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/ 5 November 2007

Majimbo mania in Kenyan poll

Last week Kenya’s newly selected cardinal — and for reasons that are obscure to me, we have not had one in a while — came out to declare that the Catholic Church opposes majimboism. To its supporters, majimboism is a kind of federalism; to its detractors it looks a lot like ethnic regionalism.

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/ 5 November 2007

Italian police collar top Mafia man

Italian police on Monday arrested Salvatore lo Piccolo, who is suspected to have become the new head of the Sicilian Mafia following the 2006 arrest of the former ”boss of bosses” Bernardo Provenzano. In a morning operation, about 40 police officers surrounded and then raided a villa near the Sicilian capital, Palermo.

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/ 5 November 2007

Thirty die in Russian retirement-home fire

Fire tore through a retirement home in central Russia, killing 30 people while two others are still missing, a senior local official was quoted as saying on Monday. The home near the city of Tula did not have basic safety equipment and police have started a criminal investigation into the latest in a series of fire disasters in Russia.

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/ 5 November 2007

Patient shot dead, employee wounded at Bara

A gunman shot and wounded an employee and killed a patient at Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital on Monday afternoon, Gauteng police said. The man entered the hospital during visiting hours at about 3.45pm and opened fire, said Captain Phillemon Khorombi. ”He shot a 52-year-old female employee and a male patient aged 35.”

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/ 5 November 2007

Rare glimpse of Tutankhamun’s mummy

Egypt put the mummy of the boy pharaoh Tutankhamun on display in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings on Sunday, giving visitors their first chance to see the face of a ruler who died more than 3 000 years ago. The mummy’s face has high cheekbones and cracked and blackened skin with an intact nose.

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/ 5 November 2007

Wall Street cringes as Citigroup revives fears

Fear and mistrust gripped Wall Street on Monday after Citigroup’s CEO quit in the wake of mounting credit losses and an influential money manager called the subprime mortgage market a ”-trillion problem”. US stocks followed European shares lower, while safe-haven bonds rallied and even the downtrodden dollar ticked up.

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/ 5 November 2007

Pakistani police smash protests

Pakistani police used tear gas and batons to crush protests by lawyers against President Pervez Musharraf on Monday, despite world outrage at the imposition of a state of emergency. The White House said it was ”deeply disturbed” by the crisis, urging Musharraf, a key ally in the fight against al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, to quit his military post.

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/ 5 November 2007

Advocate will no longer head Cape Town ‘spy’ probe

Advocate Geoff Budlender will not be conducting the investigation into the City of Cape Town’s ”spy” affair, mayor Helen Zille announced on Monday. ”It has come to my attention that advocate Geoffrey Budlender previously provided advice to the legal adviser of the speaker regarding a potential interdict of councillor [Badih] Chaaban,” she said.