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/ 12 May 2008

AA cautions against fuel-saving gadgets

A wonder fuel-saving pill has entered the local market but the Automobile Association (AA) warned consumers on Monday to be cautious of such products. The tablet, called the MPG Cap, is added to tanks to make petrol burn more efficiently, said Tim Dunstan-Smith, who claims he was the first person to bring the product to South Africa.

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/ 10 May 2008

Obama momentum builds in White House race

Barack Obama moved closer to sewing up the Democratic presidential nomination on Friday with more superdelegates rallying to his side, as rival Hillary Clinton fought on despite mounting odds against her. Clinton has vowed no surrender and plunged straight back into campaigning before the May 13 primary in West Virginia.

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/ 9 May 2008

Obama hints that Clinton could be running mate

Barack Obama on Thursday gave the clearest hint yet that he may consider Hillary Clinton as his vice-presidential running mate in the November election for the White House. With the campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination close to finished as a contest, Obama began looking beyond his battles with Clinton to the one with the Republican John McCain.

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/ 2 May 2008

Fatigue, racism threaten to knock Obama

Barack Obama was showing signs of campaign fatigue. Sitting on a picnic bench in a park on Pagoda Street, Indianapolis, in discussion with a group of 30 supporters, he told a story about the ”modest” background of himself and his wife, Michelle. And 10 minutes later, seemingly having forgotten, he told them it all again.

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/ 24 February 2008

Huckabee overstays his welcome

Even though Mike Huckabee is still battling for the Republican presidential nomination despite long odds, he said he won’t ”overstay his welcome”. Then he did precisely that on Saturday night, lingering on the set in a scripted gag on the comedy skit show Saturday Night Live despite repeated cues to leave the stage.

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/ 21 February 2008

McCain denies relationship with lobbyist

John McCain denied a romantic relationship with a female American telecommunications lobbyist on Thursday and said a report by the New York Times suggesting favouritism for her clients is ”not true”. The likely Republican presidential nominee described the woman in question, lobbyist Vicki Iseman, as a friend.

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/ 11 February 2008

Jaws actor Roy Scheider dead at 75

Actor Roy Scheider, a two-time Oscar nominee best known for his roles as a small-town police chief in Jaws and his portrait of famed choreographer Bob Fosse in All That Jazz, died on February 10 at age 75. Scheider died of complications from multiple myeloma, a cancer of the blood cells.

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/ 6 February 2008

Super Tuesday: The winners and the losers

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama dug in for a protracted slog for the Democratic White House nomination in the United States after battling to a brutal draw in their Super Tuesday showdown. John McCain, meanwhile, strode closer to the top of the Republican ticket, as Mitt Romney failed to halt his charge and Mike Huckabee picked up the slack.

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/ 28 January 2008

Now Obama has the momentum

Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton jockeyed for position on Sunday in a bruising United States presidential race after Obama scored a landslide win in a South Carolina primary tinged with the issue of race. ”I think [the result] speaks extraordinarily well, not just for folks in the South, but all across the country,” said Obama.

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/ 31 December 2007

Civility abandoned in US as negative campaigning works

The presidential candidates in the United States stepped up their personal attacks on Sunday to try to squeeze out an advantage in the extremely tight contest for the Iowa caucuses, now only three days away. As Democratic and Republican candidates toured in the final push before the January 3 caucuses, new polls showed the negative campaigning was effective.

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/ 19 December 2007

Putin is Time magazine’s person of the year

Time magazine named Russian President Vladimir Putin its person of the year for 2007 on Wednesday, saying he had returned his country from chaos to ”the table of world power” though at a cost to democratic principles. ”He’s not a good guy, but he’s done extraordinary things,” said Time managing editor Richard Stengel.

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/ 18 December 2007

TV hosts return to work as union targets Oscars

Late-night TV comedians Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien said on Monday they will resume taping their shows on January 2, and cross picket lines if necessary, after nearly two months off the air in support of striking film and television writers. The decision by Leno and O’Brien to go back to work shows that solidarity has its limits.

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/ 15 December 2007

Strike ends most US scripted TV work

Production on all but two of the last few scripted prime-time television shows shooting in Los Angeles ground to a halt on Friday as a crippling strike by Hollywood writers neared the end of its sixth week. The cost of the strike in terms of lost TV production spending in Southern California alone has reached about -million a week,

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/ 28 November 2007

Bush launches Middle East talks amid scepticism

United States President George Bush invited Israeli and Palestinian leaders to the White House to renew long-stalled peace talks on Wednesday but faced deep scepticism over chances for a deal. Finally embracing a hands-on approach, Bush will ceremonially inaugurate the first formal Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations in seven years.

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/ 10 November 2007

Studios and scribes draw up battle lines

”OJ’s in court today and I’m standing here. I don’t want to be here. I want to be in there, doing my job.” Joe Medeiros nods at the hulk of the NBC building in Burbank, Los Angeles, outside which he and a gaggle of fellow red-shirted pickets have been walking in circles for the best part of the morning.

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/ 17 September 2007

Sopranos bows out with top Emmy honours

United Sates mob drama The Sopranos said its final farewells when it picked up the top award at the 59th annual Emmy awards in Los Angeles on Sunday at television’s equivalent of the Oscars. The groundbreaking HBO series, which ended in June after an eight-year run, took home the awards for outstanding drama, best writing and directing.