Michael Georgy
Guest Author
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/ 7 February 2007

Hu says Chinese drive will not hurt Africa

President Hu Jintao, apparently seeking to ease concerns over China’s investment drive in Africa, said on Wednesday that Beijing’s business interests would not hurt the continent. Speaking at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, Hu frequently used the word ”trust” to outline his vision of China’s economic ties with Africa.

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/ 2 February 2007

Jury out on al-Qaeda presence in SA

The Dockrat cousins were leading a seemingly normal life in South Africa — one a cleric at a mosque, the other a dentist with a practice in Johannesburg. Then they popped up as suspects on Washington’s al-Qaeda radar screens and set off alarm bells from the United States to Pretoria about a country seldom associated with Osama bin Laden or radical Islam.

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/ 30 January 2007

Laila Ali gets some Madiba magic

Champion United States female boxer Laila Ali said on Tuesday that 88-year-old anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela reminded her of her father Muhammad Ali, one of the greatest boxers of all time. ”He is a very humble man and there is a lot of energy in the room; I could feel his spirit,” Ali said in Johannesburg, where she is due to fight a title match next month.

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/ 29 January 2007

Al-Qaeda inroads into sleepy SA town?

The sleepy South African town of Laudium seems a world away from the mountainous frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan believed to be Osama bin Laden’s hiding place. But United States officials allege a Muslim cleric in this place surrounded by green countryside is part of al-Qaeda’s fundraising network.

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/ 18 January 2007

Power cuts ripple across SA

Power cuts rippled across South Africa on Thursday, blacking out parts of major cities and spurring warnings from state utility Eskom that unexpected shortages could extend into next week. The cuts, which Eskom attributed to power-station maintenance and the shutdown of one unit at Koeberg, caused power failures stretching from Cape Town to Johannesburg.

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/ 22 August 2006

Kurd accuses Saddam in court of poison gas attacks

An Iraqi Kurd told Saddam Hussein’s genocide trial on Tuesday how jets dropped poison gas smelling of rotten apples on his mountain village and aides to the ousted leader defended his campaign against Kurdish rebels. Saddam refused to plead and called the court a tool of the occupation. The Shi’ite judge entered a not guilty plea for him.

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/ 21 August 2006

Saddam back in court on genocide charges

Saddam Hussein refused to enter a plea as he and six former army commanders went on trial in Baghdad on Monday on charges of killing tens of thousands of Kurdish villagers in a genocide campaign in 1988. The former president again challenged the legitimacy of the United States-sponsored special tribunal.