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/ 7 December 2004
Mozambican electoral officials on Tuesday blamed heavy rain, muddy roads and spoilt ballot papers for the delay in counting the vote from last week’s presidential and parliamentary elections. The main opposition Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama has accused the National Electoral Commission of trying to fix the vote.
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/ 7 December 2004
The African Union agreed on Tuesday on a -million budget for 2005, a fourfold increase, in order to finance a series of ambitious projects. In the budget, -million is earmarked for peace and security — less than half the -million sought for this by the AU Commission.
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/ 7 December 2004
Winning the Nobel Prize in literature not only ensures a writer’s legacy, it’s also a ready-made pulpit to tout ideas and opinions. But this year’s winner, Austrian Elfriede Jelinek, is absent from the annual festivities. Jelinek maintained from the day she won the prize that she had no plans to attend the award ceremony on Friday.
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/ 7 December 2004
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was trying on Tuesday to rally support for a reshaped coalition to implement his planned pull-out from Gaza, where two Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were killed in a new wave of violence. While enjoying high public approval ratings, Sharon is unable to rely on the loyalty of his party members.
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/ 7 December 2004
In a novel approach to cracking down on knife crime in London, British police said on Tuesday they are installing an airport-style scanner to check passengers boarding buses in the city. The metal-detecting scanner will be used at Hammersmith Bus Garage in west London, a major transport hub.
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/ 7 December 2004
A Norwegian man with an illegal collection of exotic animals was rushed to the hospital twice in one day after being bitten by two different poisonous snakes, police said. The man in his thirties was bitten by a rattlesnake on Monday night, said police in Asker, near Oslo, after earlier being bitten by a Malaysian palm viper.
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/ 7 December 2004
Nigerian villagers lifted their blockade of three oil pumping stations in the volatile Niger Delta on Tuesday after energy giants Shell and ChevronTexaco agreed to discuss funding local development projects. The three plants had been occupied since Sunday morning by protesters from the ethnic Ijaw fishing community of Kula.
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/ 7 December 2004
Russian soldiers in World War II-style uniforms slogged through early winter slush on Tuesday to re-enact the Soviet Union’s defeat of Adolf Hitler’s armies in the Battle of Moscow near the Russian capital 63 years ago. President Vladimir Putin joined elderly survivors of the World War II battle to watch the 90-minute commemoration.
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/ 7 December 2004
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The Durban High Court refused on Tuesday a state application for a South African Revenue Service (Sars) official to testify in the Schabir Shaik fraud and corruption trial. Rob Reid, who has already supplied the state with an affidavit, will no longer go into the witness box.
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/ 7 December 2004
The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) has approved Telkom’s tariff and fee structures for next year, the authority said on Tuesday. Icasa said in a statement that Telkom is required to reduce its average price for services by 1,5%, for its prices to fall below the inflation rate.