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/ 10 October 2006

Google nets YouTube in $1,65bn takeover

The founders of the video website YouTube on Monday night accepted a ,65-billion takeover offer from Google for their 20-month-old venture, which has a big online following but has yet to make money. Chad Hurley (29) and Steve Chen (27) said they were attracted by the prospect of adding Google’s cutting-edge search technology to enable users to pinpoint clips more accurately.

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/ 10 October 2006

Texas teacher sacked in row over gallery nudes

Claims by a Texas schoolteacher that she was sacked after allowing her pupils to see a nude art work during a museum field trip have led to a frenzy of hand-wringing across the United States. A parent complained that his child had been exposed to ”an abstract nude” — a Greek funerary relief from 4BC depicting a marble torso.

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/ 10 October 2006

My 18c tax bill

The annual taxation cycle is one of my pet hates. I know that the deadline is drawing nearer, but I tend to put off sending in my forms until the last minute, when it becomes a dash for the nearest post office. Then you wait to find out if you owe money or you have paid too much over the past year.

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/ 10 October 2006

Budget for freedom

<i>M&G Money</i> takes a look at how to put together a financial plan, with the help of Sanlam Financial Advisers and Tumi, a character who represents the financial reality as well as hopes and dreams of many of our readers.

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/ 10 October 2006

Somalia’s woes grow in Kenyan refugee camps

Mohammed Abdi Guhad sits idly in the shade of a makeshift wooden kiosk, explaining his plan to return to Somalia and fight for the country’s powerful Islamist movement. "I would rather kill than stay here doing nothing," he says, rubbing his hands in anticipation of leaving a dusty United Nations refugee camp in north-east Kenya where he has lived since fleeing unrest in his native land six years ago.

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/ 10 October 2006

Understand your investment

A <i>Mail & Guardian</i> reader’s endowment policy recently matured. He was horrified to discover that after investing monthly for five years, he virtually got back what he had invested. This is not an uncommon complaint and is specifically true of policies and investments sold in the late Nineties and early 2000s when the stock markets took a bath.

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/ 10 October 2006

UN forced to move 40 000 Sudanese refugees

The United Nations said on Tuesday it would urgently move more than 40 000 Sudanese refugees deeper into Chad after weekend fighting at the border. Sudanese rebels opposed to a recent peace deal in Darfur clashed with government troops near Sudan’s border with Chad on Saturday, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said.

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/ 10 October 2006

Manuel: New biography conveys Mandela’s values

The new biography of Nelson Mandela is not just another book on the former president, but conveys his values, Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel said on Monday. ”Perhaps the strongest sense that this portrait conveys is that ubuntu is real … and that the values of ubuntu … are as noble now as they were in Qunu in the 1920s,” said Manuel.