Sophie Claudet
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/ 31 October 2005

Egyptian lawyer trades arms for politics

Montasser al-Zayat, a former militant from Egypt’s bloodiest Islamist group and ex-prison mate of al-Qaeda’s current eminence grise, is taking his battle against the regime to the ballot box. ”I have long renounced violence and want to enter politics to represent the disenfranchised whom the regime has betrayed,” said Zayat at his law practice in downtown Cairo.

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/ 21 February 2005

Israel pull-out: Settlers vow to fight to death

Settlers vowed on Monday they will not allow Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to drag Israel towards ”disaster” after the historic vote to leave the Gaza Strip, as hundreds of Palestinians were released from prison. ”The disaster that Sharon plans on bringing on to Israel is immoral for human beings,” said a settlers’ spokesperson.

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/ 4 November 2004

Palestinians prepare to grieve

As Yasser Arafat lay brain dead in a Paris hospital on Thursday, Palestinians in the town that he left less than a week ago for life-saving treatment were already preparing to mourn their veteran leader. Flags were flying half-mast over Arafat’s headquarters compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah in tribute to the United Arab Emirates’ founding father, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahayan, who died earlier this week.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-InternationalNews&ao=124991">Arafat ‘will not recover'</a>

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/ 1 November 2004

Volunteers pick through fruit in search for remains

Ultra-Orthodox volunteers were picking through the debris of fruit and vegetables on Monday as they tried to retrieve body parts of the victims of a suicide bombing in a cramped Tel Aviv marketplace. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, currently in hospital outside Paris, condemned the deadly suicide bombing.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-InternationalNews&ao=124718">Market blast rocks Tel Aviv</a>

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/ 1 November 2004

Market blast rocks Tel Aviv

At least four people were killed and 30 others wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up in an open-air market in the Israeli commercial capital, Tel Aviv, on Monday, police said. It was the first such attack in Israel since twin suicide bus bombings in the southern city of Beesheva on August 31 that killed 15 people.