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/ 24 January 2008

Red-hot Sharapova beats Jankovic

Russian fifth seed Maria Sharapova crushed injured Serbian third seed Jelena Jankovic 6-3, 6-1 in a one-sided semifinal on Thursday to reach her second successive Australian Open final. It means Sharapova, a losing finalist here last year, will meet either Serbian third seed Ana Ivanovic or Slovak ninth seed Daniela Hantuchova in Saturday’s title decider.

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/ 24 January 2008

Canada pulls out of UN conference on racism

Canada on Wednesday bowed out of the United Nations 2009 conference on racism in Durban, saying it would likely ”degenerate into … expressions of intolerance and anti-Semitism”. Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity Jason Kenney said that, to his knowledge, Canada was the first country to announce it would not take part.

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/ 24 January 2008

Skielik shooting: Cops on alert outside court

Police massed outside the Swartruggens Magistrate’s Court on Thursday in anticipation of the arrival of a large group of protesters ahead of the appearance of Johan Nel on murder charges. Nel (18) stands accused of killing four and injuring six residents of the Skielik informal settlement, about 10km outside Swartruggens in North West, last Monday.

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/ 24 January 2008

Hurricanes, global warming devastate Caribbean reefs

Warmer seas and a record hurricane season in 2005 have devastated more than half of the coral reefs in the Caribbean, according to scientists. In a report published on Wednesday, the World Conservation Union warned that this severe damage to reefs would probably become a regular event given current predictions of rising global temperatures due to climate change.

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/ 24 January 2008

SA power cuts add to uncertainty

Recent power cuts in South Africa have enraged the public, raised questions over future investment in Africa’s biggest economy and increased scepticism in the country’s leaders at a time of political uncertainty. Economists estimate the cost of the power cuts already runs to hundreds of millions of rands.

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/ 24 January 2008

Clinton, Obama take war of words to airwaves

Democratic presidential contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton took their escalating war of words to the airwaves on Wednesday, launching radio ads in South Carolina directly attacking each other. Three days ahead of South Carolina’s Democratic presidential primary, Clinton aired a radio ad ridiculing Obama’s recent comments.

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/ 24 January 2008

Kenya opposition calls off protests

Kenya’s opposition on Wednesday called off mass rallies scheduled for Thursday to protest disputed presidential polls. This was at the request of former United Nations chief Kofi Annan, who is in Kenya to mediate the crisis. Annan was in Nairobi in the latest attempt to mediate the turmoil sparked by the disputed re-election of President Mwai Kibaki last month.

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/ 24 January 2008

The soul of the swamp

Tshwarelo Gakegane’s roots run deep in the melapo of the Okavango Delta. "My mother and father used to hunt buffalo and red lechwe here, and they taught me all about the animals and plants of this area." She is part of an exciting community-participation project that ensures that real benefits from ecotourism flow to the people who live on the land.