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/ 27 December 2007

Reactors could burn weapons plutonium

A new generation of nuclear power plants could burn 100 tonnes of surplus weapons-grade plutonium as a good way of keeping it away from terrorists, according to scientists working for the European Union. Most of Britain’s weapons-grade plutonium is held in bunkers at the Sellafield complex in Cumbria, behind three perimeters of razor wire.

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/ 27 December 2007

Chad court jails Zoe’s Ark workers

Six French aid workers were sentenced to eight years of hard labour each after a court in Chad found them guilty on Wednesday of trying to kidnap 103 children from the African country. The court in the capital N’Djamena handed down its sentence on the fourth day of the trial of six members of the French humanitarian group Zoe’s Ark.

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/ 27 December 2007

Indonesia struggles to reach landslide victims

Indonesian rescuers struggled on Thursday to pull out bodies and reach survivors following Central Java landslides, as floods blocked roads and damaged bridges in the area where over 80 people are feared dead, officials said. Thousands of people have been left homeless after their homes were submerged by heavy floods or buried by landslides caused by days of torrential rains.

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/ 27 December 2007

Tiger escapes US zoo to kill visitor

Investigators were combing San Francisco zoo on Wednesday to find out how a 136kg tiger with a record of attacking humans managed to escape from its cage, kill one man and maul two others. Police were called to the zoo after the animal, a four-year-old female Siberian tiger named Tatiana, went missing from her pen.

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/ 27 December 2007

Kenyans vote in close election, violence feared

Guarded by police, Kenyans voted on Thursday in a presidential election preceded by violence, tainted by allegations of rigging and likely to be the closest in more than four decades since independence from Britain. President Mwai Kibaki (76) having unseated the country’s 24-year ruling party in 2002, himself faces the possibility of losing power.