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/ 9 December 2004
Unied States President George Bush has asked treasury Secretary John Snow to remain in his job during the administration’s second term, scotching widespread speculation that he was about to be replaced. White House spokesperson Scott McClellan said that the two men met briefly on Wednesday in the White House.
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/ 9 December 2004
United States Secretary of State Colin Powell has pressed Europe to overcome its differences on the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and rebuild the country, as the Pentagon revealed that elite US troops abused Iraqi prisoners with stun guns. Meanwhile, Japan has extended its troop deployment in Iraq by 12 months.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/pd.asp?cg=BreakingNews-InternationalNews&ao=176269">Rumsfeld faces troop dissent</a>
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/ 9 December 2004
Listed life assurer and financial-services group Metropolitan on Thursday announced that Gloria Tomatoe Serobe is standing down as chairperson in favour of Eric Molobi — executive chairperson of Kagiso Trust Investments — to afford Kagiso greater scope for active involvement in the group’s future development.
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/ 9 December 2004
Financial services group and life assurer Sanlam and Thebe Investment Corporation, the oldest black economic empowerment company in South Africa, announced on Thursday that they have entered into an agreement for Sanlam to become a strategic partner in Thebe’s financial-services proposition.
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/ 9 December 2004
The chairperson of Gold Fields and Harmony Gold, Chris Thompson and Patrice Motsepe, held informal talks on Wednesday, Gold Fields and Harmony spokespersons said on Thursday. Both companies indicated that the talks had been at the initiative of the other company’s chairperson, with neither claiming that they had initiated the talks.
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/ 9 December 2004
The Norwegian Nobel Committee’s choice to give this year’s peace prize to an environmentalist was not entirely uncontroversial. The Economist newspaper wrote after the announcement in October that ”Ms Maathai’s work, though admirable, is only distantly related to the prevention of war. There is little evidence that environmental factors cause full-scale wars”.
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/ 9 December 2004
The falling fuel price was a boon to the economy equivalent to a one-percent cut in interest rates, T-Sec chief economist Mike Schussler said on Thursday. ”The current falls in the oil price and rand strength [or dollar weakness] are combining to give South Africans the biggest petrol and diesel price fall in percentage terms since November 1990,” said Schussler.
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/ 9 December 2004
United States troops on their way to Iraq peppered the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, with complaints on Wednesday, claiming they were heading into the conflict zone with pieces of scrap metal for armour. Speaking from the audience at a base in Kuwait, Thomas Wilson asked: ”Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armour our vehicles?”
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/ 9 December 2004
A coalition of internet and finance firms along with law enforcement agencies was launched on Wednesday in a bid to halt the growing number of online scams that lure consumers to fake websites to obtain personal and financial data. The perpetrators often use the scam to steal money, credit card numbers, passwords or identity information.
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/ 9 December 2004
White Zimbabwean farmers fleeing President Robert Mugabe’s controversial programme of land reform will this month take over farmland allocated to them in central Nigeria. Tajudeen Kareem, spokesperson for the state of Kwara, said that 15 Zimbabweans who visited the region earlier this year and struck property leasing deals were expected back with the next few weeks.