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/ 7 January 2008

Kenyans pray for peace, await aid

Kenyans across the political divide prayed for peace on Sunday while aid workers sought to bring relief to nearly 200 000 refugees from post-election violence. ”Our leaders have failed us. They have brought this catastrophe upon us. So now we are turning to the Almighty to save Kenya,” said Jane Riungu, leading her five children to a hilltop church.

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/ 7 January 2008

Obama jumps into the lead in New Hampshire

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton battled to keep crucial New Hampshire from swinging to rising rival Barack Obama on Sunday but new polls showed him jumping into the lead. In the hotly contested Republican race, Arizona Senator John McCain leaped ahead of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney even as Romney tried to raise doubts about McCain.

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/ 7 January 2008

French president may marry ex-model

First it was Disneyland, then love on the Nile, now it’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s starry settings for his showbiz romance with the ex-model Carla Bruni continued this weekend when the couple rode camels in Jordan and visited Petra.

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/ 7 January 2008

Oil prices ease further from $100 level

World oil prices eased further from the historic $100-a-barrel level on Monday after weak US employment data fanned worries about recession and demand in the world’s biggest energy consumer, dealers said. In afternoon trade, New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in February, was 71 cents lower at $97,20 a barrel.

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/ 7 January 2008

Gates eyes next digital decade

Microsoft chairperson Bill Gates took centre stage at the world’s largest technology show for the last time on Sunday and predicted that his industry was on the cusp of the next "digital decade". Gates said computing will become a pervasive part of everyday life through devices like televisions and cellphones.

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/ 6 January 2008

More art. More prayer. More holidays

The headlines were grabbed by the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’s attack on United States foreign policy. But the deeper point, widely missed, was his attack on Western modernity in general. "There is something about Western modernity which really does eat away at the soul," he said in an interview with the Muslim magazine, <i>Emel</i>, late last year.

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/ 6 January 2008

Dancing to stereotype

"The problem with blacks," my new friend says, in condemnatory tone, to the rest of the company, "is that we are too harsh on other blacks. You would think they are the only ones who do bad things." All of us around the table are black. Some dare to suggest that there are a few things darkies need to sort out themselves before blaming the "system" for our sorry plight.

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/ 6 January 2008

Missing Cessna pilot found by volunteers

A determined search by internet-coordinated volunteers on Saturday found the body of pilot Dirk Boosyen 11 days after he went missing in the Bavianskloof region of the Eastern Cape, police said on Sunday. ”They discovered the burnt-out wreck at about 6pm [on Saturday] in the Matjiesfontien farm in the Baviaanskloof area on the peaks of the mountain,” said Captain John Fobian.