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/ 17 January 2005
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexis II, assured his flock on Friday that new identification documents to be introduced in Russia will not contain the "sign of the Antichrist" despite scare-mongering rumors to the contrary, Itar-Tass reported. The patriarch was speaking ahead of a meeting of clerics in Moscow.
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/ 17 January 2005
Mark Thatcher has provided evidence to South African authorities about the involvement of others in the failed coup plot in Equatorial Guinea, officials said on Sunday. ”Mark Thatcher has spoken to our investigating officer about other people who were involved in the coup plot and he is continuing to speak to us,” said Sipho Ngwema, a spokesperson for South Africa’s special prosecution unit, the Scorpions.
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/ 17 January 2005
Weeks before Nazi troops abandoned Rome, Adolf Hitler personally ordered the SS to kidnap the pope so he could be brought back to Germany and locked up in a castle, according to previously unpublished testimony made available at the weekend. The newspaper Avvenire, which is owned by the Catholic church in Italy, suggested the kidnap plot was part of a wider plan to ”abolish” Christianity.
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/ 17 January 2005
A grieving Nelson Mandela threw his weight behind Gordon Brown’s ”Marshall plan” for tackling poverty and debt in Africa on Sunday, saying he would travel to London in February to lobby a meeting of the G7 finance ministers. Mandela formally retired from public life last summer, but held a press conference last week to reveal that his son had died of HIV/Aids.
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/ 17 January 2005
Rahmatun is almost inaudible over the drone of the low-flying aid helicopter. Pointing upwards, the softly spoken 14-year-old eventually makes herself understood. ”That’s what I want to do when I grow up,” she says. ”I want to be a pilot. It would be a great way to see the world.”
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/ 17 January 2005
A 66-year-old Romanian woman is believed to have become the world’s oldest mother on Sunday, after giving birth to a girl. Doctors at the Giulesti Maternity hospital in Bucharest said Adriana Iliescu’s daughter, Eliza Maria, was delivered by caesarean section more than six weeks before the end of a normal, 40-week pregnancy. The child’s twin sister was stillborn.
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/ 17 January 2005
Allan Boesak’s presidential pardon was greeted with pleasure and derision on Sunday — with some political parties calling it a ”travesty of justice”. The veteran anti-apartheid leader, who was convicted of stealing from the poor, will remain in South Africa with his family. Boesak was convicted in 1999 for fraud and theft of money entrusted to the Foundation for Peace and Justice.
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/ 17 January 2005
You know what, it’s hard to get your head around what they are really trying to get your head around these days. Who, for example, is Jeb Bush? What was he doing in Indonesia, walking around in sloppy trousers behind Colin Powell? Who, indeed, is Colin Powell? Isn’t he the guy who spent days arguing that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and therefore an invasion was necessary?
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/ 17 January 2005
A recent statement by the Kenyan government that many students who graduated from primary school last year will not find places in the country’s secondary schools has generated widespread concern. While some children will be able to attend private secondary schools, many children may be forced to abandon formal schooling.