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/ 9 May 2006

Eriksson gambles on Walcott for World Cup

Arsenal teenager Theo Walcott made England’s provisional World Cup squad on Monday even though he has never played in a Premier League game. Coach Sven-Goran Eriksson also included injured stars Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen in the 27-man roster, as well as several other players who’ve barely kicked a ball in the last few months.

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/ 9 May 2006

Famous Russian caviar risks extinction

It can be a delicacy or status symbol, a cure-all or even an aphrodisiac, but ecologists are warning that Russian caviar could disappear altogether as the Caspian Sea’s sturgeon population reaches dangerously low levels. The WWF conservation group has for the past few months waged a campaign to persuade Russians to give up their caviar habit for six years.

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/ 9 May 2006

Know you are South African, my son

When my son was three, I had to take him and the baby to Khayelitsha to do a job because the nanny was ill. After a longish silence in which he stared out of the window at the world outside, he remarked: ”Mom, I think most of the people here speak Xhosa.” Typical of a parent born before 1990, I thought: ”How odd that he didn’t remark that they are black.”

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/ 9 May 2006

An ongoing disgrace

It has been nearly two years since the appearance of the first pictures of United States soldiers humiliating and torturing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. When the pictures first stunned the world, President George W Bush spoke of ”disgraceful conduct by a few troops who dishonoured our country”.

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/ 9 May 2006

Pakistan’s power shift

Inside Peshawar’s cloistered mosques, high in the rugged passes of the North-West Frontier, and deep in the upholstered opposition salons of Lahore, there is growing consensus it is time for Pervez Musharraf to go. But who will replace the general president, Pakistan’s unelected leader since 1999, and how his departure can be achieved are questions so far lacking answers.