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/ 11 November 2005
”Many years ago when nowt but a little lad, as David Blunkett would have it, I used to find myself profoundly moved in the presence of Evonne Goolagong,” writes Simon Hattenstone, who looks at the perversely erotic relationship we have with our sporting heroes. Why can’t straight men say they love their footballers?
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/ 11 November 2005
”Every rugby fan will, somewhere in his or her memory bank, have a Serge Blanco moment. Mine is from 1991 at Twickenham.” Danny Stephens speaks to Blanco, one of France’s most popular rugby players and now president of the French league who has even launched his own clothing line.
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/ 11 November 2005
The last glimpse the public had of Nigel Mansell competing in a high-powered open-wheel racing car was in 1995, when he joined McLaren for the formula-one season but baled out after two miserable races in a poorly handling car. Now the former world drivers’ champion gets back in the cockpit for a new series.
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/ 11 November 2005
Australia head into Saturday’s Cook Cup clash against England at Twickenham knowing they are just one defeat away from equalling their worst run of seven straight losses. But a win matters just as much to England, who have declined since winning the 2003 World Cup final and under current coach Andy Robinson have won just four of their last eight matches.
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/ 11 November 2005
Jacques Chirac on Thursday acknowledged that the urban violence in France had exposed the ”undeniable problems” faced by many inhabitants of immigrant communities, and said that they had to be responded to quickly. The French president said discrimination and inequality were feeding the rebellion of young people in deprived suburbs.
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/ 11 November 2005
The New York Times journalist Judith Miller, whose reporting on weapons of mass destruction, and alleged dissembling before a grand jury, raised questions about the credibility of both her work and her newspaper, has ”retired”. Miller’s departure follows weeks of negotiations and public criticism of her work by the paper’s editor, columnists and the reader’s editor.
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/ 11 November 2005
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad said on Thursday he would cooperate with a United Nations murder investigation which has already implicated his intelligence agencies. In an unusually defiant speech, Assad denied that his government or any of its officials were involved in the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.
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/ 11 November 2005
World number one Lindsay Davenport looked to wrap up a perfect round-robin performance at the WTA Tour Championships on Thursday when she faced Russian glamour girl Maria Sharapova in her final group match. Davenport went into the clash with the security of knowing her semifinal berth was assured, thanks to her victories over Patty Schnyder of Switzerland and Russian Nadia Petrova.
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/ 11 November 2005
MOVIE OF THE WEEK: There’s just one thing to tip you off about David Cronenberg’s new movie, A History of Violence. The gunshot wounds. In an otherwise straight-looking, straight-talking movie, they stand out like lush and evil-smelling exotic flowers, writes Peter Bradshaw.
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/ 11 November 2005
Investigations into the discovery of a mass grave 400m from a former South African military base in Namibia would be a government to government issue, the SA National Defence Force said on Friday. Construction workers earlier this week discovered a mass grave containing human bones and ammunition.