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/ 11 January 2008

Bafana desperate to halt Nations Cup slide

South Africa head for Ghana desperate to arrest a slide in African Nations Cup fortunes. Since that amazing day in February 1996 when Nelson Mandela presented the trophy to Neil Tovey, Bafana Bafana have performed worse at each subsequent edition. A second-place finish behind Egypt in the next edition of the biennial tournament was followed by third place in 2000.

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/ 11 January 2008

Pienaar storms out of press conference

South Africa midfielder Steven Pienaar stormed out of a press conference on Thursday after refusing to answer questions about his late arrival at a 2008 Africa Cup of Nations camp. ”I’m going,” shouted the Everton star after his attempt to set the agenda was rejected by journalists in Durban, where Bafana Bafana are training.

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/ 11 January 2008

Cashing in on kids’ dreams

It is breakfast time in the slums of Jamestown, outside the Ghanaian capital, Accra. From within corrugated tin shacks and under slum tarpaulins comes the metallic clatter of early morning chores and the promise of plantains and hot milk. Defying their mothers, the local children are already on the beach playing football.

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/ 11 January 2008

Bucknor: Honourable man who made honest mistakes

Steve Bucknor looks a weary man. Hardly surprising, of course, given the delinquency that surrounded him and Mark Benson in the course of five days in Sydney. Now that he has been jettisoned from officiating in Perth’s third Test between Australia and India and, taking the positive view, he can at least put his feet up for a few days and watch.

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/ 11 January 2008

Everest conqueror Edmund Hillary dies

New Zealand’s Edmund Hillary, who along with Nepal’s Tenzing Norgay Sherpa became the first to conquer Mount Everest, died in hospital on Friday. He was 88. New Zealand flags flew at half mast at Scott Base in Antarctica on Friday, mourning the loss of one of the greatest adventurers of the 20th century.

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/ 11 January 2008

The tears over coffee that turned round poll

It was the defining moment of the New Hampshire race: Hillary Clinton, the icy control queen of the Democratic party welling up with emotion — and it may have won her an improbable victory over Barack Obama. The emotional moment in a café on the eve of Tuesday’s poll was widely credited on Thursday for bringing female voters back to the Clinton fold.