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/ 27 December 2005
Approaching the midpoint of the English Premier League season, Chelsea already are way ahead of last year’s record pace. With their 3-2 win over Fulham on Monday, Chelsea won their 16th game in 18 matches and stayed nine points atop the league. Manchester United, Liverpool and Tottenham also won to keep pace.
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/ 27 December 2005
Nearly 80 people suffered coughing and breathing problems on Monday after a gas was released in one of four apparently criminal attacks on a major chain of Saint Petersburg shops, officials in Russia’s second city said. Terrorism was not suspected, a spokesperson for the Federal Security Service said.
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/ 27 December 2005
Russia and Ukraine are on the brink of a political crisis over gas prices that symbolises the widening gulf between the two former Soviet countries. The Russian gas monopoly Gazprom is threatening to cut off flows if Ukraine does not agree to pay quadrupled prices for the energy that comprises a third of its needs.
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/ 27 December 2005
A Hindu youth from north-eastern India has written a Bible in inverse, or "mirror language", which is to be presented to Pope Benedict XVI as a Christmas gift, a cleric said on Sunday. Uttam Das (29) handed over his unique creation to Assam state’s Archbishop Thomas Menamparampil with a request that it be presented to the pope.
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/ 27 December 2005
Inhabitants of a small village in north-west France were on Monday debating how to spend a fortune left to it by one of its sons who made his money on the other side of the world. Jean Kerfers died earlier this year at Noumea in the Pacific Ocean archipelago of New Caledonia. He had left the village after World War II to work in Australia.
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/ 27 December 2005
A British man is giving a whole new meaning to begging to be loved as he set off on Monday on an 88,5km crawl on his hands and knees to find a partner — with a sign saying "Could you love me?" strapped to his back and 18 boxes of chocolates trailing behind him on string tied to his wrists and ankles.
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/ 27 December 2005
The Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, is to undergo an operation to repair a hole in his heart that doctors believe caused a mild stroke. Sharon’s doctors held a press conference on Monday to head off speculation about his health just more than a week after he was admitted to hospital feeling ill and confused.
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/ 27 December 2005
The United States embassy in London was forced to issue a correction on Monday to an interview given by the ambassador, Robert Tuttle, in which he claimed the US would not fly suspected terrorists to Syria, which has one of the worst torture records in the Middle East. A statement acknowledged media reports of a suspect taken from the US to Syria.
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/ 27 December 2005
Kerry Packer, Australia’s wealthiest man whose media empire dominates its television and magazine landscape, died at his Sydney home on Monday night after battling a long illness. He was 68. Packer was also instrumental in transforming the world of cricket through his World Series gambit of the late 1970s.
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/ 27 December 2005
Mike Hussey and Glenn McGrath frustrated South Africa in a 107-run rearguard stand on Tuesday before Brett Lee dismissed Graeme Smith to give Australia an edge in the second cricket Test. Hussey punished South Africa for another dropped catch before he was bowled by Makhaya Ntini 11 minutes after lunch.