Staff Reporter
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/ 19 March 2005

Mugabe: Vote for me despite problems

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe on Friday urged his supporters to vote for his party’s candidates in crunch upcoming parliamentary elections regardless of any of its shortcomings. ”It doesn’t matter that the party may have failed to fulfil certain promises, such as employment,” Mugabe said.

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/ 19 March 2005

Michael Jackson’s courtroom fashion on trial

The main topic of sartorial debate inside the courtroom at the Michael Jackson trial came not with the king of pop’s unlikely arrival in a pair of blue pyjama bottoms, but a few days earlier. The whisper rolled through the 30 or so reporters squeezed into the small municipal court as Jackson strode in on the sixth day of the trial.

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/ 19 March 2005

Some US troops refuse to return to Iraq

At the same time that Sergeant Kevin Benderman’s unit was called up for a second tour in Iraq with the Third Infantry Division, two soldiers tried to kill themselves and another had a relative shoot him in the leg. Seventeen went awol or ran off to Canada, and Benderman defied nine years of military training and followed his conscience.

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/ 19 March 2005

Just not Wolfowitz, plead World Bank workers

Washington’s nomination of Paul Wolfowitz as the World Bank’s next president has triggered an outcry among the bank’s staff, who have demanded the right to have a say in his confirmation, it emerged on Friday. The staff association has met with the bank’s executives to voice its concerns after it was swamped with complaints.

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/ 19 March 2005

‘Dutch Chemical Ali’ on trial for genocide

The first European Union citizen to be accused of involvement in genocide appeared in court on Friday in The Netherlands in a case that is being closely watched by war-crimes experts and human rights activists. Frans van Anraat is a Dutch businessman who is alleged to have helped Saddam Hussein to gas the Kurds of Halabja in 1988.

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/ 18 March 2005

Mandela arrives in George for Aids concert

Former president Nelson Mandela flew into the South African town of George on Friday to talk with local people about HIV/Aids issues ahead of the second star-studded 46664 Aids benefit concert, organised by his global fund-raising and awareness campaign. The concert is scheduled to take place on a fairway at the Fancourt Golf Estate.