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/ 29 September 2007
Burma or Myanmar? As the military regime has cracked down on pro-democracy protests in the Asian country this week, a war of words has flared again over what to call the troubled nation. The United States and the BBC prefer the old name, Burma, while the United Nations, Japan and other nations have adopted Myanmar.
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/ 28 September 2007
Let’s not talk about Jacques Kallis, shall we? Controversies around non-selection are the most boring aspect of sporting discourse and rarely confront real problems. Besides, the batsman’s reputation is glowing thanks to his omission: by not being picked, he was saved from two-stepping Sreesanth, trying to glide a Yorker to third man, and being bowled for three.
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/ 27 September 2007
Mozambique’s Roman Catholic archbishop has accused European condom manufacturers of deliberately infecting their products with HIV ”in order to finish quickly the African people”. The archbishop of Maputo, Francisco Chimoio, told the BBC that he had specific information about a plot to kill off Africans.
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/ 27 September 2007
The Burmese junta was on Wednesday night trying to shut down internet and telephone links to the outside world after a stream of blogs and cellphone videos began capturing the dramatic events on the streets. In the past 24 hours observers monitoring the flow of information have noticed a downturn.
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/ 24 September 2007
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown promised a new drive to transform the health service and schools on Monday, but again failed to stamp out speculation he may call an early general election. He was to lay out his plans for "a fairer, stronger Britain" in his first speech as leader to the ruling Labour Party’s annual conference later on Monday.
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/ 23 September 2007
”Mugabe stands very tall and black,” boasted Herald columnist Nathaniel Manheru in Zimbabwe on Saturday. ”Brown stands white and colonial.” It was a reminder of the intensity of the diplomatic row that has erupted over British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s decision to boycott a Europe-Africa summit if Mugabe shows up.
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/ 21 September 2007
Gordon Brown or Robert Mugabe? One won’t go to a summit between Europe and Africa in December, but the Portuguese hosts say the potential rewards of closer ties between the two continents outweigh the antagonism between the leaders of Britain and Zimbabwe.
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/ 17 September 2007
The former commander of the failed United Nations peacekeeping force in Rwanda on Sunday warned the newly appointed head of a similar force in Darfur that he faced ”long odds” against success and predicted he would be betrayed by the very officials and governments meant to be backing the mission.
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/ 14 September 2007
Shares in British bank Northern Rock plunged by a quarter on Friday as clients rushed to withdraw their savings following an emergency bail-out of the lender by the Bank of England. The central bank came to the rescue of Britain’s fifth-biggest home-loan provider, which is facing severe difficulties raising cash on money markets amid the ongoing global credit squeeze.
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/ 13 September 2007
President Robert Mugabe on Thursday fired a broadside at Western media for biased coverage of events in Zimbabwe, ignoring an adultery case involving his staunch opponent, former archbishop Pius Ncube. ”If one of my own ministers does mischief and takes another person’s wife, it will be carried on television and they will say this is what Mugabe’s ministers are doing,” Mugabe said.
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/ 12 September 2007
Britain found a suspected case of foot-and-mouth disease on a farm in southern England on Wednesday and immediately imposed an exclusion zone and had the herd in question culled. A statement on the Agriculture Ministry’s website said an exclusion zone had been placed around the suspect farm in Egham, Surrey, about 50km from the scene of the last outbreak in August.
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/ 11 September 2007
Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond escaped unhurt from a high-speed crash while filming the BBC show, less than a year after he nearly died in a jet-powered car, the BBC said on Tuesday. Hammond (37) was shunted off the track during an endurance race at the Silverstone track near Northampton at the weekend.
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/ 8 September 2007
Kate and Gerry McCann, whose daughter’s disappearance has riveted Europe, are shocked to have been declared suspects by Portuguese police, a spokesperson for the family said on Saturday. After questioning on Friday, police named both British parents as suspects in four-year-old Madeleine’s disappearence on May 3.
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/ 8 September 2007
Throughout four months of intense investigation, frenzied media attention and swirling innuendo, Kate and Gerry McCann have remained resolute about three things: their daughter Madeleine was kidnapped, she could still be alive, and to suggest that they had any involvement is utterly absurd.
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/ 7 September 2007
The mother of missing British girl Madeleine McCann, who disappeared in Portugal four months ago, will be formally declared a suspect on Friday, a spokesperson for the family said. The sudden shift in the investigation came after authorities received forensic evidence from the holiday apartment in the Algarve, where four-year-old Madeleine vanished on May 3.
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/ 6 September 2007
The United Nations fears that the refugee crisis in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) could worsen after the escalation of the conflict between government troops and soldiers loyal to a dissident general. Speaking to the BBC on Thursday, UN emergency relief coordinator John Holmes said that the crisis could aggravate the situation throughout the country.
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/ 6 September 2007
With its eye-catching white plastic design, the iPod has become a landmark of 21st century living in just a few years. But the music player marked the end of an era on Wednesday, as Apple’s chief executive, Steve Jobs, finally ditched its emblematic look.
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/ 5 September 2007
Britain’s fertility regulator decided in principle on Wednesday to allow scientists to create human-animal hybrid embryos for research purposes. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority gave the go-ahead to controversial plans to create ”cytoplasmic” embryos, which merge human cells with eggs from animals such as cattle.
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/ 3 September 2007
Peace accords that were to put an end to the conflicts that killed millions in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DCR) are collapsing after a powerful renegade Tutsi general declared war on the government. The United Nations has started airlifting thousands of government troops into the eastern Kivu region, which has endured two foreign invasions and more than a decade of civil war.
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/ 1 September 2007
Archbishop Desmond Tutu berated South Africa’s government on Friday over delays in introducing an HIV/Aids drug treatment plan and said its leaders’ unorthodox views had led to unnecessary deaths. Recalling fallen anti-apartheid heroes, the Nobel peace laureate said they would be shocked by the devastation caused by the pandemic, which he said was killing 900 people every day.
Ben Okri has been described as a ‘literary visionary’ and ‘irritatingly pseudomystical’. His latest novel, <i>Starbook</i>, continues his quest to capture Africa, writes Maya Jaggi.
Princes William and Harry were to lead tributes on Friday to their late mother, Princess Diana, on the 10th anniversary of her death at a service attended by senior royals and Diana’s friends and family. William and Harry, who were just 15 and 12 when their mother died following a high-speed car crash in Paris, have spent months arranging the service.
Darfur rebels accused the government of bombing South Darfur on Thursday, the latest attack in an aerial campaign that has driven thousands of people from their homes over the past month. ”There is aerial bombardment on a daily basis — bombing by MiG 29 and by Antonov,” Justice and Equality Movement commander Abel Aziz el-Nur Ashr Ashr said.
Camps teeming with frustrated refugees in Sudan’s Darfur region have become militarised and present a danger that cannot be ignored, a United Nations official was quoted as saying on Thursday. The UN’s emergency relief coordinator said the presence of weapons in the camps made for a potentially explosive situation.
Author Andrew Keen has a particular knack for phrasing his criticisms in a way that allows every blogger to feel personally slighted, writes Tim Dowling.
MOVIE OF THE WEEK: Shaun de Waal reviews The Simpsons Movie, which packs in a great deal of inventive incident and humour.