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/ 11 January 2008
South Africa head for Ghana desperate to arrest a slide in African Nations Cup fortunes. Since that amazing day in February 1996 when Nelson Mandela presented the trophy to Neil Tovey, Bafana Bafana have performed worse at each subsequent edition. A second-place finish behind Egypt in the next edition of the biennial tournament was followed by third place in 2000.
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/ 11 January 2008
South Africa midfielder Steven Pienaar stormed out of a press conference on Thursday after refusing to answer questions about his late arrival at a 2008 Africa Cup of Nations camp. ”I’m going,” shouted the Everton star after his attempt to set the agenda was rejected by journalists in Durban, where Bafana Bafana are training.
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/ 11 January 2008
It is breakfast time in the slums of Jamestown, outside the Ghanaian capital, Accra. From within corrugated tin shacks and under slum tarpaulins comes the metallic clatter of early morning chores and the promise of plantains and hot milk. Defying their mothers, the local children are already on the beach playing football.
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/ 11 January 2008
There could be few more satisfactory presents for a racing driver’s birthday than a new grand prix car, and Lewis Hamilton beamed with delight as the new McLarenĂ‚ÂMercedes for the 2008 grand prix season made its entrance this week. ”We’ve gone to a lot of trouble,” Ron Dennis, the McLaren team principal, said before the unveiling.
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/ 11 January 2008
Steve Bucknor looks a weary man. Hardly surprising, of course, given the delinquency that surrounded him and Mark Benson in the course of five days in Sydney. Now that he has been jettisoned from officiating in Perth’s third Test between Australia and India and, taking the positive view, he can at least put his feet up for a few days and watch.
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/ 11 January 2008
A bull swept into a raging river during floods in Australia earlier this week survived a 90km trip downstream before being rescued, his owners said on Friday. Barney, a two-year-old Brahmin bull, was washed away on Sunday morning by the rain-swollen Tweed River.
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/ 11 January 2008
New Zealand’s Edmund Hillary, who along with Nepal’s Tenzing Norgay Sherpa became the first to conquer Mount Everest, died in hospital on Friday. He was 88. New Zealand flags flew at half mast at Scott Base in Antarctica on Friday, mourning the loss of one of the greatest adventurers of the 20th century.
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/ 11 January 2008
Traditional African musicians were the original cultural activists, as shown in the new TV series <i>Rhythms from Africa</i>, writes Andrew Worsdale.
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/ 11 January 2008
Doubts intensified on Thursday night over the nature of an alleged aggressive confrontation by Iranian patrol boats and American warships in the Persian Gulf on Sunday, after Pentagon officials admitted that they could not confirm that a threat to blow up the US ships had been made directly by the Iranian crews involved in the incident.
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/ 11 January 2008
American planes on Thursday mounted the biggest recent air strikes of the Iraq war, pounding what the United States military called al-Qaeda ”safe havens” south of Baghdad. US spokespersons said 18 tonnes of explosives were dropped by B-1 bombers and F-16 fighters in 10 minutes on targets in Arab Jabour.