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/ 16 September 2005
Australia’s immigration department said on Friday it had wrongly cancelled the visas of up to 8 000 international students and asked diplomatic posts around the world to tell the wronged pupils they can resume their courses. In a major hitch for Australia’s stated goal of becoming Asia’s education hub, a court found the immigration department had been using incorrect paperwork.
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/ 16 September 2005
Jeffrey’s Bay, the well known Western Cape surfing destination, is to be the site of a new R1,2-billion commercial and residential development being planned by Buchner Propvest, the company said on Friday. The first phase of the development, targeting 150ha of the total 600ha site, is due to start later this year.
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/ 16 September 2005
About 2 000 families in five Angolan provinces are facing famine with malnutrition affecting up to 60% of the population, according to a recent study by the United Nations World Food Programme. In some remote areas, Angolans are living on one meal a day, while babies aged six to 20 months are suffering the most from malnutrition as drinking water is not available, said the study.
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/ 16 September 2005
Israel is to set up a "security zone" extending into Palestinian territory in northern Gaza to avoid militants infiltrating the Jewish state, the defence ministry said on Friday. "Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz ordered a security zone to be laid down on the Palestinian side of the northern Gaza Strip in order to minimise the danger to Israeli communities by the chaos reigning in Gaza," a spokesperson said.
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/ 16 September 2005
What does it take to win a slice of the valuable long-term fishing rights that the Department of Environment Affairs and Tourism is about to allocate? Officially, it takes a matrix of biological, economic and transformation criteria, a consideration of the applicant’s capacity and track-record in the industry. Unofficially, it seems numerous companies are relying on a hefty dose of political influence.
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/ 16 September 2005
Transnet this week cancelled the sale of R4-billion’s worth of MTN shares, to a consortium led by former Denel boss Sandile Zungu, over concerns about the governance climate in which the deal was reached and the steeply discounted price.
Zungu told the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> he was about to launch legal action.
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/ 16 September 2005
Women aged 15 to 24 in South Africa are substantially more likely to be HIV-positive than their male counterparts, according to a study published in the September 23 issue of the journal <i>AIDS</i>.
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/ 16 September 2005
Anyone who believes gobbledegook is a flourishing art form will have been well pleased at the joint statement issued last week by Messrs T Mbeki and J Zuma, CEO and Acting Assistant CEO of the people’s consortium, African National Congress, National Party and Imvume Incorporated. Even in its edited form this statement was a masterpiece of its kind.
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/ 15 September 2005
Opec has cut its estimate for the expected increase in global oil demand this year for the fifth time in a row, with the increase now expected to be 1,7% from the 2004 figure, its monthly report showed on Thursday. Global demand is now forecast to be an average 83,5-million barrels per day.
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/ 15 September 2005
South African Reserve Bank (SARB) Governor Tito Mboweni reiterated on Thursday that the SARB prefers to leave the determination of the exchange rate to market forces. On rare occasions, the bank might comment on evidence pointing to possible excesses in price formation in the foreign-exchange market.
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/ 15 September 2005
Global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing group Accenture has changed the structure of its South African operations as a pledge of its commitment to the local community and its support of the South African government’s black economic empowerment (BEE) initiative.
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/ 15 September 2005
It is hard to know what to make of this week’s Cabinet statement affirming the executive’s duty to answer parliamentary questions, while simultaneously hinting that certain questions are unreasonable and a waste of the government’s time. One would like to think that Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka’s appointment to probe the matter is a positive development.
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/ 14 September 2005
Incitement to terrorism is to be banned worldwide under a United Nations Security Council resolution unanimously adopted on Wednesday and promoted by Britain in the wake of the London bombings. Its adoption came against the backdrop of this week’s World Summit at UN headquarters.
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/ 14 September 2005
Vladimir Volkoff, a Franco-Russian author of espionage novels and non-fiction books famed in France, died overnight at home, his publisher, Pierre-Guillaume de Roux, said on Wednesday. He was 72. Volkoff began his literary career in 1962 after serving as a French secret-service officer.
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/ 14 September 2005
Portugal’s biggest bank robber yet, on the run since escaping prison in March, has been recaptured by police after he returned to the country to rent a home, police and reports said on Tuesday. Manuel Simoes netted more than €500 000 (R3,91-million) in 29 bank robberies carried out between 1998 and 2000.
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/ 14 September 2005
Visitors to Croatia’s Zagreb zoo can now experience what it feels like to be a caged animal, zoo management announced on Tuesday. People will be able to walk through two cages and feel what it’s like to be held in captivity, as well as learn why humans are "the most dangerous species on the planet".
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/ 14 September 2005
Big Sheep is challenging Big Brother as a viewing favourite for Croatians. Artist Sinisa Labrovic’s sheep are living, eating and sleeping — and even have writers reading them their works — in a ruined factory building in the Croatian capital, Zagreb, as part of an arts festival.
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/ 14 September 2005
The price of gold is set to hit $480 an ounce by the end of the year as demand reaches a four-year high, particularly in India and the jewellery sector, a metals consultancy predicted on Wednesday. Gold was trading for $448 an ounce on Wednesday on the precious metals market in London.
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/ 14 September 2005
The Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) will try to keep services going during a pay strike that began on Wednesday. The CCMA said that while it cannot guarantee services, a large number of CCMA commissioners are engaged as independent service providers and are not party to the dispute.
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/ 14 September 2005
Sony is aiming for a comeback in the global television industry with a new range of flat-screen televisions that it hopes will boost its share of a market now dominated by domestic and overseas rivals. The Japanese electronics giant will begin selling eight new televisions — both liquid crystal display (LCD) screen and rear-projection — under a new brand, "Bravia," on October 1 in Japan.
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/ 14 September 2005
AirAsia, Southeast Asia’s pioneering low-cost carrier, said on Wednesday its recent sponsorship deal with Manchester United is already proving its worth in attracting business. "Its already paying off. The trend is there. We are now seeing customers from Europe who have changed their holiday plans to come to Malaysia instead," said Kamarudin Meranun, executive director with AirAsia.
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/ 14 September 2005
A car bomb went off Wednesday in a Shi’ite district of Baghdad killing at least 75 people and wounding 162 in one of the most deadly single attacks to date in Iraq, a security official said giving figures obtained from five hospitals. The car was driven by a suicide bomber who drove at speed into a group of construction workers waiting on Uruba square, in the Kazimiyah district, to be hired for daily work.
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/ 14 September 2005
Truth is stranger than fiction. Yes, that’s the clunky theme this week, which hopefully will hold this column together to give it the appearance of being a well thought-out exploration into the nature of life, reality and our place in the universe, using the metaphor of strange news and new discoveries as a vehicle for conveying this.
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/ 13 September 2005
Torn by conflicting desires to help and with desperate needs at home, perennial aid recipients in Africa have confronted a blizzard of emotions in their response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in the wealthy United States. At least five African nations, three of them in the highly undeveloped and disaster prone sub-Saharan Africa, have contributed money to relief efforts.
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/ 13 September 2005
An Indian national on death row in Pakistan convicted as a spy and for setting bombs that killed several people, could get mercy from the victims’ families, Pakistan’s foreign minister said in an interview broadcast on Tuesday. Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri said that the fate of Sarabjit Singh could be decided by the relatives of those killed.
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/ 13 September 2005
Health and life insurance group Discovery Holdings on Tuesday announced the conclusion of a strategic black economic empowerment (BEE) transaction that result in new black partners gaining 7% of the group. This will bring Discovery’s total BEE shareholding to just more than 25%.
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/ 13 September 2005
The United Nations report issued by the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change has found that the United Nations "has been much more effective in addressing the major threats to peace and security than it is given credit for", but that, nonetheless, major changes are needed "to be effective and equitable in providing collective security for all" in the 21st century.
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/ 13 September 2005
Standard Bank has raised R3-billion through a debut securitisation transaction aimed at reducing the bank’s funding requirements and enhancing capital management. A special-purpose company Accelerator Fund 1 has issued asset-backed notes to fund an acquisition of motor-vehicle loans from Standard Bank.
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/ 12 September 2005
Hundreds of people stripped off in Lyon, France, on Sunday to pose naked for United States photographer Spencer Tunick, who has made a name for himself by organising mass nude photo shoots around the world. Men and women of all ages turned up in the early hours to obey Tunick’s orders.
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/ 12 September 2005
Britons have spent billions of pounds on household gadgets such as sandwich toasters and bathroom scales that they ended up never or rarely using, a study said on Monday. An online home-insurance firm Esure estimated Britons have collectively spent £9,4-billion (R109,7-billion) during their lifetime on gadgets.
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/ 12 September 2005
Kagiso Media said on Monday that it has recorded headline earnings per share of 78,7 cents for the 12-month period ended June this year. This represented a 13,3% increase in headline earnings per share from 69,5 cents reported last year. The group declared a final dividend of 44 cents per share.
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/ 12 September 2005
South Africa’s broad-based black economic empowerment (BEE) strategy will be reviewed in 2013, says Minister of Trade and Industry Mandisi Mpahlwa. The minister said the black economic advisory council established by the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act of 2003 will conduct the review.