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/ 21 December 2006
From flaps over children singing Christmas carols to a row about Christmas trees at an airport or a traditional nativity play scrapped in favour of reggae-style carols, the Christian world is awash with examples of political correctness this season. Even Pope Benedict XVI has waded into the controversy.
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/ 21 December 2006
The fatigue shows in his eyes and his jittery legs betray his nerves: Mohamed sits in a Swedish cafe six weeks after fleeing the bombs and death threats that have become a part of everyday life in Iraq, hoping for a chance to start his life again. Mohamed, a former shopkeeper in a town south of Baghdad, paid $40Â 000 to a smuggler to help him flee Iraq with his wife and two children, aged four and nine.
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/ 21 December 2006
There’s horror in the air. Read it in the words of Mathatha Tsedu, the <i>City Press</i> editor, when he writes of pain so fierce it is like an arrow piercing his soul as he mourns his son. Thirty-one-year-old Avhatakali Netshisaulu was forced off a Johannesburg road two weeks ago and murdered. His body was stuffed into the boot of his car. The car was torched and his body charred.
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/ 21 December 2006
A new, short film by South African Aurelia Driver has gained a showing at Cinema Nouveau as part of a new drive by the major distibutor to showcase local work. Chris Roper was there.
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/ 21 December 2006
The SA film industry is present at Cannes this year, but primarily from a trade perspective, reports Andrew Worsdale.
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/ 21 December 2006
Every year tens of thousands of children walk across borders and swim across rivers to escape poverty, abandonment and a lack of hope. Children as young as nine undertake terrifying journeys to cross borders illegally, convinced that life must be better elsewhere. For many, the dream is short-lived and they find themselves battling for survival, exploited and abused.
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/ 21 December 2006
In 2001, when the United States and the United Kingdom arrived in Afghanistan, they sold their mission to the world not simply as a way of driving out the terrorist-shielding Taliban but also as a way of empowering women. As the wife of the UK premier, Cherie Blair, said in 2001: "We need to help Afghan women free their spirit and give them their voice back, so they can create the better Afghanistan we all want to see."
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/ 21 December 2006
Raw fish and rice is not exactly the cuisine you would expect to find on every street corner in Paris, but sushi is becoming almost as commonplace in the city as France’s beloved steak and chips. The number of Japanese restaurants in Paris has jumped by about 30% in the last two years as the French turn away from cholesterol-laden fare in favour of healthier food and living.
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/ 21 December 2006
It lived in the Yangtze river for millions of years and was revered by the Chinese as the ”goddess” of the mighty river. But now scientists believe that the baiji, a white, freshwater dolphin, is extinct. A painstaking six-week hunt on the Yangtze for any remaining signs of the baiji ended this month with the news scientists had been dreading: there don’t appear to be any remaining.