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/ 21 December 2005
Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting has condemned spectators who made racist taunts to South African players during the first Test match in Perth. ”There’s no room in sport for racism whatsoever,” Ponting said. ”The players are all very aware of that, the crowd needs to be aware of that and enjoy the game for what it is.”
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/ 21 December 2005
Samuel Eto’o scored his 16th and 17th goals of the season and FC Barcelona beat Celta Vigo 2-0 on Tuesday to take a five-point lead in the Spanish League standings. Eto’o finished third behind teammate Ronaldinho in voting for Fifa’s World Player of the Year award on Monday.
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/ 21 December 2005
Foreign direct investment (FDI) is likely to keep the rand more stable in 2006, as it did in 2005, compared with previous years, economists surveyed by I-Net Bridge said. The average annual forecast for 2006 is from R6 to R7 per dollar with a median forecast of R6,50.
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/ 21 December 2005
Rock star Elton John is tying the knot with long-time partner David Furnish Wednesday, in a civil-union ceremony seen as a watershed in the struggle for gay rights — and as the party of the season by celebrity-spotters. Furnish, a Canadian-born filmmaker, and John have been together for 12 years.
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/ 21 December 2005
Two South African air-crew members, who have been held in Equatorial Guinea over a business dispute since November 17, have had their passports returned and will return to Johannesburg as soon as possible, the Department of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday.
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/ 21 December 2005
A five-year-old Australian clambered into the family car, released its handbrake and was at the wheel when it ended up in the front room of a neighbour’s house. Nathan Millar survived to tell the tale of how he’d ”just scratched” it, news reports said on Wednesday. The car was actually a write-off.
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/ 21 December 2005
Having outraged the international community by denying the Holocaust and Israel’s right to exist, Iran’s combative President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has launched an offensive against new Western targets — George Michael, Eric Clapton and the Bee Gees.
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/ 21 December 2005
The Bush administration’s hopes for a government of national unity in Iraq, led by its favoured candidate, Ayad Allawi, the secular and pro-Western former prime minister, received a setback on Tuesday night. Preliminary results showed that most voters opted for Sunni and Shi’ite religious parties. Allawi’s camp, which includes liberals, communists and his own secular followers, cried foul on Tuesday.
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/ 21 December 2005
Australian paceman Glenn McGrath on Wednesday defended his captain’s decision to delay declaring in the first Test against South Africa in Perth, saying an unusually flat wicket was to blame for South Africa escaping with a draw. The Australians had the Test by the throat going into the final day on Tuesday.
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/ 21 December 2005
Rescuers who on Wednesday helped save more than 100 whales stranded on a New Zealand beach were recalled several hours later to try to prevent some of the pod returning to shore as darkness approached. About 15 of the estimated 123 pilot whales that stranded on Tuesday had died before the pod was shepherded out to sea.