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/ 23 December 2005
Christian expatriates in the Gulf enjoy increasingly more freedom to worship and celebrate feasts, especially Christmas, except in Saudi Arabia, where non-Islamic practices still lead to jail and deportation. The law in the United Arab Emirates continues to ban any preaching activities outside churches.
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/ 23 December 2005
Even before the tsunami washed away their homes and destroyed the boats that were their livelihood, Thailand’s sea gypsies lived in a culture struggling to adapt to the modern world. One year later, many say they still feel adrift in a sea of change as they rebuild their lives.
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/ 23 December 2005
November saw the launch of an initiative, Open Bethlehem — intended to help rescue this town, at least, among all the towns on the West Bank facing isolation and collapse. By spreading word of Bethlehem’s surprising calm and the endlessly hospitable spirit that has made pilgrims welcome for centuries, the campaigners hope to encourage visitors to return.
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/ 23 December 2005
There’s fabulous and then there’s ghetto-fabulous. When it comes to societal approval, these two expressions of ostentatious chic are supposed to be polar opposites. Fabulous is meant to be desirable — classic, classy, pricey and proper. Ghetto-fabulous is meant to be deplorable — crude, crass, vulgar and vile.
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/ 23 December 2005
”Nobody wants to be fat. Nobody wants anybody else to be fat. Politicians and medical professionals would like to see everybody un-fat. And still we get fatter. On my Marxist days I like to think of this as a groundswell of subversive collective action”, writes Zoe Williams.
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Click on image for full-size view.
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/ 22 December 2005
A man who used an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler as the greeting on his cellphone answering service went on trial on Thursday in Austria, where such statements are a crime. The 20-year-old defendant, whose name was not released in line with privacy laws, was being tried in the province of Tyrol.
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/ 22 December 2005
The world’s major powers and the United Nations must move urgently to prevent a new border war between arch-rival Horn of Africa neighbours Ethiopia and Eritrea that could further destabilise the volatile region, a leading international policy institute warned on Thursday.
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/ 22 December 2005
The European Union and Iran still seem to be on a collision course over Tehran’s alleged atomic-weapons intentions despite the revival of talks, diplomats and analysts said on Thursday. The EU and Iran resumed talks on Wednesday, agreeing after five hours to meet again in January.