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/ 13 January 2005
It has lured racers for a quarter of a century, serving up bone-jarring adventure through the Sahara desert in one of the most harrowing motor racing competitions on the planet. Sandstorms, land mines, armed bandits and sand dunes so steep they can hurl cars upside down are all part of the perilous history of the Dakar Rally.
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/ 13 January 2005
The injury bug that bit Andre Agassi in Melbourne appeared to travel about 900km to the Sydney Olympic tennis complex on Thursday. While Agassi’s hip injury forced him out of the Kooyong Classic exhibition tournament in Melbourne, five players, including top-seeded Lindsay Davenport, pulled out of matches at the Sydney International.
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/ 13 January 2005
Adrian Mutu, sacked by Chelsea for using cocaine, has signed a five-year contract with Juventus, a source at the Italian Serie A club reported on Wednesday. The Romanian international striker was released by the Premiership leaders in October after testing positive for the recreational drug.
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/ 13 January 2005
South Africa’s Giniel de Villiers won the 12th stage of the Dakar Rally as the gruelling off-road race crossed from Mauritania to Mali on Wednesday. De Villiers finished the 586km trek from Kiffa, Mauritania, to Mali’s capital, Bamako, in seven hours, 20 minutes and 58 seconds.
The deadly Dakar Rally
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/ 13 January 2005
One schoolboy fatally stabbed another while running with a 10cm-long knife in northern Vietnam, a local police officer said on Thursday. Nguyen Van Tuyen (13) was running downstairs holding the knife used for pencil sharpening. He then collided with Dinh Van Son (14), who was running upstairs.
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/ 13 January 2005
The death toll from the earthquake and tsunamis that devastated Indian Ocean coastlines last month rose to 163 338 on Thursday as Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka reported new deaths. Indonesia was hardest-hit by the December 26 quake and tsunamis, with 110 229 confirmed deaths by Thursday.
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/ 12 January 2005
Rescuers searching with shovels, high-tech cameras and their bare hands found the bodies of three children and an adult before dawn on Wednesday, bringing the death toll from a mudslide in the Californian seaside hamlet of La Conchita to 10, an official said.
Frantic search for survivors
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/ 12 January 2005
Three of the alleged masterminds behind a right-wing coup plot to overthrow the government were described on Wednesday as responsible, non-violent men who are not a danger to society. A psychology professor said the results of a series of psychological tests gave no indication that any of the three men are prone to violence.
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/ 12 January 2005
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has defended new pub-licensing laws that will allow Britons to drink around the clock and insisted it will not lead to an explosion in booze-fuelled violence. Later this year, licensing laws that require most pubs in England and Wales to close at 11pm from Monday to Saturday and at 10.30pm on Sundays will be lifted.