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/ 16 December 2004
Rebel leaders on Thursday accused the Sudanese government of pursuing an offensive in the western region of Darfur despite an earlier promise to rein in its troops in order to revive stalled peace talks. The rebels said they will not return to African Union-sponsored negotiations until Khartoum calls off its alleged attack.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Africa&ao=176727">Sudan agrees to stop Darfur offensive</a>
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/ 16 December 2004
”Dear Santa, I want a man for Christmas.” Such requests mark a new trend on New Zealand Telecom’s Santaline, traditionally dominated by children seeking bicycles, dolls and toys. ”Listen Santa, I want a new man this Xmas. I broke the last one,” said one e-mail.
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/ 16 December 2004
Two great white sharks attacked and killed a teenage boy on a surfboard off a packed Australian beach as his horrified friends looked on Thursday, in the country’s second fatal shark attack in five days. The 18-year-old was being towed on a surfboard behind a speedboat off a beach in Adelaide when the giant man-eaters struck.
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/ 16 December 2004
In the past two weeks, two controversial issues hit the South African National Blood Service hard.
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/ 16 December 2004
Google won a major legal victory when a federal judge ruled that the search engine’s advertising policy does not violate federal trademark laws. Auto insurance giant Geico argued that Google should not be allowed to sell ads to rival insurance companies that appear whenever Geico’s name is typed into the Google search box.
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/ 16 December 2004
The coming year puts peace deals to the test in Africa’s longest and deadliest wars — as entrenched enemies from Sudan to the Democratic Republic of Congo face tension-raising deadlines to put peace pledges into practice. Perversely, the peace accords of 2004, 2003 and 2002 make 2005 a year of enhanced risk as well as enhanced hope.
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/ 16 December 2004
The singer of the British pop group Erasure has said he is HIV-positive. Following a news report printed in Finland on Wednesday, Andy Bell made a statement on the band’s website revealing he has known for more than four years that he has the disease, which causes Aids.
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/ 16 December 2004
European Union leaders gather on Thursday to make a long-awaited decision on launching entry talks with Turkey. They are widely expected to give the green light despite last-ditch haggling over the exact terms of the offer. Turkey cautioned on the eve of the two-day EU summit that it will not agree to start negotiations ”at any price”.
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/ 16 December 2004
A British wildlife artist who made a career of depicting Africa’s fauna has been gored to death by a buffalo in Kenya, his family said on Wednesday. Simon Combes (64) was out on an evening walk in a reserve of the Great Rift Valley with his wife, Kat, and a friend, cheetah expert Mary Wykstra, when attacked.
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/ 16 December 2004
The safety of single-dose nevirapine is not in question, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) reiterated on Wednesday, following comments by the Department of Health. The Aids action group was concerned that ”misleading” comments by the department could result in people discontinuing their treatment, and suffering harm.