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/ 30 January 2007
The Iraqi government on Monday declared an end to major combat operations near Najaf, where United States and Iraqi forces had fought hundreds of fighters from an obscure Islamic splinter group suspected of planning attacks on the Shia clerical establishment during Tuesday’s Ashura celebrations in nearby Kerbala.
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/ 30 January 2007
Some technology boffins predict that the way we watch television will change irrevocably. Technology has already turned huge international industries upside down. When the peer-to-peer file sharing service Kazaa appeared, it sent music companies into a panic. Kazaa was followed by the internet phone service Skype, which quickly attracted millions of users and was sold to eBay for £1,3-billion.
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/ 30 January 2007
As top scientists meet in the comfort of Paris to hammer out a major report on climate change, a handful of their confreres hunker down on a frozen plateau in the middle of Antarctica, painstakingly gathering warning signs of global warming. A rotating commune of French and Italian researchers is tracing the history of the planet’s climate.
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/ 30 January 2007
In the Afghan city of Herat, where there are no cinemas, Rahima, Rita, Mariam and Monirah are women of ill repute. But in following their dreams to become actresses in a country where just five years ago film and theatre were banned under the Taliban government, the women are mavericks trying to bring culture to their war-ravaged homeland.
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/ 30 January 2007
Next door to Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International Airport is Bonaero Park, born around 1967 — mainly to house the employees of arms manufacturer Denel. If the Airports Company South Africa has its way, the suburb of roughly 800 houses will be demolished by 2015 to enable the airport to extend its old runways and build two new ones.
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/ 29 January 2007
A youth carrying South African documents has been found dead in the wheel well of a British Airways jet at Los Angeles International Airport, the Los Angeles Times reported on Monday. Authorities are investigating whether the dead stowaway, described as a young black male, got into the plane at its previous stop in London or at an earlier stop in Hong Kong.
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/ 29 January 2007
Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has offered to step down if his party feels he has failed to deliver, Harare’s Herald newspaper reported on Monday. It quoted the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) as saying some members of his national executive are accusing him of being a stumbling block.
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/ 29 January 2007
Flyhalf Jonny Wilkinson, who has not played for England since drop-kicking the winning goal in the 2003 Rugby World Cup final, was selected on Monday for Saturday’s Calcutta Cup match against Scotland at Twickenham. Wilkinson has been sidelined by a succession of unrelated injuries but made an immediate impression after taking the field for Newcastle on Saturday.
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/ 29 January 2007
South African President Thabo Mbeki pledged on Monday to ensure the first-ever World Cup to be staged on African soil will benefit the whole of the world’s poorest continent. ”We have to make absolutely certain that 2010 will benefit Africa and the African diaspora,” Mbeki said in a speech at the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.