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/ 4 February 2005

Cricket: Tied in knots

A curious thing happened in Bloemfontein on Wednesday night, just as Herschelle Gibbs was caught at short fine leg. Of course it was obscured in the excitement that followed — excitement first created, and then drowned in, by Justin Kemp. But it remained, nagging and only half-recognised, as Kemp preempted the wrong shot (Who’d have thought Darren Gough would bowl a yorker at the death? Fiend!)

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/ 4 February 2005

Diamond rush is forever on Kimberley plain

More than 130 years after South Africa’s first diamond rush, hundreds of prospectors are hoping to strike it rich on the booming international market by taking picks and shovels to the rocky terrain of the country’s veld. The weather-beaten workers sort small, heavy stones with hand-cranked washers and sieving pans — the same tools used in the diamond rush of 1871.

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/ 4 February 2005

AngloGold ‘aided’ warlord

AngloGold Ashanti (AGA) ”could arguably be in violation of the arms embargo” on the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo says a new United Nations report. The report alleges that the multinational provided housing for a rebel leader and paid the rebel group ”taxes”. The rebels, Front Nationaliste et Intégrationniste, control the area around the Kilomoto gold concessions being explored by AGA.

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/ 4 February 2005

Reds weigh ‘go-it-alone’ option

The South African Communist Party will discuss contesting elections under its own banner at its forthcoming special congress in Durban. The party says that the discussion does not mean opposition to alliance partner, the African National Congress, despite differences of approaches on Zimbabwe and black economic empowerment.

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/ 4 February 2005

‘Flatgate’ hits KZN legislature

A R1,2-million scandal dubbed ”Flatgate”, involving 22 members of the KwaZulu-Natal legislature and 40 squatters, has erupted in the province. The KwaZulu-Natal legislature’s public accounts committee is to bring the members of the legislature before the disciplinary and ethics committee to account for R400 000 they owe to the legislature in unpaid rent for government-owned flats in Ulundi.

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/ 4 February 2005

Milan bans Da Vinci parody

Scantily clad women help sell cars. And there’s nothing wrong with using the odd man in a G-string to advertise shoes. But when a clothes company tried presenting a group of well-dressed women in a Last Supper style pose, their poster campaign was banned in Milan.

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/ 4 February 2005

Meet the new Iraqi police cadets

Silence enveloped Baghdad’s police academy on Thursday as 2000 cadets filed into classes to sit a mid-term exam of multiple-choice questions. When the exam ended American soldiers carried the papers away for marking and the cadets stood in huddles, comparing answers.