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/ 23 December 2007
Thabile* was 15 when she was forced to marry a man in his thirties in the Mgudlulweni village near Mount Frere in the Eastern Cape. Her parents agreed to "give" their daughter to him. She did not know about the marriage or consent to it. On her way to school one day, four men abducted her. "I was walking to school and they grabbed me. They took me to a man I did not know to be my husband," Thabile says.
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/ 23 December 2007
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The battle between President Thabo Mbeki and new African National Congress president Jacob Zuma is far from over, if perceptions conveyed in the Sunday newspapers are anything to go by. An unnamed Mbeki ally was quoted as saying ”all is not lost”.
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/ 23 December 2007
The party backing ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra easily won the most seats in Sunday’s election, a stunning rejection of the coup which booted out the telecoms billionaire in 2006. With 93% of the vote counted, the People Power Party was heading for 228 seats in the 480-member Parliament.
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/ 23 December 2007
AmaZulu beat Orlando Pirates 1-0 in a drab Absa Premiership encounter at the packed Princess Magogo Stadium in Durban on Sunday. AmaZulu striker Dumisani Ngwenya scored the only goal of the game to send his team into the top half of the table.
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/ 23 December 2007
Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto said on Sunday some religious schools were turning children into killers. Speaking to about 25 000 supporters near her ancestral home in the southern town of Larkana, she also renewed accusations the government had done nothing to stop militant violence.
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/ 23 December 2007
Fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo this month has led to a surge in child abductions by armed groups who force minors to fight, carry ammunition or become their sex slaves, Save the Children said on Monday. Some children were kept captive in small holes in the ground as punishment or after being captured by enemy groups.
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/ 23 December 2007
It all sounds familiar. A newly proclaimed war in a far-off land, the suspension of habeas corpus, and mass arrests of ”potentially dangerous” individuals to protect the nation from ”treason, espionage and sabotage”. Those detained would eventually have the right to a hearing, but one not bound by the rules of law.
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/ 23 December 2007
The Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, on Sunday ruled out ceasefire negotiations with the Islamist movement Hamas and said his military was fighting a ”true war” against armed groups in Gaza. He warned of further Israeli military strikes in the days ahead which he said were intended to prevent Palestinian militants from firing makeshift rockets into Israel.
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/ 23 December 2007
It begins with church, then a large meal, music and dancing, followed by hours and hours of drinking. Christmas Day in Katine is not all that different from Christmas in Kent. ”After eating the meal, I go straight away to drink,” said Francis Okia (32) who laughed as he described his plans.
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/ 23 December 2007
Sudan underlined their growing strength in African football when their second-string team beat Rwanda pn penalties to retain the East and Central Africa Senior Challenge Cup on Saturday. Sudan won the penalty shoot-out 6-4 after the game ended 2-2 after extra time