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/ 9 April 2008

Zuma speaks out against Zim election delay

African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma on Tuesday criticised the delay in declaring the results of Zimbabwe’s presidential election. Zuma, the front-runner to become the next president of South Africa, indicated that ”keeping the nation in suspense … keeping the international community in suspense” was wrong.

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/ 9 April 2008

US commander to halt Iraq troop withdrawals

The top United States commander in Iraq told Congress on Tuesday he plans to stop US troop withdrawals in July due to fragile security gains and heard appeals for quicker action to find a way to end the war. Appearances by General David Petraeus and the US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, drew US presidential candidates.

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/ 8 April 2008

Rethink for Clinton after top strategist resigns

Hillary Clinton’s faltering presidential campaign will undergo a ”mini-makeover” that will emphasise her more caring side following the departure of its main strategist, Mark Penn. Penn’s exit, announced on Sunday, follows clashes over his outside work for other clients as well as screaming matches with senior campaign staff and withering criticism of his strategy.

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/ 5 April 2008

MDC: Mugabe preparing for violence

Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai declared himself the clear winner on Saturday of a presidential election and accused Robert Mugabe’s ruling party of preparing for a "war" against the people. "The result is known, that the Movement for Democratic Change [MDC] won the presidential and parliamentary election," Tsvangirai said.

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/ 5 April 2008

Week on from polls, Zim sweats on result

Zimbabwe was on Saturday facing a protracted battle between the opposition and President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party over the outcome of elections, with results still awaited a week on from the vote. Mugabe, still to make any public comment since last Saturday’s elections, was endorsed by his Zanu-PF party on Friday to stand in a run-off.

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/ 4 April 2008

Mugabe gathers top lieutenants

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and top aides thrashed out his survival prospects on Friday as the opposition upped pressure for presidential poll results to be declared after its parliamentary victory. The Movement for Democratic Change has lodged a court application demanding an end to the silence over the outcome of March 29’s presidential ballot.

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/ 4 April 2008

Zanu-PF: ‘We cannot just hand it to Morgan’

A leadership meeting of President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party will decide on Friday to contest a runoff election against opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, a senior official said. Referring to a meeting of the Zanu-PF politburo, a senior party member told Reuters: ”I have no doubt the resolution will be in favour of a run-off, I have no doubt about that.

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/ 4 April 2008

Bank chief blames rumours for Bear’s collapse

The head of the crisis-hit investment bank Bear Stearns has blamed short sellers and market manipulators for spreading negative financial rumours to induce a collapse of the 85-year-old Wall Street institution. Bear’s chief executive, Alan Schwartz, told the senate’s finance committee in Washington that his firm had been as well-capitalised as its rivals.

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/ 1 April 2008

Zanu-PF projection shows run-off needed

A projection by Zimbabwe’s ruling party shows opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai will beat President Robert Mugabe in the country’s election but a run-off will be needed, Zanu-PF party sources said on Tuesday. Two senior sources said projections showed Tsvangirai getting 48,3%, against Mugabe’s 43%.

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/ 31 March 2008

US lauds Martin Luther King, but undermines his legacy

The National Civil Rights Museum sits in what was the Lorraine Motel, just beyond the shadows of Memphis’s skyscrapers and the garish neon glow of Beale Street — the main drag made famous by the likes of BB King and James Baldwin. The first words of the first exhibit state: ”Protest against injustice is deeply rooted in the African-American experience.”

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/ 21 March 2008

SADC has failed us, says Zim NGO

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has used massive bribery, grossly-biased state media and inflammatory language to ensure he wins next week’s polls and the regional Southern African Development Community (SADC) grouping has not been able to stop him, a local rights body said on Thursday.

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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.

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/ 2 March 2008

Chippy Shaik stripped of doctorate

Shamim ”Chippy” Shaik has been stripped of his doctorate degree from the University of KwaZulu-Natal without reason, his brother and lawyer Yunis Shaik said on Sunday. Last year, media reports said that ”more than two-thirds” of Shaik’s 2003 PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the then-University of Natal had been plagiarised

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/ 2 March 2008

Race row students are unrepentant

On the segregated campus of South Africa’s University of the Free State this weekend, tensions were thunderously high as black students planned a mass protest for Monday against the white students who made a video humiliating their black cleaners.<br><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/319216/video-icon.gif"> <a href="http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=333647&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__national/" target="_blank" class="standardtextsmall"><b>With live video</b></a>

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/ 21 February 2008

McCain denies relationship with lobbyist

John McCain denied a romantic relationship with a female American telecommunications lobbyist on Thursday and said a report by the New York Times suggesting favouritism for her clients is ”not true”. The likely Republican presidential nominee described the woman in question, lobbyist Vicki Iseman, as a friend.

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/ 15 February 2008

Obama rides US wave of enthusiasm

Democrat Barack Obama is the ”Yes We Can” candidate of the 2008 presidential race, an Elvis-like presence riding a wave of popular enthusiasm unseen in United States politics in many years. By contrast, rival Hillary Clinton is the policy wonk who says she has the solutions to what ails America, and she frequently lists them.

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/ 9 February 2008

Clinton team braced for Obama to take the lead

Hillary Clinton’s campaign team is bracing for Barack Obama to take the lead later this month for the first time in the battle for the all-important delegates who will decide the Democratic nomination. The race looks poised to swing his way after a series of votes, beginning on Saturday with caucuses in Washington state, Nebraska and the Virgin Islands.