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/ 12 October 2005

50m environmental refugees by end of decade

Rising sea levels, desertification and shrinking freshwater supplies will create up to 50-million environmental refugees by the end of the decade, experts warn on Wednesday. Janos Bogardi, director of the Institute for Environment and Human Security at the United Nations University in Bonn, said creeping environmental deterioration already displaced up to 10-million people a year.

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/ 12 October 2005

Humanitarian crisis looms in Malawi

Martha Nakaramba’s two teenage children are taking turns travelling to nearby Mozambique to bring food home to this drought-stricken area of southern Malawi and care for their 35-year-old mother who is sick with HIV/Aids. Sitting outside her small mud-brick hut, Nakaramba musters enough strength to explain in a barely audible voice that that is how they are coping with the severe food shortages hitting Malawi.

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/ 12 October 2005

Hijacking case scheduled to start next week

The multimillion-rand hijacking trial in which kidnapped schoolboy Liam Aspeling’s father is to testify for the state is scheduled to start in the Cape High Court on Monday. This is according to advocate William Booth, defence counsel for two of the 11 accused, brothers Selwyn and Virgil de Vries, both from Ennerdale, where Liam was snatched on Tuesday.

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/ 12 October 2005

Rwandan rebels kill 25 villagers in DRC

Rwandan Hutu rebels killed 25 Congolese villagers with machetes, a United Nations Mission in Congo official said in Kinshasa on Tuesday. It was unclear whether the FDLR (Forces for Liberation and Defence of Rwanda) rebels or a splinter group that calls itself the Rasta militia, carried out the attack.

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/ 12 October 2005

Racists make life hell for Marc Zoro

Despite promises by the Italian football authorities to clamp down on racism, Serie A defender Marc Zoro says he constantly suffers ”deplorable” insults because of the colour of his skin. ”It happens less in the south of Italy, but I have problems all the time. All this makes me really sad. It’s not easy for me and it hurts. I don’t deserve this.”

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/ 12 October 2005

Toxic chemical cocktail found in many new cars

The intensive odour in many new cars results from a toxic cocktail of more than 100 different chemicals that can have serious health effects, the German environmental organisation Bund has warned. Bund and its sister organisation in Austria, Global 2000, conducted tests on six cars including models from Opel, Mercedes-Benz, Renault, Mitsubishi, Volkswagen and Alfa Romeo.

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/ 12 October 2005

Nobel winner’s work is violent porn, says juror

A member of the Swedish Academy that will award this year’s Nobel prize for literature tomorrow has attacked last year’s surprise winner, Elfriede Jelinek, dismissing her work as ”whingeing, unenjoyable, violent pornography”. The Swedish author Knut Ahnlund said on Tuesday he was quitting the academy in disgust over the decision to award the 2004 prize to the Austrian novelist.