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/ 15 January 2005
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) on Friday came out in support for prison warders in their dispute with the Department of Correctional Services. Cosatu said a meeting of its public-sector affiliates on Thursday agreed on a programme of action to rally support for the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union.
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/ 15 January 2005
Emergency personnel rescued 16 people stranded on a roller coaster that malfunctioned on Friday afternoon at the Ratanga Junction entertainment complex outside Cape Town. Internal investigations are under way after the fun-park ride turned sour — a mechanical failure resulting in the 16 being stuck at the highest point of the ride.
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/ 15 January 2005
Researchers at a United States zoo have discovered two new species of lemurs in Madagascar, the Indian Ocean island nation that is the only place the highly endangered small primates live. Scientists from the Henry Doorly Zoo in Nebraska said the new lemur species were found in forests on Madagascar’s east and west coasts.
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/ 15 January 2005
Aids activists will join President Thabo Mbeki and anticipated thousands of other mourners at the funeral of former president Nelson Mandela’s son, Makgatho Mandela, on Saturday. Makgatho died of Aids-related complications last week, and Mandela used the announcement of his death to plead for openness on the disease.
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/ 15 January 2005
A Polish woman who pretended to be a ghost and ”haunted” an Alpine castle was sentenced to four months in prison by an Italian court on Friday. Police were called in to investigate mysterious creaking doors and other unexplained nocturnal noises heard in 15th-century Castel Coldrano, near the Swiss and Austrian borders.
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/ 15 January 2005
Up to 7 000 Congolese, mostly women and children, have crossed the border into western Uganda to flee fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo region of Ituri in the past four days, officials and aid workers said on Friday. Aid workers are investigating whether another 10 000 Congolese crossed the border on Thursday.
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/ 15 January 2005
Israel announced on Friday night that it is suspending all contact with the new Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, and his government, claiming that members of the Palestinian security agencies were involved in an attack in Gaza that killed six Israelis. Relations will be suspended until Abbas takes action against the groups the attack.
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/ 15 January 2005
A United States federal judge has ordered a Georgian school district to remove stickers from its science textbooks that declared that ”evolution is a theory, not a fact”. Judge Clarence Cooper of the Federal District Court ruled that the stickers were contrary to the First Amendment’s promise to separate church and state.
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/ 15 January 2005
Glass-packaging manufacturer Consol, which is being unbundled from industrial giant AVI, will be making its reappearance on the JSE Securities Exchange (JSE) on February 28 after an absence of seven years, it emerged on Friday. With a total turnover of about R2,1-billion rand, Consol is South Africa’s largest glassmaker.
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/ 15 January 2005
The rand and bonds are weaker now than their Tuesday close before international ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service of South Africa’s upgraded country ceilings for foreign currency debt and bank deposits to Baa1 from Baa2. This seems to confirm that South Africa once again was hit by the ratings jinx, although mildly.