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/ 17 November 2004

Maria Gomez and the faces of Belmez

One day in 1971, when Spanish farmer Miguel Pereira Gomez came home from the fields, he noticed something strange on the floor of the family house. ”It is a face,” his mother said. Since then, the village of Belmez near the southern city of Jaen has become something of a pilgrimage site for people interested in paranormal phenomena.

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/ 17 November 2004

‘Cross-dressing day’ upsets Texas mother

A homecoming tradition in which boys dress like girls and vice versa in a tiny Texas school district won’t be held on Wednesday after a parent complained about what she regarded as the event’s homosexual overtones. ”It’s like experimenting with drugs,” the parent said. ”You just keep playing with it and it becomes customary.”

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/ 17 November 2004

‘Pleasing progress’ for Didata

Dual-listed information and communications technology group Dimension Data (Didata) on Wednesday posted adjusted earnings per share of 0,9 United States cents for the year ended September 30, from a 2,7 US cents loss reported a year ago. The group’s turnover rose to $2,368-billion from $2,014-billion previously.

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/ 17 November 2004

Angola losing $1m a day to diamond thieves

Angola is losing -million a day due to a flourishing illicit trade in diamonds, Mining Minister Manuel Africano said on Tuesday, as new sales plans were announced in Belgium. More than 300 000 foreigners have been deported from Angola as part of a crackdown on diamond traffickers, police announced in September.

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/ 17 November 2004

G7, G10, G20… Welcome to the jungle

G7, G10, G20… International discussion groups appear to find their identity in numbers, a puzzling phenomenon given that some have the same name or a figure that does not equate with member numbers. Here is brief guide to decoding these ”Group of” numbers: conceived as a G5 of the finance ministers of Britain, France, Germany, Japan and the United States.

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/ 17 November 2004

Gold stocks keep JSE in black

With the bullion price at a 16-year high, gold stocks were roaring ahead on the JSE Securities Exchange (JSE) in noon trade on Wednesday, despite the fact the rand had just broken below the psychological R6-per-dollar level. However, the currency’s strength kept the rest of the resources market in check.