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/ 26 October 2006
To veil or not to veil is no longer the question in Egypt. From abject neighbourhoods to chic suburban enclaves Muslim women are instead mulling whether to opt for a strict coverall, or a hipper headscarf. After three decades of Islamic revival, bare-headed women have become a slender minority — and many of them are Coptic Christians
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/ 26 October 2006
Parkinson’s disease has become the latest battleground in the American midterm elections, with the rightwing talk radio host Rush Limbaugh locked in an unseemly wrangle with the actor and Parkinson’s sufferer Michael J Fox. Limbaugh was forced to apologise to the actor after he accused Fox of exaggerating the symptoms of his illness in an election television advert
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/ 26 October 2006
A Zimbabwean man has spent nine years in prison waiting to be tried for murder, Harare’s Herald newspaper reported on Thursday. Its website said a visiting judge found Marko Simakani in a remand prison last week, and he finally appeared in the High Court in Harare on Tuesday.
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/ 26 October 2006
An unmanned Delta rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral air force station in Florida on Wednesday carrying a pair of solar probes to track potentially disruptive solar storms. The Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or Stereo, is designed to take three-dimensional pictures of the solar outbursts so scientists can pinpoint where the storms are heading.
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/ 26 October 2006
European planemaker Airbus agreed on Thursday to sell 150 of its narrow-bodied A320 family of aircraft to China and reached a final deal to make the jets in the country, its chief executive said. The deal also involves options for 20 A350s, said Airbus president and chief executive Louis Gallois in Beijing, where French President Jacques Chirac is also visiting.
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/ 26 October 2006
Starbucks, the giant United States coffee chain, has used its muscle to block an attempt by Ethiopia’s farmers to copyright their most famous coffee bean types, denying them potential earnings of up to -million a year, said Oxfam. The development agency said the Ethiopian government last year filed copyright applications to trademark its most famous coffee names.
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/ 26 October 2006
Africa’s political leaders are being offered a -million prize and a stipend for life if they do not plunder the national coffers or rig elections.
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/ 26 October 2006
Two senior KwaZulu-Natal education officials have been suspended amid a probe into alleged procurement irregularities, media reports said on Thursday. The staff at the education department head office in Pietermaritz Street were surprised to see a team of people arrive on Wednesday with boxes.
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/ 26 October 2006
South Africa will enhance peacekeeping and conflict resolution in Africa while serving on the United Nations Security Council, Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said on Wednesday. She said at the London School of Economics that the government’s vision for a prosperous, peaceful, democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and united Africa would influence its work on the council.
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/ 26 October 2006
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South African taxpayers have contributed R10-million towards axed deputy president Jacob Zuma’s defence costs, the Star newspaper reports. The figure was reflected in the Presidency’s revised budget vote in Wednesday’s mini-budget tabled by Finance Minister Trevor Manuel.