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/ 9 December 2007
Nasa cancelled its second launch attempt of space shuttle Atlantis after a sensor in an emergency engine cutoff system failed again on Sunday, once more delaying Europe’s major contribution to the International Space Station. Atlantis and its seven astronauts are due to deliver Europe’s Columbus science laboratory module to the space station.
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/ 9 December 2007
Most African leaders on Sunday rejected new trade deals demanded by the European Union, dealing a blow to efforts to forge a new economic partnership at the first European Union (EU)-Africa summit in seven years. The EU wants to replace expiring trade accords with so-called Economic Partnership Agreements or temporary deals.
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/ 9 December 2007
Ryan Giggs’s 100th league goal saw Manchester United on the way to a 4-1 win against bottom-of-the-table Derby County to keep up the pressure on Premier League leaders Arsenal on Saturday. Victory at Old Trafford, where Carlos Tevez scored either side of halftime, left second-placed United a point behind the Gunners
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/ 9 December 2007
I knew it would be fine when Isam, my perfume man, wanted for a bottle of J’Adore. I had thought I would find him dead. The wooden sign with the name of his shop was in splinters and the front window had been blown out the night before by the worst bombing in Baghdad in more than two months.
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/ 9 December 2007
Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF party will on Tuesday begin an extraordinary congress and President Robert Mugabe is expected to be endorsed as its sole presidential flagbearer in next year’s poll, party officials said. The four-day congress is also expected to draw a roadmap for Zimbabwe’s political and economical policies.
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/ 9 December 2007
A suicide bomber killed three people, including a policeman, in an attack on a police checkpost in the volatile Swat valley in north-west Pakistan on Sunday, the military said. The attack came a day after the military said it had cleared the Swat valley, a former top tourist destination, of most militants.
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/ 9 December 2007
Umaru Yar’Adua has been in charge of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and biggest oil producer, for six months and is already struggling against endemic corruption and political infighting. Most observers agree that Yar’Adua is well-intentioned and more sincere than his predecessor, Olusegun Obasanjo.
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/ 9 December 2007
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As the African National Congress prepares for its elective conference in Polokwane on December 16, satirists have not run short of gags designed to cut the party’s members down to size. ”The satirist in South Africa today has become probably more of a psychiatrist than an entertainer,” says comedian Pieter-Dirk Uys.
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/ 9 December 2007
Not all voters are created equal. Some are more powerful than others. That was the strangely inegalitarian message that Senator Barack Obama brought to the voters of Mount Vernon, Iowa. They had trudged through the snow-blanketed streets, packing themselves into a gymnasium, to hear Obama appeal for their support.
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/ 9 December 2007
Floyd Mayweather Jr retained his World Boxing Council welterweight title with a 10th round stoppage of Britain’s Ricky Hatton on Saturday, the American setting up the win with two knockdowns. Mayweather dropped Hatton to the canvas midway through the round before the referee stepped in to end the fight.