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/ 24 December 2007
It was a casual chat with a colleague ahead of the start of a long weekend. I told her I would be spending some time at a drinking hole somewhere in Soweto. She pointed out that she did not like Soweto pubs much because they seemed too "nice". She preferred those of the rural Eastern Cape, crowded little places where people sit on crates and drink from 750ml bottles.
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/ 24 December 2007
Michael is a recently lapsed Jehovah’s Witness living in my block of flats at the end of the corridor. Since he split from his wife of five years, he’s been dabbling in Anglicanism, which, from his description, sounds less like a faith than a hobby. He tried Catholicism first, but found the hymns grim and the sermons hard on his knees.
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/ 24 December 2007
Reports that South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) chief executive Dali Mpofu was going to resign were dismissed by the broadcaster on Monday. According to a report in the Sunday Times, Mpofu was heard saying at the African National Congress’s 52nd national conference in Polokwane that he would resign.
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/ 24 December 2007
Whether it’s drug dealers shooting at Santa in Rio, a father selling off a present to punish his son in Canada, or Manila authorities banning carols, Scrooge would have a field day this Christmas. In Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro, suspected drug dealers fired gunshots at a helicopter flying Santa Claus into a slum to deliver presents to poor children.
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/ 24 December 2007
A national plan is in place to give thousands of matriculants who are not expected to pass this year a second chance, a newspaper reported on Monday. ”Education departments confirmed on Sunday that the plan was being finalised at provincial level,” the report in Beeld said.
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/ 24 December 2007
Five bodies were pulled from the ruins of a 12-storey apartment building that collapsed on Monday in the northern Egyptian port city of Alexandria, police said. Ambulances and civil defence teams rushed to the site of the collapse in the Loran district in the east of the coastal city and began rescue operations, a source said.
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/ 24 December 2007
The Scottish government said on Monday it will pay to insert advertisements discouraging drinking and driving into video games. The trial project will see the ads appear on virtual billboards within several games for Microsoft Xbox consoles, including Need for Speed: Carbon, Project Gotham Racing IV and NBA Live.
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/ 24 December 2007
A heavy snowstorm pelted the American Midwest, causing deadly road accidents and power failures and grounding flights for Christmas holiday travellers, United States media reported on Monday. The storm left at least 11 dead in car crashes across the central US over the weekend, local papers said.
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/ 24 December 2007
Gloom was banished from Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem for the first time in years on Monday as Christian pilgrims from all over the world flocked here to celebrate the birth of Jesus in an atmosphere of renewed tranquillity. In the Gaza Strip, however, the mood was much more somber than in Bethlehem.
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/ 24 December 2007
For many in inflation-riddled Zimbabwe this year, Christmas isn’t quite what it used to be. In a glitzy department store on Harare’s main First Street, there are no customers at the almost bare perfume counters. Upstairs in the toy department, Santa has disappeared from his grotto. Outside, about 500 weary customers queue for cash at a bank.