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/ 15 October 2007
About a third of the workforce at Sasol Mining near Secunda have begun a protected strike over wage increases, Sasol said on Monday. Sasol spokesperson Johann van Rheede said workers downed tools at Sasol’s five mines in Mpumalanga last Friday, continuing on Monday. The workers are members of the United People’s Union of South Africa.
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/ 15 October 2007
Zimbabwe will not allow foreigners to own broadcasting stations but could relax rules and licence locals who have been battling to meet stringent requirements, the information minister said on Monday. ”On the issue of ownership we cannot compromise,” Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu told a committee of lawmakers.
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/ 15 October 2007
Burundi rebels will rejoin a truce-monitoring team they quit in July, the facilitator, South African Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula, said on Monday, boosting efforts to bring a lasting end to a decade of conflict. ”The stalled Burundi peace process will be resumed on Saturday October 20,” Nqakula told a news conference.
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/ 15 October 2007
Brazilian and Argentinian palaeontologists have discovered the largely complete fossil of a new species of giant dinosaur that roamed what is now northern Patagonia about 80-million years ago. The herbivorous Futalognkosaurus dukei measured between 32m and 34m from head to tail.
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/ 15 October 2007
Oil prices surged above a barrel on Monday for the first time after the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) said crude production by non-Opec countries is falling even as global demand for oil is rising. Prices were also supported by concerns Turkish forces will pursue Kurdish rebels into Iraq.
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/ 15 October 2007
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice vowed on Monday that a US-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian conference would be serious and substantive, confirming it will take place in Annapolis, Maryland. ”We frankly have better things to do than invite people to Annapolis for a photo op,” she said.
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/ 15 October 2007
The man who sold Najwa Petersen’s family an allegedly encrypted police interview tape is a repeat fraud offender, it emerged on Monday in the Wynberg Regional Court. The tape, which the family believed would help prove her innocence, turned out to be blank, the court heard.
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/ 15 October 2007
More than 150 countries are scheduled to observe World Food Day on Tuesday by kicking off a series of events including sports contests and a global candlelight vigil, the Food and Agriculture Organisation has said. This year’s World Food Day theme is The Right to Food.
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/ 15 October 2007
Salary negotiations in the platinum mining sector stalled on Monday with Solidarity rejecting a 9% increase offer by Lonmin Platinum. ”Solidarity members are demanding 10% plus a housing subsidy of R5 500,” the union’s mining spokesperson, Reint Dykema, said in a statement.
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/ 15 October 2007
Lebanon said on Monday it had arrested a gang of foreigners who were plotting attacks on United Nations peacekeepers, four months after six troops were killed in a bombing against a Spanish contingent. ”The Lebanese army’s secret service arrested a network of non-Lebanese terrorists,” the army said.