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/ 14 March 2008

Reformists fight off irrelevance in Iran

For one spring evening in a blue-tiled mosque just south of Tehran, it sounds and feels as though the hour of the Iranian reformists has come again. The mosque is packed with men and boys chanting the name of Mohammad Khatami. They push and shove in the hope of catching a glimpse of the former president who tried to smooth some of the sharp edges of the Islamic republic.

Arms broker <i>did</i> give cash to the ANC
/ 14 March 2008

Arms broker did give cash to the ANC

Confidential documents obtained by the Mail & Guardian reveal that arms giant ThyssenKrupp desperately lobbied the government in an attempt to head off a German probe into South Africa’s arms deal. The German prosecuting authorities are probing claims that the company bribed South African officials and politicians to land a contract for warships.

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/ 14 March 2008

ANC cash channel revealed

The African National Congress effectively owns The Network Lounge, the company that hosted a controversial meeting place for business at the party’s Stellenbosch and Polokwane conferences in 2002 and last year. This has emerged amid fallout from the Mail & Guardian‘s exposés on the ruling party’s use of front company Chancellor House.

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/ 13 March 2008

ANC: Build SA’s 2010 team now

Soccer players selected for the national team should be directly contracted by the South African Football Association, the African National Congress (ANC) said on Thursday. This would allow coach Carlos Alberto Parreira to work full-time for two years in preparing a winning team for 2010.

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/ 13 March 2008

ANC would campaign against death penalty

The African National Congress would campaign against the death penalty if a referendum was held on the issue, the party’s secretary general Gwede Mantashe said on Wednesday. Mantashe’s remarks follow last week’s statement by party president Jacob Zuma that a referendum should be held if enough South Africans wanted it.

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/ 12 March 2008

France’s last World War I veteran dies at 110

France’s last surviving veteran of World War I, an Italian immigrant who fought in the trenches with the Foreign Legion, has died at the age of 110, the president’s office said on Wednesday. Lazare Ponticelli, who joined his adopted country’s army at the outbreak of the war with Germany in 1914, had attended a memorial ceremony as recently as November 2007.