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/ 27 December 2005
South Africa dug in for a war of attrition after Mike Hussey revived Australia’s chances with a dynamic rearguard century on the second day of the second cricket Test in Melbourne on Tuesday. The South Africans lost both openers, skipper Graeme Smith (22) and AB de Villiers (61), after Australia ended their first innings on 355.
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/ 27 December 2005
Somalis said prayers in mosques along their Indian Ocean coastline for more than 30 000 survivors left homeless and without livelihoods by the tsunami that traversed the sea from Asia, with many wondering what had happened to promised aid, presidential spokesperson Yusuf Ismail said on Monday.
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/ 27 December 2005
Chad’s President Idriss Deby late on Monday accused neighbouring Sudan of preparing a new ”aggression” by Chadian rebel groups operating out of Sudanese territory, after an attack on the eastern border town of Adre on December 18. Such an attack is being planned at El Geinena in western Sudan, Deby declared.
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/ 27 December 2005
At least 20 people have died from hunger and related illness in drought-hit northern Kenya this month, local officials said on Tuesday as President Mwai Kibaki prepared to inspect relief operations in the region. There has been a national outcry over what local media have dubbed the ”Christmas famine”.
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/ 27 December 2005
Nearly 80 people suffered coughing and breathing problems on Monday after a gas was released in one of four apparently criminal attacks on a major chain of Saint Petersburg shops, officials in Russia’s second city said. Terrorism was not suspected, a spokesperson for the Federal Security Service said.
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/ 27 December 2005
Russia and Ukraine are on the brink of a political crisis over gas prices that symbolises the widening gulf between the two former Soviet countries. The Russian gas monopoly Gazprom is threatening to cut off flows if Ukraine does not agree to pay quadrupled prices for the energy that comprises a third of its needs.
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/ 27 December 2005
Inhabitants of a small village in north-west France were on Monday debating how to spend a fortune left to it by one of its sons who made his money on the other side of the world. Jean Kerfers died earlier this year at Noumea in the Pacific Ocean archipelago of New Caledonia. He had left the village after World War II to work in Australia.
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/ 27 December 2005
A British man is giving a whole new meaning to begging to be loved as he set off on Monday on an 88,5km crawl on his hands and knees to find a partner — with a sign saying "Could you love me?" strapped to his back and 18 boxes of chocolates trailing behind him on string tied to his wrists and ankles.
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/ 27 December 2005
The Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, is to undergo an operation to repair a hole in his heart that doctors believe caused a mild stroke. Sharon’s doctors held a press conference on Monday to head off speculation about his health just more than a week after he was admitted to hospital feeling ill and confused.
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/ 27 December 2005
The United States embassy in London was forced to issue a correction on Monday to an interview given by the ambassador, Robert Tuttle, in which he claimed the US would not fly suspected terrorists to Syria, which has one of the worst torture records in the Middle East. A statement acknowledged media reports of a suspect taken from the US to Syria.