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/ 29 January 2006
Google, the socially conscious internet search engine which could seemingly do no wrong, has owned up to a ”big mistake” in its latest online venture. The blunder, affecting Google’s new online video store, comes at the end of the most difficult week in the company’s short history, as it faced worldwide criticism for bowing to government censorship of its new search engine in China.
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/ 29 January 2006
In the new basement offices of Maxim, the British lads’ magazine launched in India this month, Sunil Mehra, the editor, sets out his policy. ”We don’t do breasts. We don’t do nipples. We do cleavage — that’s our cultural template,” he said. Studying proofs of the magazine’s second edition, Mehra is navigating new terrain, trying to identify the boundaries of sexual acceptability in an increasingly permissive India.
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/ 28 January 2006
Golden Lions and Springbok rugby player Andre Pretorious was arrested and charged with drunken driving after an accident early on Saturday. Pretorious (27) was in Main Road, Bryanston, in Johannesburg, when his vehicle collided with another vehicle just after 1am. He was arrested and charged, as was the other driver.
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/ 28 January 2006
The World Economic Forum (WEF) turned its eye toward politics and the Middle East on Saturday, with visitors and leaders focusing on Iran’s push to develop nuclear power and creating calm in neighbouring Iraq. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was set to join United States Senator Saxby Chambliss for a candid dialogue on Iran’s increasingly bellicose rhetoric.
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/ 28 January 2006
Land worth R2,2-billion has been restored to South Africans who lodged land claims, the Land Claims Commission said on Friday. Tozi Gwanya, Chief Land Claims Commissioner, said out of 79Â 696 land claims lodged nationally, 68Â 730 have been settled — benefiting 186Â 862 households.
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/ 28 January 2006
The Thai soldiers look nervous and bored. In the heat of the day they squat behind sandbagged, camouflaged checkpoints or patrol the streets, riding two-up on motorcycles, M16 rifles pointing skywards. They watch Su-Ngai Padi’s mostly Muslim population, the women shopping in dazzling pink and yellow robes and headscarves, the men lounging in dusty kopi shops, and the locals warily watch them back.
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/ 28 January 2006
As Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez on Friday stepped up his attacks on what he called the ”genocidal” United States administration, new figures showed that bilateral trade has surged, thanks largely to high oil prices. To cheers from thousands of anti-globalisation activists, Chavez called US President George Bush ”the world’s biggest terrorist” and his administration ”the most perverse, murderous, genocidal, immoral empire” in history.
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/ 28 January 2006
France’s Amelie Mauresmo won the Australian Open to snare her first Grand Slam title on Saturday, but it came in anti-climactic fashion when Justine Henin-Hardenne retired sick. The victory, which came when the scores were 6-1, 2-0 in Mauresmo’s favour, makes up for the world number three’s devastating loss in the 1999 final, when she was thrashed by Martina Hingis.
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/ 28 January 2006
Former Cabinet minister Chris Heunis died on Friday, Beeld newspaper reported. Heunis had been treated for organ failure in a Somerset West clinic for the past six weeks. Heunis was born in 1927 at Uniondale in the Cape. He went to school in George, where he began practising as an attorney in 1951, and became district leader of the National Party and a member of the town council.
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/ 28 January 2006
The Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, will meet Hamas leaders in Gaza next week to negotiate terms for a power-sharing government that could win international acceptance and stave off threats to the -billion in annual foreign aid keeping the Palestinian Authority afloat.