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/ 30 December 2005

Egypt police breaks up Sudanese refugee sit-in

Thousands of Egyptian riot police forcefully evacuated hundreds of Sudanese refugees early on Friday, breaking up a three-month old protest outside United Nations offices in Cairo. Several refugees were wounded when phalanxes of riot police armed with sticks and shields stormed the small square where the Sudanese had been camping at around 5am.

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/ 30 December 2005

Smith urges Proteas to be more ruthless

South Africa, needing to win on a spin-friendly Sydney wicket next week to square their three-Test series, must be more ruthless against Australia, captain Graeme Smith said on Friday. The South Africans imploded under the pressure of Ricky Ponting’s team to lose the second Melbourne Test by 184 runs in the over after lunch on the final day, but Smith urged his troops to come back hard in Sydney next week.

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/ 30 December 2005

US intelligence service bugged website visitors

The intelligence service at the centre of the row over eavesdropping tracked visitors to its website, despite United States government regulations. Monitoring files, known as cookies, were discovered by a privacy activist at a time when the White House is on the defensive about its use of the National Security Agency to monitor the communications of US citizens.

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/ 30 December 2005

Malaysian in record-setting 88-hour teaching marathon

A Malaysian man is claiming a new record after teaching non-stop for 88 hours, in a feat involving hundreds of students which left him with a sore back and high blood pressure, a report said on Friday. "My doctor actually advised me against doing this, but I was determined to show my love for teaching," A. Elanthevan told the <i>New Straits Times</i>.

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/ 29 December 2005

Most fuel prices to decrease

The prices of most grades of petrol, diesel and illuminating paraffin would decrease from one minute past midnight on January 4, the Department of Minerals and Energy announced on Thursday. The retail price of 93 unleaded petrol and lead replacement petrol would decrease by six cents a litre from R5,42 to R5,36.

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/ 29 December 2005

Bomber kills Israeli soldier, Palestinian civilians

Two Palestinian civilians and an Israeli officer were killed on Thursday by a suicide bomber who blew himself up at an army checkpoint set up to avert a major attack during a Jewish festival. The bombing near the northern West Bank town of Tulkarem served to further undermine a shaky truce as the army pounded the northern Gaza Strip with artillery fire.

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/ 29 December 2005

Minister ‘not happy’ with matric results

Education Minister Naledi Pandor was disappointed on Thursday at the 68,3% pass rate recorded by the 2005 matric class. ”I’m not satisfied,” she told a media briefing in Cape Town where the figure was announced. ”How can anyone be satisfied when more than 30% of our children are failing? Surely you can’t have that. I’m not happy.”

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/ 29 December 2005

Landslide kills 30 in Yemen, scores missing

At least 30 Yemenis were killed in an overnight landslide which hit a village on a rocky slope near the capital Sanaa. There are approximately 100 people still missing, an interior ministry official said on Thursday. Yemen’s Saba official news agency said that 25 out of the village’s 31 houses were destroyed and were buried under huge piles of rocks

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/ 29 December 2005

France cancels Zambian debt

France on Wednesday joined other Western donors and cancelled 100% of Zambia’s bilateral debt totaling €173-million. The cancellation followed Zambia reaching the Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative sponsored by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in April 2005.