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/ 15 December 2005
Members of Zimbabwe’s main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party said on Wednesday they will launch a fresh bid to win legal backing for their decision to suspend party leader Morgan Tsvangirai. The MDC has been bogged down in infighting over Tsvangirai’s decision to call a boycott of the recent Senate elections.
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/ 15 December 2005
Iraqis went to the polls on Thursday in a watershed election for a full-term Parliament that the international community hopes will restore stability and sovereignty to the strife-torn nation. Despite blanket security, a huge blast was heard in Baghdad just after voting began.
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/ 15 December 2005
The ”e-mails” currently being investigated by the Inspector General of Intelligence, Zolile Ngcakani, purport to provide evidence for a grand unified conspiracy theory of the succession battle in the African National Congress. These documents, however, show clear signs of being faked, including dubious e-mail addresses and demonstrably false content.
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/ 15 December 2005
Word from Cape Town that Parliament had rubber-stamped a Bill that put an end to cross-border municipalities triggered violent protests in Khutsong on Wednesday. By evening, a police officer had been badly burnt during a petrol-bomb attack and five houses had been torched.
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/ 15 December 2005
Global trade talks were on Thursday confronted with growing pressure from poorer countries, with African cotton producers and Latin-American banana exporters leading the charge for fairer treatment. The conflicts threaten the outcome of the six-day World Trade Organisation (WTO) gathering.
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/ 15 December 2005
Reflecting on concerns raised at a Cape Town municipal imbizo (meeting) on Wednesday, mostly around service delivery, President Thabo Mbeki emphasised the critical importance of local government. "Everything that government does will stand or fall … depending on what happens at local government level," he said.
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/ 15 December 2005
The so-called "hoax e-mails" have emerged as a central focus of the struggle going on at the highest levels of the National Intelligence Agency and the African National Congress. The exchanges essentially purport to illustrate a political conspiracy led by a Xhosa cabal, assisted by white reactionaries in the Scorpions, media and opposition.
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/ 15 December 2005
The Cabinet approved the Gautrain Rapid Rail last week amid sharp criticism over its costs and viability. The R20-billion earmarked for its construction could move a whole lot more people in different ways, a few simple calculations reveal. It could deliver 6 250km of rail — or 80 times the distance — if it was used for regular rail infrastructure.
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/ 15 December 2005
Muziwendoda Sikhona Kunene’s rise to fame has been marked by controversy. Until December 1, when police arrested him in connection with the so-called "hoax e-mail" saga that has divided the African National Congress, little was known about the Durban based IT executive. Those who know Kunene describe him as a hard worker and a pleasant person to work with.
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/ 15 December 2005
What kind of mind? What kind of desperation? These are the questions that must surely arise as you read the e-mails at the centre of the political storm besetting the country’s politics in general and its intelligence structures in particular. They are undeniably of public interest though many of the people named are extremely worried that in the present political climate the e-mails may be read as authentic.