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/ 20 September 2007
Malaysia’s first astronaut will blast off into space next month armed with guidelines from Muslim authorities on how to pray, wash and even be ”buried” in space. Two Malaysian candidates are undergoing training in Russia with the winner expected to be announced on Friday, ahead of an 11-day mission.
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/ 20 September 2007
FirstRand Bank has lost a court bid to prevent noseweek magazine publishing the names of clients involved in allegedly shady offshore tax dodging schemes. Cape High Court Deputy Judge President Jeanette Traverso on Thursday dismissed the bank’s application with costs, saying she would give her reasons later.
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/ 20 September 2007
The South African Cabinet has welcomed the recent breakthrough by the collective leadership of Zimbabwe on draft constitutional amendments. Zimbabwe’s main political parties have reportedly agreed that President Robert Mugabe should no longer be allowed to handpick members of the lower house of assembly.
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/ 20 September 2007
Lebanon mourned on Thursday an anti-Syrian member of Parliament whose assassination plunged the country deeper into crisis and threatened to derail efforts to elect a new president. Banks, schools and government offices closed a day after a car bomb killed Christian Phalange Party parliamentarian Antoine Ghanem.
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/ 20 September 2007
Nearly two million Iraqis have become refugees in their own land in the past year, redrawing the ethnic and sectarian map of Baghdad and other cities, a report by the Iraqi Red Crescent said on Wednesday. In Baghdad alone, nearly a million people have fled their homes.
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/ 20 September 2007
A man facing three charges of possession of stolen property believes the media have turned his case into a high profile one due to his family connection to Najwa Petersen, the woman accused of murdering her husband, Taliep Petersen. Achmat Rylands was on Wednesday released on R10 000 bail.
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/ 20 September 2007
Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has suffered an embarrassing blow to his prestige after his own party attacked him for adopting a jocular tone towards inflation. The Islamic Revolution Devotees Society added its voice to a rising chorus of economic discontent by warning the president that spiralling living costs are hurting the poor.
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/ 20 September 2007
France on Wednesday called for a joint force of United Nations and European Union peacekeepers to protect civilians in parts of Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR) bordering Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region. It tabled a resolution at the UN Security Council for a mixed force in eastern Chad and the north-east of the CAR.
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/ 20 September 2007
The judge in the murder trial of Phil Spector on Wednesday abandoned the idea of presenting the deadlocked jury with a reduced charge of manslaughter against the music producer. In a day of complex legal manoeuvrings, both the judge and jury struggled to find a way to proceed in the case, which was stalled after seven days of deliberations.
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/ 20 September 2007
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown threatened on Wednesday to boycott a summit of European and African leaders if Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe is allowed to attend. He called on fellow heads of state to increase pressure on Harare before the planned December talks between the European Union and African Union.