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/ 28 September 2004

Absa moves to allay fears over retrenchments

Banking group Absa on Monday moved to allay employees’ fears of retrenchments following discussions with England’s Barclays Bank about them buying a controlling stake in Absa. ”This transaction, if it happens, is about growth and leadership, not retrenchment,” said Absa group executive Steve Booysen in an open letter to staff and customers.

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/ 28 September 2004

Woman in court after murder at shopping centre

A mentally disturbed woman allegedly killed an 81-year-old woman in Cresta shopping centre in Johannesburg on Monday, police said. Captain Schalk Bornman said the pensioner’s throat was slit with a knife. The woman escaped from the custody of her father while they were sitting at a restaurant, and allegedly slit the pensioner’s throat before walking away, he said.

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/ 28 September 2004

Palestinians threaten revenge for rocket attack

Ali al-Shaer was delivered in separate ambulances to the mob awaiting his arrival with a mixture of fury and obscene fascination at the Nasser hospital. First came what remained of his charred torso after an Israeli rocket slammed into his car as it worked its way through the cluttered streets of Gaza’s Khan Yunis refugee camp on Monday.

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/ 28 September 2004

‘New’ Hemingway story may stay unpublished

A newly discovered short story by Ernest Hemingway indicates that part of the writer’s ultra-macho image had its origin in a scene of knockabout farce in a Spanish bullring in his youth. Hemingway himself sent up the incident, one of the few occasions when he is known to have been less than earnest about a sport he came to view as semi-mystical.

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/ 28 September 2004

Gadaffi’s son claims immunity after speeding

French police protested on Monday after Hannibal, the son of the Libyan leader, Moammar Gadaffi, was allowed to go free after being clocked at more than 139kph on the Champs-Elysées. ”This is a genuine scandal,” said Frédéric Lagache of the biggest police union, Alliance, when it emerged that Gadaffi (28) had not been charged after he presented his diplomatic passport.

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/ 28 September 2004

‘Hey, I’m British, they won’t hurt me’

British contractors in the Basra area of Iraq are following the kidnapping of Kenneth Bigley with concern and sympathy, but have questioned the wisdom of living and working in Baghdad without security or personal protection. Many who watched Bigley’s impassioned plea for mercy on oversized television screens last week say that it would not have happened to them.

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/ 28 September 2004

Rage finds outlet in Sudan’s rebel camps

Under a nearly full moon, rebel fighters leapt on to the sand from the back of their battle-wagon; a Toyota pick-up truck with a machine gun on its cab and an anti-tank missile launcher slung from the wing mirror. The moonlight picked out every rock, bush and dune for miles, but these men had no fear of being seen or heard.