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/ 31 December 2005
The British family held hostage for three days after being kidnapped in Gaza were freed on Friday night after 18 hours of secret negotiations. Following their release, shortly after 8pm, a previously unknown faction calling itself Brigades of the Mujahideen — Jerusalem, said they were responsible for the seizure of Kate Burton (24) her father Hugh (73) and mother Helen (55).
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/ 31 December 2005
Thousands of American troops will be assigned to Iraqi police units to monitor their work and rein in those who abuse prisoners. The decision was made following a series of scandals involving Iraqi interior ministry forces including the discovery, last month, of dozens of emaciated and tortured inmates during a raid on a secret prison with almost 170 prisoners.
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/ 30 December 2005
The head of the United Nations refugee agency said he was ”deeply shocked” that Egyptian riot police forcibly broke up a three-month protest outside UN offices in Cairo in which 10 Sudanese refugees were killed on Friday. ”I am deeply shocked and saddened by the tragic events early today in Cairo,” High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said in Geneva.
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/ 30 December 2005
Hopes of democratic elections in Angola during the new year faded on Friday after warnings it would take many months to register voters in the vast, mine-strewn Southern African nation.
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/ 30 December 2005
The Zimbabwe government has officially suspended the opposition mayor of the town of Chitungwiza for alleged misconduct, the mayor said on Friday. Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) mayor Misheck Shoko confirmed receiving a suspension letter on Thursday afternoon.
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/ 30 December 2005
France’s Stephane Peterhansel and Hiroshi Masuoka of Japan are overwhelming favourites to maintain Mitsubishi’s stranglehold on the Dakar Rally when the 28th edition of the race starts in Lisbon on Saturday. Peterhansel has clinched the last two to add to his six victories in the motorcycle section while Masuoka was the winner in 2002 and 2003.
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/ 30 December 2005
These are better days to be an American diplomat. After four years of humiliation and powerlessness under Colin Powell, the United States state department is enjoying a renaissance under new leadership. Condoleezza Rice may not have the stratospheric poll ratings of her predecessor, but she is still the most popular member of the Bush administration.
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/ 30 December 2005
Austria’s president on Thursday admitted that many of his citizens are ”fed up” with the European Union, as the country prepares to take over the EU presidency from Britain on Sunday. Heinz Fischer conceded that Austrians had ”cooled” on the EU, and warned that the bloc was not ”limitlessly expandable”.
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/ 30 December 2005
Sunni Arab groups in Iraq refused on Thursday to join talks about a new government until the United Nations reviews disputed results in the recent parliamentary elections. If they do attend, it will be ”only to look for solutions for the political crisis”, Dhafer al-Ani, spokesperson for the Iraqi Accordance Front — the main Sunni electoral bloc — told Reuters.
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/ 30 December 2005
Micro-credit facilities for men could emerge as a powerful tool to check the alarming increase in cases of violence against women in Kenya. Experts say that with easy access to small loans for income generating activities, men would have less time on their hands to be abusive.