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/ 20 December 2005
Wearing only Speedo trunks, goggles and a swimming cap, British endurance swimmer Lewis Pugh completed two record-breaking swims in the icy waters of Antarctica, a statement from his expedition said last week. Pugh took 18 minutes and 10 seconds to complete a 1km swim off Petermann Island on December 14.
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/ 20 December 2005
Long-time ruler Blaise Compaore took the oath of office on Tuesday for another term as elected president of Burkina Faso, a West African nation whose people are among the world’s poorest. Nearly a dozen African leaders looked on as Compaore took the oath of office after a landslide November re-election for another five-year term.
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/ 20 December 2005
The impeached governor of Bayelsa state in oil rich southern Nigeria was on Tuesday charged with 40 counts of corruption and money laundering in a Lagos court. Diepreye Alamieyeseigha skipped bail in London last month where he was facing money-laundering charges and ran home to escape justice.
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/ 20 December 2005
British Prime Minister Tony Blair pressed European Union lawmakers on Tuesday to back a hard-won budget deal to unlock money for poor EU newcomers, while stressing the need for a reform of the whole funding process. But party group leaders bluntly warned that the EU legislature will fight for more money.
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/ 20 December 2005
A concerned father checking up on his holidaying daughter called her cellphone only to be told she had been murdered, said police. The 16-year-old girl had only minutes earlier been declared dead by paramedics called by a security guard to the scene of her stabbing.
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/ 20 December 2005
Talks to secure the release of two South African air-crew members held in Equatorial Guinea as part of a business dispute continued on Tuesday ”with good progress made”, one of the companies involved said. ”Yes, there has been progress with the negotiations,” Venatto Trading director Didier Pereira said.
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/ 20 December 2005
Rain and a drop in temperature to below 20 degrees Celsius are predicted for the entire coast from Plettenberg Bay to Durban on Christmas Day, according to the South African Weather Bureau. Mpumalanga and Limpopo will be hit by the colder, wetter weather late on Sunday, but Cape Town should experience fine Christmas weather.
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/ 20 December 2005
Character actress Mary Jackson, best known as Miss Emily Baldwin on the iconic 1970s television series The Waltons, has died. She was 95. On The Waltons, which ran on CBS from 1972 to 1981, Jackson played one of two sisters who made bootleg whiskey they referred to as ”the recipe”.
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/ 20 December 2005
T Edward Hambleton, a founder of off-Broadway’s influential Phoenix Theatre, has died at age 94. Hambleton died on Saturday at the Greater Baltimore medical centre of complications from an esophageal tumour, his son-in-law, Ken Buhler, said on Monday.
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/ 20 December 2005
The future of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) hung in the balance on Tuesday as the nation awaited the outcome of a constitutional referendum aimed at restoring democracy after decades of war and suffering. Newspapers congratulated people on their ”political maturity” and ”dignity” after the crucial poll.