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/ 15 November 2006
The far right-wing Boerestaat Party of South Africa announced on Wednesday it intends registering as a political party on December 16. The group, which was formed in the mid-1980s, said it wanted to become a fully fledged political party because it was feeling marginalised as an extra-parliamentary group.
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/ 15 November 2006
Kenya on Wednesday appealed for aid to help hundreds of thousands of people hit by devastating and deadly floods across the country, triggered by unusually heavy seasonal rains. As rains continued to pound north and coastal Kenya, authorities made a national appeal for almost -million to help about 300Â 000 people who are affected by the floods, which have so far killed 23 people.
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/ 15 November 2006
Pakistan’s lower house of Parliament voted on Wednesday to put the crime of rape under the civil penal code, curtailing the scope of Islamic laws that rights groups have long criticised as unfair to women. The Women’s Protection Bill was seen as a barometer of President Pervez Musharraf’s commitment to his vision of ”enlightened moderation”.
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/ 15 November 2006
Floor-crossing is not only morally problematic, but is also ”dysfunctional” in a parliamentary system, a German political scientist told a conference in Cape Town on Wednesday. Dr Hans-Joachim Veen, honorary professor of comparative government at the University of Trier, said South Africa’s regular floor-crossings were a sign of a ”rudimentary party system”.
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/ 15 November 2006
The Presidency received the Donen Commission report into the Iraq oil-for-food programme on November 6 and was studying the report, president Thabo Mbeki said on Wednesday. Mbeki said this in reply to a question from official opposition leader Tony Leon in the National Assembly on Wednesday.
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/ 15 November 2006
Al-Jazeera’s English-language news channel hit the airwaves on Wednesday with a heavyweight cast of presenters and the ambition to compete with Western broadcasting giants. Al-Jazeera English, sister channel of Qatar’s Arabic television al-Jazeera, said its launch ushered in "a new era in international news" as it began broadcasts.
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/ 15 November 2006
A series of small bombs wounded eight people in the Bangladeshi capital as a transport shutdown to force the dismissal of election officials paralysed the country for a fourth day on Wednesday. Witnesses said the overnight blasts near the office of the Awami League triggered widespread panic in Dhaka.
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/ 15 November 2006
Certain roads in the Pretoria central business district were clogged with traffic on Wednesday as the Tshwane Metro Police cracked down on traffic violators with outstanding warrants of arrests. The metro police held several roadblocks, stopping cars and looking at the registration of vehicles and drivers’ licences.
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/ 15 November 2006
It seems state oil company PetroSA has failed to fully comply with a Cape High Court order to provide the Democratic Alliance with documentation related to the so-called ”Oilgate” scandal, the DA said on Wednesday. ”A preliminary analysis of the documents provided suggests that PetroSA has not fully complied with the court order,” DA spokesperson Hendrik Schmidt said.
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/ 15 November 2006
Angola began registering voters for the first elections since a 30-year civil war on Wednesday as the opposition accused the government of preventing its representatives from monitoring the process. President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has still to declare whether he will contest next year’s poll, was among the first to register his name.