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/ 30 January 2007

Roberts hits out at SA’s ‘colonial media’

Nadine Gordimer’s controversial and now unauthorised biographer, Ronald Suresh Roberts, on Monday took aim at South Africa’s "colonial media", saying contrasting views had been suppressed after the <i>Sunday Times</i> ran a critical profile on him. He was speaking at a reading of his biography on Gordimer, <i>No Cold Kitchen</i>.

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/ 30 January 2007

Minister: Collaborate for a better life

As a new nation facing challenges, South Africa needs fruitful cooperation and partnerships to better the lives of its people, Minister of Social Development Zola Skweyiya said at an inter-governmental seminar in Pretoria on Tuesday. ”Collaboration amongst us can only take us forward in pursuit of the goal of a better life for our people,” Skweyiya said.

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/ 30 January 2007

Lara upbeat about World Cup

West Indies captain Brian Lara believes his team have built up the right momentum to be strong contenders to win the World Cup on home soil. ”Australia are the only team I feel can guarantee that they are going to be in the semifinals,” the 37-year-old veteran of four World Cups told a news conference on Tuesday.

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/ 30 January 2007

Somali govt calls reconciliation conference

Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf agreed on Tuesday to call a broad conference of clan and religious leaders, triggering the release of European Union funding for an African peacekeeping force in Somalia. European Union aid chief Louis Michel told journalists after meeting Yusuf at an African summit in Addis Ababa that the conference would be held within weeks.

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/ 30 January 2007

SMS poll shows South Africans sick of crime

A television SMS poll on crime in South Africa drew a record response with about 400 000 people saying it is spiralling out of control, a newspaper report said on Tuesday. The poll was carried out by a popular television talk show after President Thabo Mbeki angered many by saying that most people in the country do not think that ”crime is spinning out of control.”

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/ 30 January 2007

Unclear whether BA stowaway was South African

It is still unclear whether a stowaway found dead on the wheel well of a British Airways plane in Los Angeles was a South African citizen, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday. ”We are awaiting the autopsy report, upon which we will take fingerprints for verification of the nationality of the man,” said spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa.

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/ 30 January 2007

Pilgrims attacked in Iraq, 40 killed

Bombers killed 36 people in attacks on Shi’ite worshippers marking the climax of the religious festival of Ashura near Baghdad on Tuesday and gunmen killed four in Baghdad’s district of Bayaa. Fearing a strike by insurgents, Iraqi authorities had deployed 11 000 police and soldiers to the holy Shi’ite city of Kerbala.