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/ 20 September 2004
A Swiss woman who drove her car into a French police van, killing two officers, while distracted by sending a cellphone text message was sentenced on Monday to two-and-a-half years in prison by a court in France. The judge found that Angela Shala (33) was criminally negligent in causing the June 2003 accident.
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/ 20 September 2004
A blind man was jailed for eight years by an Australian court on Monday for slashing a deaf man’s throat because he was so enraged by the noise from his stereo and television. George Gerard Goeldner (49) pleaded guilty at the Brisbane Supreme Court to the manslaughter of Francis John Butcher (54).
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/ 20 September 2004
Police shot a man in the thigh after he wrapped himself with two deadly cobras and threatened to commit suicide, then swung the snakes at officers who had rushed to his home in southern Austria, officials said on Monday. One of the cobras bit the 40-year-old man in the hand during Sunday afternoon’s stand-off.
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/ 20 September 2004
South Africa has launched an ambitious policy for biotechnology, according to the Science and Development Network. The Department of Science and Technology document has identified the main beneficiaries as health services, agriculture, industry, mining and the environment.
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/ 20 September 2004
Saddam Hussein spends his days tending plants and playing board games as he waits to be put on trial for his life, according to Iraq’s United States-backed leadership in interviews on Monday offering a glimpse into the spartan routine of the once-all-powerful dictator. Their portraits included at least three descriptions of Saddam.
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/ 20 September 2004
A scathing United States report on religious freedoms, accusing Saudi Arabia of backing anti-Jewish and anti-Christian campaigns, met with stony silence last week from the government in Riyadh. But a member of the appointed Shura (consultative) Council lashed out at the State Department charges, insisting that freedom of belief is respected in the conservative Muslim kingdom.
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/ 20 September 2004
Last-ditch attempts to save the life of a British man being held hostage by Iraqi militants were under way on Sunday night as a deadline set by his kidnappers loomed. The families of Kenneth Bigley and the two Americans being held with him begged the kidnappers not to carry out a threat to execute the men when the deadline was reached in the early hours on Monday morning.
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/ 20 September 2004
Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is being warned that North American bishops will cut off funds from the Anglican church in Africa if they are disciplined for supporting the election of a gay bishop, in a row which threatens to split the worldwide church.
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/ 20 September 2004
The former leaders of Rwanda’s army and gendarmerie boycotted the start of their own genocide trial on Monday, accusing the United Nations-mandated tribunal of bias. During Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, the two men, Major General Augustin Bizimungu and General Ndindiliyimana, served respectively as chief of staff of the Hutu-dominated army and gendarmerie.
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/ 20 September 2004
The United Nations atomic agency’s call on Iran to suspend fully uranium enrichment goes against the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a senior Iranian official said in Vienna on Monday. Uranium enrichment is not banned by the NPT, Iranian atomic energy chief Reza Aghazadeh said.
Iran threatens to halt UN access