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/ 5 December 2005

Five dead in Israeli mall suicide bombing

Five people were killed and dozens more wounded on Monday in a suicide bomb attack at a shopping mall close to the city of Tel Aviv, Israeli police and medical sources said. The blast, responsibility for which was claimed by Islamic Jihad, went off at around 11.30am at the entrance to the Hasharon shopping centre in the upmarket resort town of Netanya.

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/ 5 December 2005

Iran won’t back down over nuclear programme

Iran will not submit to Western demands to limit its disputed nuclear fuel drive and is prepared to maintain a freeze on sensitive activities only for a few more months, said national security official Ali Larijani. The Islamic republic’s top nuclear negotiator also asserted that Iran was powerful enough to dissuade its critics from considering military action.

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/ 5 December 2005

African leaders pick banker as new Côte d’Ivoire PM

African mediators on Sunday appointed central banker Charles Konan Banny as transitional prime minister to lead the war-ravaged Côte d’Ivoire into elections next year. Banny (63) will be given broad powers specified by the United Nations Security Council, including financial and human resources, control over security and defence forces and oversight of the electoral process.

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/ 5 December 2005

SA strike early blow in tour match opener

South Africa sounded an early warning to Australia after piling on the pressure in the first session of a three-day tour match against a Western Australian state team led by Test opener Justin Langer here on Monday. At lunch in the match at the Western Australian Cricket Association Ground, the home team were struggling at 73-3 after being sent into bat in overcast conditions.

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/ 5 December 2005

CIA’s jails open up new transatlantic rift

The United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s meeting with Germany’s new Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday is likely to be a tricky affair. What should have been a chance to repair the damaging rift between the countries over Iraq is fast being eclipsed by something else — a new transatlantic row between the US and the European Union over the CIA.

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/ 5 December 2005

Running out of juice

Eskom maintains that recent Cape power outages were "abnormal", but the signs are there that delays and about–turns in transforming the electricity sector are pushing supply capacity to the limit. Trevor Gaunt, an electrical engineering professor at the University of Cape Town, said procrastination over restructuring has meant years of inadequate planning and infrastructure investment.

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/ 5 December 2005

Petrol price goes down again

South Africa’s retail petrol price for all grades of petrol will decline by 30 cents a litre (c/l) from December 7, the Department of Minerals and Energy announced on Friday. The wholesale price of diesel with 0,3% sulphur content will fall by 26c/l, while diesel with 0,05% sulphur content will cost 30c/l less on the same date.