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/ 15 November 2006

South Korean actor dead ringer for Dear Leader

South Korean engraver Kim Young-sik looks in the mirror every morning and sees the reflection of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. As his bouffant-combed hairline recedes, the 56-year-old resident of Seoul is a dead ringer for the rarely seen North Korean of big hair, spectacles and platform shoes fame.

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/ 15 November 2006

Liberia’s ex-fighters learn peace

Eighteen-year-old Alfred Kamara likes learning to be a carpenter, but he also liked the power his gun used to give him. A former child soldier in Liberia’s 14 years of on-off civil war, he is one of more than 100 000 ex-combatants disarmed and offered education or practical training.

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/ 15 November 2006

Robinson: ‘There’s no going back’

Under-pressure coach Andy Robinson called on England fans to get behind his struggling side and said the pain of their current losing streak was necessary if the world champions were to regain their place at the summit of world rugby union. England face South Africa at Twickenham on Saturday in the first of two back-to-back Tests after a record-equalling run of seven straight defeats.

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/ 15 November 2006

Trawling destroying underwater mountains

Deep-sea trawling is destroying underwater mountains teeming with marine life and causing irreparable damage to ecosystems, scientists warned on Wednesday.
Most of the underwater volcanic mountains, or seamounts, which contain deep-sea corals and are home to thousands of marine species, are in unregulated areas.

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/ 15 November 2006

Most hostages in Iraqi mass kidnap freed

Most of the dozens of hostages seized at a Higher Education Ministry building on Tuesday were freed in operations by security forces in Baghdad, state television Iraqiya said early on Wednesday. There was no immediate confirmation of late night raids to free the hostages or word on whether any had been injured.

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/ 15 November 2006

Scores of academics seized in mass kidnap

Five senior Iraqi police officers were arrested on Tuesdya night after gunmen in police uniforms seized scores of people at a prominent scientific research institute in Baghdad in an audacious operation that underlined the lawlessness gripping the Iraqi capital and the threat it poses to the country’s tottering education system.

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/ 15 November 2006

A lot of car for little money

Peugeot’s new 107 proves that cheap and cheerful need not translate into cheap and nasty when used to describe an entry-level car. The 107 sells in three variants, and even the base-model XR comes with five doors, dual airbags, electrically assisted power steering, ABS brakes, a rear wiper and a full-sized spare wheel. For less than R90 000 that’s a lot of specification.

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/ 15 November 2006

Hollywood gets a new role as great polluter

The city of Los Angeles is principally famous for two things: glittering movies and suffocating smog. Now researchers have found that the two are not unconnected. A study by the University of California Los Angeles shows the film and television industry to be the second largest polluter in the Los Angeles area.