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/ 9 November 2004

Puritanism of the rich

If Bush wins," the United States writer Barbara Probst Solomon claimed just before the election, "fascism is possible in the United States." Blind faith in a leader, she said, a conservative working class and the use of fear as a political weapon provide the necessary preconditions. She’s wrong. So is Richard Sennett, who described Bush’s security state as "soft fascism" in <i>The Guardian</i> last month.

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/ 9 November 2004

Arafat in a deeper coma

The condition of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat deteriorated overnight and he is now in a deeper coma, the spokesperson for the French army medical service said on Tuesday. A delegation of four top Palestinians was set to visit Arafat in his Paris hospital on Tuesday, overriding objections from his wife, Suha.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-InternationalNews&ao=125192">Wife locks horns with leadership</a>

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/ 9 November 2004

Amazon website suffers ‘a slowness’

Amazon.com said that its website experienced slowdowns for much of the day on Monday but was running normally by the evening. Spokesperson Patty Smith said the world’s largest internet retailer began experiencing ”a slowness” around 8.30am (4.30pm GMT), causing problems for some customers trying to access the website or buy items.

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/ 9 November 2004

Microsoft rethinks priorities

Microsoft said on Monday it has settled two major antitrust disputes, ending more than a decade of challenges and possibly undermining European and United States antitrust cases against the firm. Microsoft has agreed to pay -million to end the dispute over Netware with Novell, and has made peace with the hostile trade group, the Computer & Communications Industry Association.

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/ 9 November 2004

Women’s revenge against rapists

Women from the slums in Nagpur in central India have attacked alleged rapists who they say are walking free from court, often with the connivance of the authorities. At the weekend a mob, dominated by 50 women and led by a rape victim, burnt down the houses of three alleged rapists who had reportedly attacked residents with impunity for months.

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/ 9 November 2004

US gamble on election success

The timing of Operation Phantom Fury was dictated by two elections. Washington had vetoed an attack while the United States election was under way, not wanting to create a bloody backdrop to the campaign. But with George Bush’s re-election, the administration’s attention turned swiftly to the polls being planned across Iraq at the end of January.

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/ 9 November 2004

Evolution textbooks row goes to court

A suburban school board in the United States found itself in court on Monday after it tried to placate Christian fundamentalist parents by placing a sticker on its science textbooks saying evolution was ”a theory, not a fact”. Atlanta’s Cobb County school board, the second largest board in Georgia, added the sticker two years ago after a 2 300-strong petition attacked the presentation of ”Darwinism unchallenged”.