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/ 1 December 2007

Sunni bloc boycotts Iraq Parliament

Iraq’s main Sunni bloc pulled out of Parliament on Saturday in protest at a crackdown on their leader Adnan al-Dulaimi, throwing the country’s political process into new turmoil. ”We announce our boycott of the Parliament until Adnan al-Dulaimi returns to the assembly today [Saturday] or tomorrow,” Abdul Karim al-Samarraie of the National Concord Front said in Parliament.

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/ 1 December 2007

Call to use condoms not heeded in SA, says Mbeki

President Thabo Mbeki has stressed that the government’s call on South Africans to be faithful and condomise is not being heeded, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported on Saturday. Speaking on World Aids Day, Mbeki said these were important aspects of the government’s Khomanani campaign, considering that there was no cure for Aids.

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/ 1 December 2007

Laxman, Ganguly take India to huge score

Venkatsai Laxman and Sourav Ganguly hammered robust centuries to take India to a formidable total against Pakistan in the second Test on Saturday. Laxman scored an unbeaten 112 for his 11th Test hundred and left-handed Ganguly a solid 102 for his 14th, as India posted a mammoth 616-5 declared in their first innings after resuming at 352-3.

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/ 1 December 2007

Oil prices slump ahead of Opec meeting

Oil prices fell back below a barrel on Friday amid speculation that the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) will decide to increase its output at a meeting next week, analysts said. New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for January delivery, fell ,03 to close at ,71 per barrel, after earlier striking a one-month low of ,52.

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/ 1 December 2007

Russia prepares to vote with all eyes on Putin

Final preparations were under way in Russia on Saturday for parliamentary elections expected to hand a sweeping victory to President Vladimir Putin’s party, just three months before presidential polls. From Kamchatka to Kaliningrad, 109-million voters are eligible to cast ballots on Sunday in Russia’s fifth parliamentary elections since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

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/ 1 December 2007

Iran denies blame for EU nuclear-talks failure

Iran was not to blame for the disappointment expressed by European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana after key talks in London on the nuclear crisis failed, chief negotiator Saeed Jalili said on Saturday. Solana said on Friday he was ”disappointed” after the last-ditch talks in London failed to produce a breakthrough.