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/ 19 February 2007
Israel and the United States have agreed to refuse recognition to a new Palestinian coalition government ahead of talks in Jerusalem on Monday, the Israeli prime minister said on Sunday, reducing the already slim prospects of progress in the peace process.
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/ 19 February 2007
A meltdown of ice sheets and severe sea level rise could be inevitable because of global warming, the world’s scientists are preparing to warn their governments. New studies have forced a United Nations expert panel to conclude there is a 50% chance that widespread ice sheet loss ”may no longer be avoided”.
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/ 19 February 2007
Twenty four hours after being thrust into the limelight of today’s gossip-obsessed celebrity culture, Britney Spears’ newly freed hair was considering its future. While advisers gathered, agents hovered and rehab beckoned, the hair was said to be resting at a salon in Los Angeles, simply trying to find itself.
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/ 19 February 2007
Police in Zimbabwe fired teargas and used water cannon to break up an opposition rally on Sunday as it was confirmed that three people had died in a cholera outbreak caused by water contamination in the country’s increasingly chaotic towns and cities.
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/ 19 February 2007
The South African nuclear community has taken the government’s recent support for nuclear energy as a cue to plan local uranium enrichment. Processing uranium will secure South Africa’s nuclear fuel supply in the event that the domestic nuclear energy market grows. Experts highlight the soaring price of uranium internationally and project a supply shortage as incentives to process uranium locally.
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/ 19 February 2007
The parents of 24 000 children in northern Pakistan refused to allow health workers to administer polio vaccinations last month, mostly due to rumours that the harmless vaccine was an American plot to sterilise innocent Muslim children. The disinformation has caused a sharp jump in polio cases in Pakistan
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/ 19 February 2007
The British and Kenyan governments weighed into the growing debate over "food miles" this week, insisting it was ethically and environmentally sound to buy flowers from Kenya on Valentine’s Day. There is increasing concern at the amount of carbon emitted by the fleets of aircraft that carry millions of flowers to Europe every day from the East African nation.
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/ 19 February 2007
The roadblock was unexpected. Driving to Colombo along Sri Lanka’s south-west coast, we were forced on to a side street by police in Hikkaduwa, one of the island’s main tourist centres. There must have been a multiple crash, we assumed, as the detour along narrow village lanes took us past rice paddies shimmering in the afternoon sun, writes Jonathan Steele.
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/ 19 February 2007
Despite a court ruling allowing Old Mutual to pay out only R2-million in terms of its surplus apportionment scheme, last week the company announced it would pay out the full R82-million as per letters sent to former pension-fund members in September last year.
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/ 19 February 2007
The snapping up of a controlling stake in India’s fourth-largest mobile phone operator, Hutchison Essar (Hutch), is being seen as transformational for Vodafone — and a major coup for its chief executive, Arun Sarin, less than a year after a shareholder rebellion over uncertainty aaout the group’s direction.