the first of two back-to-back Tests against world champions England at Twickenham.
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/ 15 November 2006
Pakistan’s lower house of Parliament voted on Wednesday to put the crime of rape under the civil penal code, curtailing the scope of Islamic laws that rights groups have long criticised as unfair to women. The Women’s Protection Bill was seen as a barometer of President Pervez Musharraf’s commitment to his vision of ”enlightened moderation”.
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/ 15 November 2006
Kenya on Wednesday appealed for aid to help hundreds of thousands of people hit by devastating and deadly floods across the country, triggered by unusually heavy seasonal rains. As rains continued to pound north and coastal Kenya, authorities made a national appeal for almost -million to help about 300Â 000 people who are affected by the floods, which have so far killed 23 people.
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/ 15 November 2006
The far right-wing Boerestaat Party of South Africa announced on Wednesday it intends registering as a political party on December 16. The group, which was formed in the mid-1980s, said it wanted to become a fully fledged political party because it was feeling marginalised as an extra-parliamentary group.
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/ 15 November 2006
Floor-crossing is not only morally problematic, but is also ”dysfunctional” in a parliamentary system, a German political scientist told a conference in Cape Town on Wednesday. Dr Hans-Joachim Veen, honorary professor of comparative government at the University of Trier, said South Africa’s regular floor-crossings were a sign of a ”rudimentary party system”.
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/ 15 November 2006
The Presidency received the Donen Commission report into the Iraq oil-for-food programme on November 6 and was studying the report, president Thabo Mbeki said on Wednesday. Mbeki said this in reply to a question from official opposition leader Tony Leon in the National Assembly on Wednesday.
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/ 15 November 2006
Al-Jazeera’s English-language news channel hit the airwaves on Wednesday with a heavyweight cast of presenters and the ambition to compete with Western broadcasting giants. Al-Jazeera English, sister channel of Qatar’s Arabic television al-Jazeera, said its launch ushered in "a new era in international news" as it began broadcasts.
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/ 15 November 2006
A series of small bombs wounded eight people in the Bangladeshi capital as a transport shutdown to force the dismissal of election officials paralysed the country for a fourth day on Wednesday. Witnesses said the overnight blasts near the office of the Awami League triggered widespread panic in Dhaka.