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/ 2 November 2004
The JSE Securities Exchange remained firm at midday on Tuesday with the market taking advantage of a weaker rand against the Untied States dollar. Resources counters led the charge, but gold stocks were fairly flat reflecting a volatile gold price.
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/ 2 November 2004
Subject to regulatory approvals, South African oil and chemicals group Sasol and Malaysian state oil company Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas) are set to form South Africa’s largest liquid fuels business, following the signing of a joint venture
agreement between the two parties.
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/ 2 November 2004
The agricultural union TAU South Africa is in favour of talks instead of a court battle to resolve its objections to new mineral resources legislation. A letter has been sent to the Department of Minerals and Energy, the union’s attorneys said on Monday.
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/ 2 November 2004
South Africa will explore ways to source its oil from other African countries in a effort to cope with spiralling global prices, the South African Broadcasting Corporation radio news reported on Monday. The SABC said Minerals and Energy Affairs Minister Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka had revealed, during her department’s presentation to the Parliament’s joint budget committee, that her department would join the Association of African Oil Producers.
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/ 2 November 2004
Harmony is urging its shareholders to vote in favour of its proposed merger with Gold Fields at a special meeting scheduled for Friday next week. Harmony, in an open letter to its shareholders on Monday, said the combined company would provide immediate and long-term shareholder value.
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/ 2 November 2004
A team of eight economists, brought together by the controversial environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg, has declared it is not worth spending money on climate change because the effects are expected to be far in the future. Lomborg’s bestseller, The Skeptical Environmentalist, created storms of protest by throwing doubt on climate change science, and is hailed by free marketeers round the world, but reviled by many scientists.
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/ 2 November 2004
Following a week of uncertainty about the future of South Africa’s newest national newspaper <i>ThisDay</i>, the newspaper’s executive director, Gbenga Oni-Olusola, said that publication will resume in the near future. The newspaper failed to appear last Monday, and the company is currently dealing with its financial difficulties, he said.
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/ 2 November 2004
His last film, Kill Bill, bravely incorporated Japanese, Chinese and Spanish dialogue into a mainstream Hollywood movie, but Quentin Tarantino’s next project promises to dispense with the English language altogether. It will be shot entirely in Mandarin, he claims, and it will be ”another kung fu that’s gonna blow your asses off”.
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/ 2 November 2004
Indian farmers have come up with what they think is the real thing to keep crops free of bugs. Instead of paying hefty fees to international chemical companies for patented pesticides, they are reportedly spraying their cotton and chilli fields with Coca-Cola.
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/ 2 November 2004
Iraqi insurgents on Monday kidnapped an American and up to five others in an audacious attack on a house in western Baghdad. An interior ministry source said the militants approached the villa in the Mansour district in three cars, and that the hostages were taken after a 20-minute gunbattle.
Two car bombs hit Baghdad