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/ 20 September 2006
The Falcons were given a setback for the rest of the season when they lost tighthead prop Phillip Lemmer for three weeks after a spear tackle this past weekend on Western Province midfielder Corne Uys. Lemmer appeared before a South African Rugby Union disciplinary committee on Tuesday and was handed the ban.
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/ 20 September 2006
Fears that the 36th Ryder Cup could be disrupted by bad weather mounted on Wednesday when gale force winds forced organisers to close the K Club course to spectators and non-essential staff. Both the European and United States teams were forced to remain in their locker rooms as practice rounds scheduled for the morning were postponed.
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/ 20 September 2006
Yemenis began voting on Wednesday in elections that long-serving President Ali Abdullah Saleh is expected to win, despite facing a genuine challenge from a former minister. Polling stations opened at 8am (5am GMT) as over nine million Yemenis vote in a president and municipal council representatives.
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/ 20 September 2006
A drunken Chinese man hoping to hug a panda bear at the Beijing Zoo was mauled by one of the "loveable" animals after he jumped into its enclosure, state press reported on Wednesday. Zhang Xinyan, on his first trip to Beijing and his first time to see a member of the endangered species, was attacked by Gu Gu on Tuesday afternoon, the <i>Beijing Morning Post</i> reported.
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/ 20 September 2006
Israel intends to complete a troop withdrawal from Lebanon by the weekend, Defence Minister Amir Peretz said on Wednesday. ”This is our intent, we definitely want to complete it,” Peretz said when asked by reporters about comments on Tuesday by army chief Dan Halutz that Israeli forces would quit Lebanon by the Jewish New Year
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/ 20 September 2006
Thailand’s army chief vowed on Wednesday to wipe the political slate clean and return ”power to the people” as soon as possible after a bloodless coup against billionaire Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Commander-in-chief General Sonthi Boonyaratglin took power late on Tuesday as head of an interim ”Political Reform Council” run by the military.
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/ 20 September 2006
The new chief judge in Saddam Hussein’s genocide trial ejected the ousted Iraqi leader from the courtroom for refusing to sit down moments after hearings began on Wednesday. Defence lawyers also stormed out in protest against the sacking of Mohammed al-Ureybi’s predecessor.
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/ 20 September 2006
The diamond industry has begun a campaign to safeguard its lucrative Christmas trade from what it fears will be a blitz of negative publicity resulting from a forthcoming film about the trade in African ”conflict diamonds”. De Beers, the world’s biggest diamond company, plans to spend -million on publicity this autumn, in advance of the release in December of Blood Diamond.
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/ 20 September 2006
Shinzo Abe, a conservative advocate of a more muscular Japanese foreign policy, was overwhelmingly elected as ruling party leader on Wednesday, setting the stage for his election as prime minister next week. Abe, set to become Japan’s first prime minister born after World War II, has pledged to rewrite Japan’s pacifist Constitution.
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/ 20 September 2006
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Jacob Zuma’s supporters will be hoping that the corruption trial against the former deputy president is thrown out of court when Judge Herbert Msimang hands down his decision on Wednesday on whether to grant the state’s application for a postponement.