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/ 27 December 2006
Manchester United extended their lead at the top of the English Premiership to four points on Boxing Day as champions Chelsea, their nearest challengers, suffered a rare slip up at home. United cruised to a 3-1 victory over Wigan Athletic at Old Trafford while Chelsea were held to a 2-2 draw by Reading at Stamford Bridge.
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/ 27 December 2006
Former United States president Gerald Ford, who was swept into office after the Watergate scandal, died at age 93, according to a statement from his widow on Tuesday. ”My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather, has passed away at 93 years of age,” Betty Ford said in a statement.
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/ 27 December 2006
Ethiopia said on Tuesday it was halfway to crushing Somali Islamists as its forces advanced on the religious movement’s Mogadishu stronghold after a week of war in the Horn of Africa. Somalia’s envoy to Addis Ababa said Ethiopian troops were within 70km of the capital and could capture it in 24 to 48 hours.
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/ 27 December 2006
Hundreds of people were burned alive on Tuesday when fuel spilling from a vandalised pipeline exploded in Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos, emergency workers said. Crowds of local residents went to scoop up the petrol in plastic containers after an armed gang punctured the underground pipeline overnight to siphon fuel into road tankers.
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/ 27 December 2006
South Africa were in some trouble on 257-8 when bad light stopped play early on the first day of the second Castle Lager Test against India at Kingsmead on Tuesday. The Proteas had been looking fairly good until a dramatic collapse saw them go from 256-5 to 257-8.
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/ 27 December 2006
Saddam Hussein could be hanged within days after the rejection of his appeal by Iraq’s highest court on Tuesday. The former Iraqi dictator was sentenced to death in November over the killing of 148 Shi’ite Muslims from the town of Dujail in 1982. He is facing another trial, accused of genocide against the Kurds — but that may now never be completed.
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/ 27 December 2006
At a crossroads in the Avenue of the Republic in Guinea’s capital, Conakry, a group of traffic police lounge by their motorbikes while one of them waves down a rusting taxi and plucks a few crumpled, dirty notes from the hand of its driver. And so it continues all day, with no concern for passers-by on the pot-holed pavements cluttered with hawkers.
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/ 27 December 2006
A young girl, unconscious by the time her mother brought her to a rural clinic in southern Burkina Faso, had the classic symptoms of meningitis: fever, stiffness, vomiting. With treatment, doctors hoped to be able to save her life although she may be permanently disabled: deafness, epilepsy or paralysis are among the effects of the disease.
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/ 26 December 2006
A Spanish doctor who has just examined Fidel Castro said on Tuesday the Cuban leader was recovering and did not have cancer. ”He asks every day to return to work, but doctors advise him not to,” surgeon Jose Luis Garcia Sabrido told a news conference in Madrid after returning from Cuba.
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/ 26 December 2006
Up to 500 people were burned alive on Tuesday when fuel from a vandalised pipeline exploded in Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos, emergency workers said. Hundreds of residents of the Abule Egba district went to scoop fuel using plastic containers after thieves punctured the underground pipeline overnight to siphon fuel into a road tanker.