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/ 6 December 2004

DRC’s ghost villages

Empty villages and reports of houses being torched in a score of communities on Sunday indicated a growing conflict in the remote eastern regions of this sprawling country, where Rwandan troops are feared to have invaded. A spokesperson for the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo said armed men suspected of being Rwandan soldiers have been attacking and burning villages for more than a week.

  • Rwanda threatens to reignite the DRC
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    / 6 December 2004

    Ghana’s Atta Mills faces near-certain defeat

    Of all the statements in his decade in public office that John Atta Mills might wish to retract, his 2000 pledge to consult with former president Jerry John Rawlings ”night and day” may rank at the top. For Atta Mills (60) has never been able to shake the image that he dances to the tune called by Rawlings, a charismatic but polarising figure in Ghanaian politics.

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    / 6 December 2004

    Economist predicts 50-point rate cut

    An improving inflation outlook should result in a 50 basis points cut in the South African repo rate later this week according to London-based economist Razia Khan from emerging market specialist bank, Standard Chartered Bank. "While demand in South Africa is undeniably strong, there is little conclusive evidence that the strength of demand will have inflationary consequences," she said.

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    / 6 December 2004

    Bin Laden trail is cold, Musharraf admits

    The hunt for Osama bin Laden has gone cold, reducing Pakistan’s security forces to little more than guesswork, President Pervez Musharraf admitted at the weekend. Speaking to reporters in Washington before flying to Britain on Sunday, Musharraf blamed the US for failing to send enough troops to neighbouring Afghanistan.

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    / 6 December 2004

    Seventy die as Iraq violence escalates

    Insurgents in Iraq mounted a third straight day of serious attacks on Sunday, killing 17 people when they opened fire on buses delivering workers to an ordnance disposal site. At least 70 Iraqis, many of them members of the police and security forces, have been killed since Friday in attacks across central and northern Iraq.

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    / 6 December 2004

    War leaves chimps open to slaughter in last refuge

    Atibu Filibungan wobbled over the jungle track with another consignment on the back of his bicycle: a baby chimpanzee. A few months old, she peered through the bars of the home-made cage, the 15th chimp to be transported by Filibungan, better known to locals as Mr Delivery. Chimpanzees are an endangered species and the trade is illegal but Filibungan was not worried.

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    / 6 December 2004

    Careless French bomb squad causes terror alert

    A moment of carelessness had humiliating consequences for French bomb squad officers, when they accidentally mislaid an explosive device, hidden for training purposes in an unknown passenger’s suitcase, triggering a global terror alert. Officers training sniffer dogs at Roissy airport outside Paris this weekend slipped 150g of plastic explosive in the side pocket of a blue bag, selected randomly from luggage waiting to be loaded on to a plane.