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/ 6 December 2004

Metcash bids for Australia’s Foodland

South African-based Metcash Trading announced on Monday it intended to make an Aus-million dollars (-million) off-market takeover offer for the Australian operations of Foodland Associated. Metcash said that they would acquire only the Australian business of the Perth-based wholesaling and retailing group and Foodland shareholders would retain ownership of Foodland New Zealand.

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/ 6 December 2004

SA group pre-qualified in Indian airports deal

The South African consortium formed by the Airports Company South Africa, Old Mutual plc, the BidVest Group and Indian partner GVK Industries Limited has received official notification from the government of India that it has been pre-qualified in the bid to participate in the privatisation of India’s Mumbai and Delhi airports.

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/ 6 December 2004

DRC’s ghost villages

Empty villages and reports of houses being torched in a score of communities on Sunday indicated a growing conflict in the remote eastern regions of this sprawling country, where Rwandan troops are feared to have invaded. A spokesperson for the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo said armed men suspected of being Rwandan soldiers have been attacking and burning villages for more than a week.

  • Rwanda threatens to reignite the DRC
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    / 6 December 2004

    Ghana’s Atta Mills faces near-certain defeat

    Of all the statements in his decade in public office that John Atta Mills might wish to retract, his 2000 pledge to consult with former president Jerry John Rawlings ”night and day” may rank at the top. For Atta Mills (60) has never been able to shake the image that he dances to the tune called by Rawlings, a charismatic but polarising figure in Ghanaian politics.

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    / 6 December 2004

    Economist predicts 50-point rate cut

    An improving inflation outlook should result in a 50 basis points cut in the South African repo rate later this week according to London-based economist Razia Khan from emerging market specialist bank, Standard Chartered Bank. "While demand in South Africa is undeniably strong, there is little conclusive evidence that the strength of demand will have inflationary consequences," she said.

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    / 6 December 2004

    Careless French bomb squad causes terror alert

    A moment of carelessness had humiliating consequences for French bomb squad officers, when they accidentally mislaid an explosive device, hidden for training purposes in an unknown passenger’s suitcase, triggering a global terror alert. Officers training sniffer dogs at Roissy airport outside Paris this weekend slipped 150g of plastic explosive in the side pocket of a blue bag, selected randomly from luggage waiting to be loaded on to a plane.

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    / 6 December 2004

    War leaves chimps open to slaughter in last refuge

    Atibu Filibungan wobbled over the jungle track with another consignment on the back of his bicycle: a baby chimpanzee. A few months old, she peered through the bars of the home-made cage, the 15th chimp to be transported by Filibungan, better known to locals as Mr Delivery. Chimpanzees are an endangered species and the trade is illegal but Filibungan was not worried.