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/ 18 December 2006
Botswana’s government said on Monday it will not appeal a High Court ruling that hundreds of Bushmen had been wrongly evicted from ancestral hunting grounds and should be allowed to return. The president’s office said in a statement it will not initiate an appeal in the case that saw Africa’s last hunter-gatherers take on one of the continent’s most admired governments.
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/ 18 December 2006
Gunmen who kidnapped 30 people at a Red Crescent office in Baghdad on Sunday have freed 17 hostages, an official of the humanitarian group said on Monday. Maazen Abdulla, secretary general of the Iraqi Red Crescent, said the victims were released unharmed in different parts of Baghdad on Sunday and Monday.
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/ 18 December 2006
Sitting in the sunlit dining room of her friend’s house, 55-year-old Fazila* removes her spectacles, wiping a tear from her left cheek. ”I’m sorry,” she says, apologising for her break in composure, ”it’s hard to talk about this.” Fazila, a Muslim mother and first wife of her husband Aziz*, has lived in a polygamous marriage for almost 30 years.
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/ 18 December 2006
I made a bad mistake recently: I tried to engage a right-wing evangelical Christian in rational debate about homosexuality. For the umpteenth time, Mrs Eleanor Wright-Payne (obviously not her real name) had written a ranting letter to the Mail & Guardian about South Africa’s ”sewer of depravity”, writes Drew Forrest.
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/ 18 December 2006
Cases of drug resistant tuberculosis are higher than previously estimated and three nations — China, India and Russia — account for more than half of all cases worldwide. Multi-drug resistant tuberculosis are strains of the disease that are resistant to at least two of the most important first-line drugs.
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/ 18 December 2006
Anil Kumble and Zaheer Khan bowled India to their first Test victory in South Africa on Monday. India won the first Test by 123 runs shortly before lunch on the fourth day. South Africa, who needed 402 to win, were dismissed for 278 in their second innings.
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/ 18 December 2006
Hutu and Tutsi leaders in the Nord-Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of Congo called on Sunday for an end to fighting between soldiers and rebels that has displaced 50 000 people. The statement called for both sides to ”take into account the terrible suffering of the population which only wants to live in peace”.
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/ 18 December 2006
Two of the oldest Anglican parishes in the United States voted to split from the Episcopal church on Sunday over its liberal attitude on issues such as homosexuality. The move by Falls and Truro churches in Virginia may presage a larger fracturing of the US branch of the 77 million-strong worldwide Anglican Communion.
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/ 18 December 2006
A consortium of private equity investors, the Actis Consortium, has made a firm offer of 1 625 cents for international financial and risk services group Alexander Forbes. The offer represents a 16% premium to the closing price of Alexander Forbes’ share on the JSE on June 6 2006 which was the day before the group published the first cautionary in respect of the proposed offer.
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/ 18 December 2006
In the mood for an extra-rich dessert after Christmas dinner? A Japanese department store is offering a cake layered with 100 diamonds — for a cool 100 million yen ($850 000). The chocolate cake, whose diamonds weigh a combined 50 carats, is on display at the Takashimaya department store in the western city of Osaka.