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/ 7 April 2005

Nasa to launch shuttle Discovery before July

Despite the inherent risks, Nasa said it will resume its space shuttle programme by launching the Discovery before July, more than two years after the Columbia disintegrated on re-entry. Everybody at the United States space agency understands that there are no risk-free shuttle missions, but the only way to improve is to send it back up into orbit.

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/ 9 March 2005

SA woman deported from the United States

A South African woman whose arrest heightened fears that terrorists were slipping across the United States-Mexico border has been deported. Farida Goolam Mahomed Ahmed (49) was turned over to authorities in South Africa on Tuesday, Immigration and customs enforcement officials said. She is barred from returning to the United States for 10 years.

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/ 18 February 2005

Yukos to fight bankruptcy in the US

Unfriendly Russian courts and a European court that offers no protection drove embattled Russian oil company Yukos to seek help to regain solvency in a United States bankruptcy court, its lead lawyer said on Thursday. ”This is the last place that this company has to have the opportunity to survive as an ongoing concern,” said Yukos lawyer Zack Clement.

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/ 4 October 2004

Former Enron accountant faces more questions

A former in-house Enron accountant who signed off on a year-end 1999 alleged sham sale of several barges to Merrill Lynch told prosecutors he thought the deal was wrong from the beginning. Now he awaits questioning from the lawyer representing his former boss, Sheila Kahanek, who is one of six defendants on trial for fraud and conspiracy stemming from the deal.

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/ 23 September 2004

Hurricane Ivan makes a rare comeback

Hurricane Ivan is making an encore appearance in the Gulf of Mexico, this time as a tropical storm that could come ashore along the coasts of Texas or Louisiana. After hitting Florida on September 16 as a hurricane, Ivan weakened and broke apart. Its remnants then swung southward, growing as they travelled over warmer waters.

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/ 19 August 2004

Children left in Nigeria head home to Houston

Seven children who returned to the United States after being left to fend for themselves in Nigeria by their adoptive mother are restarting their lives in foster care. The three boys and four girls, ranging in age from eight to 16, were discovered living in squalor in an orphanage by Warren Beemer, a pastor from a San Antonio church who was in Nigeria on a tour of his church’s missions.

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/ 4 August 2004

Cheney’s Halliburton to pay $7,5m fine

Halliburton will pay ,5-million to settle a United States Securities and Exchange Commission probe that it failed to disclose a change in its accounting procedures in 1998 when the oil services conglomerate was run by vice-president Dick Cheney. Cheney was Halliburton’s CEO from 1995 to 2000. He resigned to be President George Bush’s running mate.

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/ 3 February 2004

Janet Jackson breast brouhaha

Outrage spread in the United States on Tuesday after pop star Justin Timberlake ripped off Janet Jackson’s bodice to reveal a breast during the US’s most-watched television event. The Federal Communications Commission announced an inquiry to see whether the display of flesh by Michael Jackson’s sister constituted indecency.