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/ 20 February 2006

Africa by bike

”It was late afternoon, the sun still murderously hot — and having biked almost 70km on increasingly difficult dirt roads, I was suffering. I carried on but froze when I turned the corner. Just ahead of me a dozen giraffe were emerging from the bush, slowly crossing the road,” writes Simon Birch.

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/ 20 February 2006

Rautenbach ordered to vacate Zim farm

Fugitive Zimbabwean business tycoon Billy Rautenbach, who is also a top ally of President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party, has been given up to May to vacate his farm as the government appears determined to seize all land still in the hands of whites, reports independent news service ZimOnline.

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/ 20 February 2006

Trapped: Rescuers try to reach 66 miners

Sixty-six miners were trapped underground on Sunday after a pre-dawn gas explosion led tunnels to collapse inside a coal mine where they were working in northern Mexico. Soldiers, firefighters, civil protection workers and specialised teams from the mine company were expected to work through the night in a desperate attempt to reach the men.

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/ 20 February 2006

Ponting urges players to interact with SA crowds

Australian skipper Ricky Ponting wants his team to help defuse anticipated hostile South African crowds and engage them in friendly banter while fielding during this month’s one-day cricket series. Ponting’s comments follow South African wicketkeeper Mark Boucher’s urging of South African crowds to give the Australians a hard time.

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/ 20 February 2006

Cartoon protests continue across globe

Pakistani protesters enraged by caricatures of the prophet Muhammad set fire to a church in Sindh province on Sunday as police battled with rioters in the federal capital, Islamabad. About 400 people attacked the church in the city of Sukkur after accusations that a local Christian had burned pages from the Qur’an, local police said.

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/ 20 February 2006

Mengistu ‘brains behind Zim clean-up’

Exiled Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam was the brains behind last year’s brutal clean-up campaign in Zimbabwe that left nearly a million people homeless, the independent news service ZimOnline has established. Mengistu reportedly warned Mugabe that the swelling slum population was creating a fertile ground for a mass uprising.

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/ 20 February 2006

The healing route

Designed to relax and revive stressed-out urbanites, the Healing Route takes you into the cool, calm heart of the Magoe-baskloof mountains with stop-overs at spots renowned for their soulful offerings and restor-ative powers. First stop is Kurisa Moya — the name means tranquil spirit — set on a wild mountainside overlooking the Kudu’s River Valley.

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/ 20 February 2006

Blast rocks Philippine palace grounds

A loud explosion rocked the grounds of the Philippine presidential palace on Monday, causing no casualties or damage, as a group of self-proclaimed military rebels vowed an ”explosive protest” against President Gloria Arroyo. A second explosive device went off in Manila’s financial district of Makati, wounding a boy.