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/ 11 December 2003
Pele has turned down an invitation from Ronaldo and Zinedine Zidane to appear in a United Nations fund-raising match in Basel, Switzerland, next Monday. France superstar Zidane and his Real Madrid teammate Ronaldo will captain opposing teams in the friendly, for which all 30 000 seats have already been snapped up.
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/ 11 December 2003
Portuguese-based striker Benni McCarthy dropped a major bombshell when he announced his retirement from the national soccer team. This was announced prior to Bafana coach Shakes Mashaba naming his 22-man Bafana Bafana squad on Thursday to play at the African Nations Cup finals in Tunisia next month.
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/ 10 December 2003
Twenty-seven people were injured, including four seriously, when the train they were on derailed on Wednesday in southern Greece, hospital sources said. Thirty-seven people were on the train when two of its coaches derailed near the town of Megalopolis under circumstances that are under investigation.
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/ 10 December 2003
No fewer than 580 corruption probes are currently under way against Department of Correctional Services employees, a senior official revealed on Wednesday, speaking at a briefing by senior departmental officials on the draft White Paper on Corrections, which was recently approved in principle by the Cabinet.
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/ 10 December 2003
Scores of Zimbabwean human rights lawyers staged a half-hour demonstration in the capital, Harare, on Wednesday to protest at the assault and harassment of lawyers and judges. The lawyers marched from the Supreme Court across the city’s busiest streets during the lunch rush hour.
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/ 10 December 2003
Sudan’s fledgling civil society organisations are demanding the setting up of a truth and reconciliation commission (TRC) as soon as the final peace agreement between the government and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army is signed. The agreement seeks to bring to an end Africa’s longest-running conflict.
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/ 10 December 2003
At least eight people have died in three days of riots in the Liberian capital sparked by former combatants angered by the conditions of a United Nations campaign to disarm them after 14 years of war. A civilian was shot eight times at point-blank range after refusing to hand over her vehicle to rioting fighters.
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/ 10 December 2003
A love story with a happy ending unfolded on Wednesday before the Hefer Commission of Inquiry. National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka described the struggle he had, in the early Eighties, to marry his wife, now Minister of Minerals and Energy Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.
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/ 10 December 2003
Echoes of the controversial arms deal continue in the corridors of Parliament, with the standing committee on public accounts having handed the decision to the Speaker on possible further action against two opposition MPs. One of the MPs has given notice that he would refuse to apologise for his comments if he were called on to do so.
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/ 10 December 2003
The Advertising Standards Authority in South Africa has banned the Post Office from inviting children to write to Father Christmas, on the grounds that it is misleading the youngsters. The ruling follows a complaint about a Post Office TV commercial giving children an address at which they can write to Santa Claus.