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/ 23 June 2006

Unlocking the wealth of the earth — at a price

With mud spattered over a dress that looks like a selection from the cheap Chinese imports so readily available in Zimbabwe today, Griffin Chawatama bends over a home-made metal bowl, sifting through the crushed rock for gold flakes. Chawatama is one of hundreds of illegal gold panners engaged in a cat-and-mouse battle with the police since descending in Shurugwi last May.

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/ 22 June 2006

Annan: Like it or not, Sudan needs UN force

Sudan’s war-ravaged region of Darfur needs a United Nations peacekeeping force, despite President Omar al-Beshir’s repeated opposition to deployment of Western forces, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said on Thursday. Annan said that such a force would be essential to uphold the "tenuous and incomplete" peace accord between Khartoum and rebel groups.

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/ 22 June 2006

Zim bakers arrested for defying price ceiling

Zimbabwean police have arrested more than 280 bakers and shopkeepers for defying a state-imposed ceiling on bread prices meant to combat inflation, a newspaper said on Thursday. "At least 282 bakers and shopkeepers have been arrested in Harare for charging more than Z$85 000 (US83c) for a standard loaf of bread," the state-controlled <i>Herald</i> reported.

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/ 22 June 2006

Don’t fear the dragon

South Africans, it is fair to say, are frightened by China. We complain about the cheap imports that are doing South African garment workers out of their jobs, we fret about the "insatiable" demand for natural resources, and the re-ordering of influence on the rest of the continent. And when we are really nervous, we talk about drug gangs that trade smuggled abalone for mandrax in the coastal villages.

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/ 21 June 2006

Palestinian woman killed, 14 wounded in Gaza air strike

A Palestinian woman was killed and 14 other people, including children, were wounded on Wednesday in a fresh Israeli air strike in the southern Gaza Strip, local medical sources and witnesses said. The sources said a missile, fired by an Israeli aircraft towards a car, instead slammed into a house near the town of Khan Yunis, killing 27-year-old Fatima al-Barbarawi.

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/ 21 June 2006

Turkish student gets it all wrong

A Turkish student said on Sunday he was poised to set a record at a nationwide university entrance exam … by giving the wrong answer to all 180 questions. Speaking to reporters after Sunday’s exam, which 1,5-million youths sat, Sefa Boyar said he was hopeful he would achieve the record.

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/ 21 June 2006

Quick-dialling beagle saves owner’s life

A Florida dog that chomped for help by cellphone, saving the life of her owner in a diabetic seizure, fetched a humanitarian award in Miami on Monday. Belle the beagle dialled the emergency number 911 on her owner Kevin Weaver’s cellphone last February when he began to convulse and lapsed into unconsciousness.

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/ 21 June 2006

Research: Loudest lambs are survivors

French researchers have given scientific backing to what shepherds have intuitively known for thousands of years: that the lamb that bleats most and loudest has the best chance of survival. A research team used digital recorders to record lambs’ bleats and matched this with the mother’s response.

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/ 21 June 2006

Baboons make off with World Cup flags

Baboons at a British safari park are making a monkey of England World Cup fans by stealing the flags from their cars, the park’s bosses said on Wednesday. The animals have amassed a huge collection of the red-on-white St George’s cross flags at Knowsley Safari Park near Liverpool, north-west England.

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/ 21 June 2006

Kulula.com launches credit card

Low-fare airline kulula.com on Wednesday announced its first foray into the financial-services sector with the launch of a kulula.com-branded Visa credit card centred on an innovative rewards programme. The card, issued under licence of FirstRand Bank Limited, and managed by First National Bank, will offer cash back for every rand spent, which will be used for flights on kulula.com.

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/ 20 June 2006

German neo-Nazis detained after apparent race attack

German state prosecutors said on Tuesday two neo-Nazis were being detained after a weekend attack in which a teenager of Ethiopian origin suffered a fractured skull. The attack in Schoenefeld, on the south-eastern outskirts of Berlin, was clearly motivated by xenophobia, said prosecutors in Potsdam, capital of the state of Brandenburg, which surrounds Berlin.

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/ 20 June 2006

US holds talks on terrorism with Ethiopia

General John Abizaid, the head of the United States Central Command, held talks with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi on local and international efforts to combat terrorism, state media said on Tuesday. The talks came as Ethiopia faced accusations of deploying its troops inside Somalia to protect the country’s fledgling interim government.

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/ 19 June 2006

Don’t reject nuclear offer, Bush warns Iran

United States President George Bush on Monday warned Iran of "progressively stronger political and economic sanctions" if Tehran refuses to freeze sensitive nuclear activities in return for talks. "If Iran’s leaders want peace and prosperity … they should accept our offer," Bush said in a speech to the US Merchant Marine Academy.

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/ 19 June 2006

Top US official Zoellick resigns

Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, the architect of United States-China policy and Washington’s point man on Sudan, resigned on Monday to take up a position with Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs. "It is time for me to step down," Zoellick told a news conference at the State Department, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice by his side.

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/ 19 June 2006

Somali Islamists ban films, World Cup

Militiamen loyal to Somalia’s Islamic courts raided cinemas, switched off the generators and expelled audiences watching the World Cup, before announcing that showing Western films in public had been banned, officials said on Monday. A day before Islamic Sharia law took effect in Jowhar heavily armed Islamic fighters shut down all public cinema halls until further notice.

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/ 19 June 2006

Oil smuggling costs Iran ‘billions of dollars’

Iran loses more than a billion dollars a year because petrol and refined oil products are smuggled to neighbouring countries, a senior police official was quoted as saying on Monday. "Every year, 1,8-billion litres of refined oil products worth 10,8-billion rials [$1,18-billion] are smuggled abroad," press reports quoted General Ali Soltani, director of the campaign against economic crimes, as saying.

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/ 19 June 2006

Palestinians look to avert referendum

Palestinian factions sought on Monday to find agreement on how to end a political crisis, deadly clashes and fiscal meltdown in a deal that could implicitly recognise Israel and avert a July referendum. Bitter rivals Hamas and the Fatah party of President Mahmoud Abbas were to meet late on Monday, nearing the end of a second round of crisis.

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/ 19 June 2006

The black of blackness

It’s quite an amazing week of remembrance, with other things going on in the midst of it. It’s June 16, and much is going on to mark it. Books are being published, concerts are being held, and everybody is asking everybody the question: "Where were you on June 16 in 1976?" Eery refrains of "Where when you when John F Kennedy was shot?"