The approval comes a month after the ministry of commerce cleared Yum Brand's takeover of Little Sheep Group.

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It would, on the other hand, be a nice little earner for sheep shearers.

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But the way soldiers are cloned in his galaxy far, far away bears little resemblance to the way sheep and cows are cloned on planet Earth.

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Which leaves me just a little bit of hope that the sheep and the pigeons out there have learned something.

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We ran into bottlenecks in the middle of the countryside that took almost an hour to get past, with little more to look at than grazing sheep and the odd farmhouse.

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Individuals strayed into areas with little wild prey and plenty of livestock, a handful of sheep and cattle were killed and two pack members were shot dead.

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It taps directly into their inherent fascination with the natural world, if only because of the standard array of farm animals: horses, donkeys, sheep, geese and that perennial favourite, the family dog, which keep little hearts thrilled.

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He is also a little hard on the boomers, who have, after all, presided over economic growth, cloned sheep, become gay-friendly, spent a lot of time and money looking after their children and grandchildren, and who will not escape the current financial storm unscathed.

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