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/ 5 December 2006
Somalia’s government on Tuesday ruled out peace talks with the country’s powerful Islamic movement, citing truce violations, which heightened fears of an all-out war in the African nation. Three days after the Islamists seized Dinsoor township, the government ruled out participating in the next round of peace talks.
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/ 5 December 2006
The ruling African National Congress (ANC) has scored an average of 30% in the past year — down from 38% last year — in the eyes of the average Freedom Front Plus (FF+) supporter, says its leader, Dr Pieter Mulder. On Tuesday, he released the results of his party’s annual ”report card” of the ANC’s performance.
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/ 5 December 2006
The world’s richest 2% of adults own more than half of global household wealth, while half the world’s population own only 1%, a United Nations report published on Tuesday showed. The report, entitled The World Distribution of Household Wealth, found that assets of  200 or more placed a household in the top half of world wealth distribution in 2000.
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/ 5 December 2006
Zambia’s chief opposition leader Michael Sata, a vocal critic of the Southern African country’s president, has been arrested and charged with false declaration of assets, an opposition party official said on Tuesday. Police confirmed the arrest but gave no further details.
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/ 5 December 2006
The former chief executive of the United Cricket Board of South Africa, Dr Ali Bacher, is recovering well after repeat heart bypass surgery, the Morningside Medi-Clinic said on Tuesday. Bacher underwent heart surgery on Monday and according to the clinic was ”amazed” at how techniques had changed since his last heart bypass operation 25 years ago.
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/ 5 December 2006
Zambia’s graft-tainted former president Frederick Chiluba is in intensive care at a Johannesburg hospital for a heart ailment and is in no position to face trial, his spokesperson said on Tuesday. Chiluba arrived in South Africa on Friday and after undergoing ”comprehensive medical tests on Friday and Monday” was admitted into Johannesburg’s Garden City Clinic, Emmanuel Mwamba said.
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/ 5 December 2006
Don Butterfield, a tuba player who performed with such stars as Dizzy Gillespie and Frank Sinatra and whose work can be heard on The Godfather: Part II, has died at age 83. Butterfield died on November 27 of an illness related to a stroke he suffered about a year ago, his wife, Alice Butterfield, said.
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/ 5 December 2006
Rosalie Bradford, who held Guinness records for being the world’s heaviest woman and losing the most weight, has died, according to a media report. She was 63. Bradford died on November 29 at Lakeland Regional Medical Centre. She weighed 473kg in January 1987, according to the 1994 Guinness Book of Records.
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/ 5 December 2006
Zimbabwe now has the world’s highest percentage of children orphaned by Aids, with almost one in every four children having lost at least one parent to the disease, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) said on Tuesday. Zimbabwe is among the countries worst hit by the HIV/Aids pandemic, which kills more than 3Â 000 people every week.
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/ 5 December 2006
Typhoon Durian swept southern Vietnam with strong winds and heavy rains on Tuesday, killing at least 50 people, sinking hundreds of fishing boats and damaging houses, days after it battered the Philippines. State-run Vietnam Television showed footage of a hospital receiving injured patients in Ba Ria Vung Tau province.