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/ 21 February 2005
Health and life insurer Discovery Holdings reported a 43% leap in headline earnings for the six months that ended on December 31, 2004. Headline earnings swelled from R134-million to R191-million, resulting in headline earnings per share increasing on a diluted basis from 26,4 cents to 35,7 cents.
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/ 21 February 2005
"Players of the online game <i>Everquest</i> can now order pizza from within the game itself. Now that’s a sign of a society that’s moving in the right direction. Who needs streets, housing, sanitation, civil order, education or a decent government?" Ian Fraser delves into the world of the internet and comes up with weird headstones, brains in bottles and much more.
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/ 18 February 2005
In contrast to the corporate environment, small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) will shy away from voice over internet protocol (VoIP) in 2005. These are the latest findings from a study conducted by World Wide Worx, which announced in January that 78% of corporations surveyed will be using the technology by the end of the year.
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/ 18 February 2005
Few sights are as comical as a low-wattage academic astride his war-donkey. Michiel Heyns, once of Stellenbosch University, came wobbling into the plagiarism lists last week on a beast that had clearly gone lame. Sir Michiel was jousting in favour of redefining plagiarism as a steal-by-numbers system.
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/ 18 February 2005
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) on Thursday hit out at the government over its alleged "persistent kowtowing to employers’ blackmail". Cosatu’s statement came a week after President Thabo Mbeki, in his State of the Nation address, mooted the relaxation of South Africa’s labour market to boost small business in the country.
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/ 18 February 2005
Those hoping for daybreak after 14 years of chaos in Somalia realised this week they were experiencing a false dawn. The slow move homewards of the new government of Abdullahi Yusuf was to have started next week. Now it appears to be facing further delays. Somali warlords have made their point: the country is still too dangerous for the government to work in.
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/ 17 February 2005
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/ 17 February 2005
The Constitution is clear on the transformation of the legal system: "The need for the judiciary to reflect broadly the racial and gender composition of South Africa must be considered when judicial officers are appointed," And it gives the job of considering to the Judicial Service Commission, which tries very hard to fill vacant posts with black candidates, and women. It doesn’t always have an easy time of it.
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/ 16 February 2005
The South African housing market is expected to be supported by strong economic growth in 2005 and the momentum in house-price growth established last year is set to continue into 2005, with nominal growth of between 15% and 20% projected for the year, Absa senior economist Jacques du Toit said on Wednesday.
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/ 16 February 2005
A British supermarket chain said on Tuesday it will start selling £19 (R210) replicas of Camilla Parker Bowles’s royal engagement ring when she marries Prince Charles on April 8. "Camilla’s ring is a timeless classic, and we want our customers to have a taste of royalty for a fraction of the price," said Justine Reid, who purchases jewellery for Asda.
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/ 16 February 2005
She was "Big Meg", the largest of all spiders that ever strode the Earth. The 300-million-year-old fossil was so famous that plaster casts of her body are on display in numerous museums and copies can be purchased over the internet for hundreds of dollars apiece.
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/ 16 February 2005
Red-faced government officials have been forced to review thousands of road signs just erected throughout Hong Kong after several were found to have been spelled wrong, a report said on Wednesday. Among the worst offenders were Supereme Court Road, which should have been Supreme Court Road, and Club Stree (Club Street).
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/ 16 February 2005
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/ 16 February 2005
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/ 16 February 2005
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/ 16 February 2005
Brian Pottinger, CEO of Johnnic Communications (Africa), takes a strong interest in the video CDs sold on the streets of Lagos. As well he should, being head of the South African media company’s foray into other parts of Africa. "Just two days after the international release of <i>The Passion of the Christ</i>, the street vendors in Lagos were selling pirate copies," says Pottinger.
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/ 16 February 2005
A new strain of HIV — resistant to three of the four classes of antiretroviral drugs available — has been identified in New York, say officials.
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/ 16 February 2005
Listed aviation company Comair has returned to the black, thanks to increased passenger volumes and improved load factors. The airline on Wednesday reported headline earnings per share of 5,4 cents for the six months ended December 31 2004 from a loss of 1,4 cents for the same period a year ago.
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/ 16 February 2005
The South African Wine and Brandy Company has launched the a survey to ascertain the industry’s local and global competitiveness. Johan van Rooyen, SAWB CEO, said the study will seek to determine what factors are enhancing or constraining the industry in the quest to be more competitive, and how "truly competitive" the industry is on an international scale.
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/ 16 February 2005
Just fifteen years ago, FW De Klerk altered the South African paradigm when he unbanned the African National Congress and released Nelson Mandela. In the years that followed, many other paradigms were shifted and other forms of statesmanship displayed as a transition was successfully negotiated. Two weeks ago, the Zimbabwean election date was announced by Robert Mugabe’s government. Can we expect statesmanship?
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/ 15 February 2005
Against the backdrop of increased unemployment in the past 10 years in South Africa, the country needs a "green revolution" in which the government plays a key role in branding and promoting South African produce and products, says Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi. He was speaking in the debate on Tuesday on Friday’s State of the Nation address by President Thabo Mbeki.
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/ 15 February 2005
A three-year-old boy with an intelligence quotient of 137 has become the youngest current member of the British chapter of Mensa, the international society for highly intelligent people, Mensa said on Monday. Mikhail Ali, from the northern English city of Leeds, was admitted to Mensa after undergoing tests at the University of York.
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/ 15 February 2005
Surging demand for toilet paper in China has some of the nation’s suppliers in a flush, state press said on Tuesday. The vice-director of the Shanghai Paper Trade Association said he is "beginning to worry about the large wood consumption", and the industry needs to consider other technologies and uses.
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/ 15 February 2005
"(* Just kidding about the porn. Although it does relate to a story demonstrating the power of using the word in an article heading.) In the meantime, police in Germany are irritated as hell at some happy pranksters who have been planting little United States flags in dog-poo piles for some time now. Piles of poo in parks and on sidewalks have been sprouting little flags, in a cheerfully anarchic form of political protest."
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/ 15 February 2005
"Many make ‘independence’ a mere synonym for government-bashing. David Unterhalter, Leon’s former campaign manager, is a partisan acknowledged in Leon’s collected speeches, <i>Hope and Fear</i>. Judicial transformation creates, he says, ‘an expectation of executive-mindedness to which judges may, even subliminally, fall prey’." Ronald Suresh Roberts comments.
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/ 14 February 2005
Councillors in Alice Springs have offered to take Prince Charles on an Aussie-style stag night when he visits next month, while promising the heir to the throne will not end up chained naked to a lamp post. Charles will arrive in Australia for a five-day visit taking in the remote Northern Territory town on February 28.
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/ 14 February 2005
A major Indonesian food manufacturer has secured a place in the <i>Guinness Book of Records</i> by producing the world’s largest packet and the largest serving of instant noodles. The giant packet, created by PT Indofood Sukses Makmur, was 3,4m long, 2,35m wide and 0,47m thick.
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/ 14 February 2005
A Sydney shopping mall launched a "cereal dating" night at its supermarket on Monday, telling singles to come "get frisky at the fruit counter" for a Valentine’s night out. Singles eager to meet a kindred soul can cruise the supermarket aisles with message-sending breakfast-cereal boxes perched on their carts.
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/ 14 February 2005
A Hong Kong tree that according to legend is imbued with lucky powers proved unlucky for two people when part of it collapsed on them, police and government officials said on Sunday. A huge branch from the city’s famous Lam Tsuen Wishing Tree fell on a 62-year-old man and a four-year-old boy.
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/ 14 February 2005
A Swedish woman said on Sunday that she found a penis in a bottle of ketchup. However, Viktoria Ed said she was lucky enough to discover the organ before putting the sauce on her bread rolls, unlike her husband, Stefan, and their children, Madeleine and Simon.
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/ 14 February 2005
The JSE Securities Exchange’s (JSE) new interest-rate exchange, Yield-X, will start trading on February 28 this year, the JSE said on Monday. In October last year, the JSE announced that it would launch a new interest-rate platform to trade a broad spectrum of interest-rate products, with a focus on derivatives.
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/ 11 February 2005
As we move from tsunami relief to rebuilding, it is equally critical that we work to break the cycle of poverty and create a better, more hopeful future for the peoples of the region and not recreate the circumstances that made them vulnerable to the disaster. The enormous effect of this tragedy is one of many reminders that we are all linked together by forces that are both visible and invisible.