Harry Potter fever is gripping book stores across the world in the countdown to next month’s launch of the sixth volume in the boy wizard series, which looks set to become the biggest-selling novel to date. Multimillionaire author Joanne ”JK” Rowling is due to unveil Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in Edinburgh Castle, Scotland, at midnight on the morning of July 16.
The stakes are high for British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Thursday’s election, as a loss or narrow win by his Labour Party may end his career, while a triumph will define him as one of Britain’s political masters. Arch-rival Michael Howard also faces a defining moment, the experts predicted on Thursday.
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/ 24 February 2005
Heads should roll in the royal household over a series of missteps in the preparations for the wedding of Britain’s heir to the throne Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles, experts say. From the rushed marriage announcement to the sudden decision by Queen Elizabeth II to miss her son’s civil ceremony, has tarnished the whole family’s reputation, they say.
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/ 17 December 2004
The United Nations said on Friday it recently found a bugging device at its European headquarters in Geneva, while a UN source hinted that similar devices may have been discovered in the past. A UN source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it is the first time the world body has acknowledged such a discovery.
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/ 19 October 2004
A British official from a leading international aid organisation was kidnapped in Iraq on Tuesday as four Iraqi national guards were killed and scores wounded in a mortar attack. Britain has hinted it will agree to a request by the United States to send some of its troops to more unstable areas.
Fallujah siege continues
The United Nations’s health body raised alarm on Tuesday over a jump in deadly cases of hepatitis E in Sudan’s Darfur region and another agency said a new wave of refugees has fled to neighbouring Chad to escape the violence.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=120506">Refugees ‘lose hope in peace process'</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=120486">Darfur’s messenger of peace</a>
A pocket-sized computer that warns you when it might rain and a walking, talking boy-shaped robot are just two dreams that Sony Corporation said it was turning into reality.
Despite recession, cheap drugs and sex sell well in Japan