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/ 10 December 2004

UN envoy fears failure of Darfur talks

Friday’s key talks between the government of Sudan and rebels in the troubled Darfur region could fail because of a new surge of violence, the United Nations’s envoy to the country said. The talks in Nigeria, sponsored by the African Union, are aimed at resolving the conflict in Darfur, where an estimated 70 000 people have died.

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/ 10 December 2004

Eritrea warns of border war with Ethiopia

Eritrea and Ethiopia could go to war again if the long-running border dispute between the two Horn of Africa nations is not settled, a senior Eritrean official warned on Thursday. ”We’ve been patient, but the current situation is not sustainable indefinitely,” Eritrean President Isaias Afeworki’s chief of staff said in Asmara.

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/ 10 December 2004

Nigerian universities close after religious clashes

Nigerian authorities said on Friday they have shuttered two universities after the latest outbreak of Christian-Muslim fighting in restive northern Nigeria, hoping to calm tensions after a student religious debate turned violent. Fighting flared anew on Thursday when a student shared Christian texts downloaded from the internet with Muslim pupils.

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/ 10 December 2004

Kenya’s Maathai receives Nobel Peace Prize

Kenyan ecologist Wangari Maathai on Friday received the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo, becoming the first African woman and first environmentalist to receive the prestigious award. Maathai accepted the traditional gold medal and diploma that accompanies the $1,1-million prize from the chairperson of the Nobel Committee.

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/ 10 December 2004

Spare Uganda’s women and children, UN urges

Uganda’s government must do what it can to protect children and women from violence, while the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army must immediately and unconditionally stop abducting, killing and exploiting Uganda’s children, the United Nations Children’s Fund said on Thursday. "Children are being killed and raped," it said.

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/ 10 December 2004

Cape Town’s Houdini hippo captured

City of Cape Town nature conservation officials have at last captured the elusive young male hippo that escaped from the Rondevlei Nature Reserve in February this year. It took six darts and a three-and-a-half hour chase in the dark through reed beds and deep water in the small hours of Thursday morning to get the 800kg animal under control.

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/ 10 December 2004

ANC says Tutu was trying to avoid lapdog label

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has had to balance his praise of government with negative comments to avoid being labelled a ”ruling party lapdog”, said ANC Secretary General Kgalema Motlanthe. On Thursday, Motlanthe told delegates at the ANC Gauteng 9th provincial congress that Tutu’s comments were an indication of the pressure on people to conform to the ”ideological straight-jacket of reaction”.