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/ 19 November 2004
A man campaigning for the rights of fathers in separation and divorce cases was arrested on Friday after he handcuffed himself to Britain’s minister for children’s affairs, police said. The minister, Margaret Hodge, was making a keynote address at a conference on family law in the northern English city of Manchester.
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/ 19 November 2004
Human-rights groups on Friday urged the Congo’s government to ratify an international treaty that would protect the rights of pygmies, many of whom live in virtual slavery in the country. Most of the Congo’s estimated 600 000 pygmies live deep in its north-eastern forests, eking out an existence by hunting and gathering.
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/ 19 November 2004
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on Friday urged African leaders gathered for a landmark summit to overcome decades of suspicion and bring hope to those living in the volatile Great Lakes region, which has been riven by wars and genocide. Annan was opening the landmark two-day conference in Tanzania.
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/ 19 November 2004
A second bouncer has been arrested in connection with the beating up of a student outside a Johannesburg nightclub last weekend, Johannesburg police said on Friday. Kevin Hoffmeyer (20) was granted R2 000 bail in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court on Friday morning shortly after his arrest, a police spokesperson said.
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/ 19 November 2004
Oil prices bubbled higher on Friday on worries that a cold winter in the United States and Europe could lead to a squeeze on supplies of heating oil. New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in December, climbed by 55 cents to ,77 a barrel in electronic deals at 11am GMT.
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/ 19 November 2004
South Africa’s reluctance to give political refugee status to Zimbabweans when they are denied food as part of a political agenda needs to be put before a South African court in a test case, a bishop said on Friday. This call came from Bishop Kevin Dowling of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace.
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/ 19 November 2004
It took 10 people about 45 minutes to carry an overweight man from his home in the western Turkey town of Bolu to a waiting ambulance, from where he was transported to a hospital in Istanbul. Mustafa Ozacar, a father of two, decided to be hospitalised after ballooning out to 320kg for no diagnosed reason.
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/ 19 November 2004
Any delay in the development of economic ties between South Africa and the Russian Federation could cost the two countries dearly, Russian Resources Minister Yuri Petrovich Trutnev said on Friday. ”Those who are late are losers and we don’t want to be losers,” Trutnev said, referring to the competitiveness of the global trade arena.
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/ 19 November 2004
President Thabo Mbeki renewed his call on Friday for the worldwide disarmament of nuclear weapons, saying the current slanted situation should not be allowed to continue. For many decades, from the 1950s, the ANC has been an active opponent of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, Mbeki said.
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/ 19 November 2004
A Hindu seer in India’s eastern Orissa state was berated by angry crowds when he failed to die after declaring his soul would leave his body at an appointed time, a report said on Friday. The chief cleric of the Sriguru Ashram in the Kharagaon area of Konark said he would die a natural death on Wednesday between 6am and noon.