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/ 24 December 2005
Tsunami was born on the morning of December 26 2004 to an exhausted mother sheltering in a crevice in the ground from the giant waves that crashed into India’s Andaman archipelago. Today, the miracle baby is something of a celebrity as he approaches his first birthday.
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/ 24 December 2005
Either somebody didn’t like Santa’s singing, or they’re just a plain old Scrooge. A 1,5m-tall statue of a singing and dancing Santa Claus was found hanging upside-down from an electricity pole in a Melbourne suburb. Concerned residents cut the statue down and turned it in to a local police station.
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/ 24 December 2005
The United States Congress had reservations about granting President George Bush expanded wartime powers after the September 11 attacks and never discussed the use of wire taps without warrants on US citizens, a former Senate majority leader said on Friday.
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/ 24 December 2005
It was too terrible a word to utter; so, as the sickness spread, the township took refuge in euphemisms. Skinny, coughing residents of sprawling Khayelitsha were said to have won the lottery, or opened a bank account, or acquired a four-by-four vehicle; darkly ironic ways of stating what they really had — Aids.
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/ 24 December 2005
During World War II, American troops away from home for Christmas were entertained by Marlene Dietrich, Bing Crosby and the Marx Brothers. But soldiers in Iraq are more likely to get a show from a Christian hip-hop group, a country singer you have probably never heard of and two cheerleaders for the Dallas Cowboys.
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/ 24 December 2005
The Matatiele-Maluti mass action group has filed an urgent application with the Constitutional Court asking to be excluded from Friday’s legislation on municipal boundaries, South African Broadcasting Corporation radio news reports. The legislation will transfer the Matatiele area from KwaZulu-Natal to the Eastern Cape.
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/ 24 December 2005
Sculptor Frank Bute camps in the gully of a foul-smelling stream beside a golf course in Harare, Zimbabwe. His market stall was demolished in a clampdown against traders earlier this year, and he and the other 700 000 people who lost their homes or livelihoods face a bleak Christmas.
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/ 24 December 2005
Police have arrested a 16-year-old youth in the KwaZulu-Natal town of Paddock in connection with the murder of teenager Kalin Jooste in nearby Margate this week, South African Broadcasting Corporation radio news reports. The young man was arrested following a tip-off from the public, according to the report.
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/ 24 December 2005
The moon is full and the sky is cloudless. The music — between smooth jazz and contemporary adult — plays subtly in the background, not disturbing conversations. At the door, bouncers in dark suits ensure that those wearing takkies and those who can’t prove they are older than 25 are not allowed in.
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/ 24 December 2005
”Let’s take the yellow brick road to Oz.” Alexander Shulgin shuffles ahead along the garden path leading out of his back door. At the end, about 27m away, a large squirrel is making its getaway from a ramshackle garden shed. ”The damn squirrel’s got in,” Sasha — as he is known — exclaims. ”A new hole, I’ll have to patch it up. They just eat their way through wood.’