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/ 18 January 2006
Supporters of Côte d’Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo maintained barricades in many areas of Abidjan on Wednesday, bringing the West African country’s main city to a halt for the third straight day. In France, the growing crisis prompted the chief of army staff to call for sanctions to be imposed.
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/ 18 January 2006
British, French and German diplomats began a round of worldwide lobbying on Tuesday to try to maximise a vote on Iran in Vienna early next month over its suspect nuclear weapons programme. The Europeans are confident of securing a majority of the 35 board members of the International Atomic Energy Agency, for referral of Iran to the United Nations security council.
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/ 18 January 2006
Seventy-six-year-old Clarence Ray Allen was executed at California’s San Quentin prison early on Tuesday morning. He is the second oldest person to be executed in the United States since the reintroduction of capital punishment in 1976. Allen, who had a heart attack in September, was legally blind and a diabetic.
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/ 18 January 2006
An official assessment drawn up by the United States foreign aid agency depicts the security situation in Iraq as dire, amounting to a ”social breakdown” in which criminals have ”almost free rein”. The ”conflict assessment” is an attachment to an invitation to contractors to bid on a project rehabilitating Iraqi cities published earlier this month by the US Agency for International Development.
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/ 18 January 2006
United Nations helicopters resumed vital relief flights to quake-hit parts of Pakistan on Wednesday after being suspended for three days by heavy rain and snow, officials said. Up to 18 helicopters will be flying extra sorties to make up for lost time and get supplies to cold and hungry survivors of the October 8 disaster.
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/ 18 January 2006
The public protector confirmed on Wednesday it had received complaints from two opposition parties about Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka’s state-funded holiday. The requests for the matter to be investigated came from the Democratic Alliance and the Freedom Front Plus.
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/ 18 January 2006
South African Rugby Union president Brian van Rooyen received a stay of execution on Wednesday afternoon when Judge Edwin King resigned as head of an inquiry to investigate corporate mismanagement by Van Rooyen. King cited personal reasons as well as SA Rugby dragging its feet with proceedings.
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/ 18 January 2006
Judges at India’s busiest courthouse have ordered New Delhi’s municipal authorities to rid the bustling complex of monkeys or face serious action. Judges at Tis Hazari courthouse ordered the corporation to respond to a petition filed by a lawyer and shoo away the monkeys within a month from the three-storey complex.
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/ 18 January 2006
Former South African president FW de Klerk and former deputy president Jacob Zuma are to be among honoured guests at the official opening of Parliament and the State of the Nation address. This emerged at a press conference at Parliament on Wednesday addressed by the presiding officers.
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/ 18 January 2006
The South African men’s hockey team bounced back from Monday’s embarrassing 8-0 defeat to England to draw 2-2 with Ireland in the first Test at the Tshwane University of Technology on Tuesday night. But there was still disappointment as the South Africans squandered what looked to be a match-winning 2-0 lead.