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/ 21 November 2006
Police were following ”good leads” on Tuesday on the whereabouts of a 29-year-old Mozambican former soldier who escaped from Pretoria’s C-Max prison. ”We haven’t found him yet. We are still following leads, but we have good leads,” investigating officer Captain Arnold Boonsthra said on Tuesday morning.
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/ 21 November 2006
The mayor of a small Brazilian town has begun handing out free Viagra, spicing up the sex lives of dozens of elderly men and their partners. ”Since we started the free distribution of sexual stimulants, our elderly population changed. They’re much happier,” said Joao de Souza Luz.
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/ 21 November 2006
Rupert Murdoch took the unusual step of bowing to public opinion on Monday when he scrapped plans to publish and broadcast a ”hypothetical” account by OJ Simpson of how he might have committed the 1994 murder of his ex-wife and her friend, after a national uproar.
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/ 21 November 2006
The government will investigate the conduct of the South African Post Office board and management after the suspension of CEO Khutso Mampeule. Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri said she has ”set in motion processes to this effect”.
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/ 21 November 2006
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has invited his Iraqi and Syrian counterparts to an unprecedented three-way summit in Tehran this weekend to discuss the crisis in Iraq. The meeting is designed in part to promote his role as a responsible regional player rather than the rogue maverick he is often portrayed as in the West.
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/ 21 November 2006
The top United Nations human rights official said on Monday Palestinians living in the Gaza strip had suffered ”massive” human rights violations. Louise Arbour, the UN high commissioner for human rights, travelled to the town of Beit Hanoun, where Israeli artillery killed 18 members of a single family two weeks ago.
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/ 21 November 2006
Tributes were flooding in for Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe after he announced his retirement on Tuesday at the age of 24. Political figures, former swimmers, coaches and officials all joined in acknowledging the achievements of a man who won 11 world titles, five Olympic gold medals and set 13 individual long-course world records in a glittering career.
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/ 21 November 2006
Peter Jackson, director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the multiple Oscar-winning box-office leviathan, has revealed that he will not be making the next film based on the JRR Tolkien series, The Hobbit, after receiving a telephone call from a Hollywood studio executive.
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/ 21 November 2006
South Africa off spinner Johan Botha has been cleared by the International Cricket Council to resume bowling at international level. The 24-year-old was suspended from bowling in international cricket in February this year after being reported for a suspect action in the third Test against hosts Australia on his test debut the previous month.
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/ 20 November 2006
This is an edited extract from Richard Calland’s new book, Anatomy of South Africa: Who Holds the Power? published recently by Zebra Press.