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/ 17 September 2004

Suspend trade talks with China, says Cosatu

South Africa’s trade negotiations with China should be suspended until their effect on the local economy had been studied, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said on Friday. Cosatu president Zwelinzima Vavi was addressing the Southern African Textile and Clothing Workers’ Union in Cape Town.

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/ 17 September 2004

Fuel pipeline explodes in Nigeria

Between 30 and 50 people were killed in an explosion at a fuel pipeline on the outskirts of the Nigerian commercial capital, Lagos, police said on Friday. ”People were stealing fuel from the pipeline when it caught fire and exploded,” said police spokesperson Emmanuel Ighodalo of Thursday’s blast in Amore.

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/ 17 September 2004

Illegal ivory still flows from Africa

Shoppers in Sukhumvit Road, Bangkok, are greeted by gleaming white ivory statuettes and whole elephant tusks, but what tourists don’t know is they have probably been made from illegal African ivory. Conservationists are concerned that loopholes in Thailand’s laws allow the ivory trade to flourish in that country.

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/ 17 September 2004

Italy to drop EU sanctions against Libya

Italy will stop applying European Union sanctions against Libya next week even if the measures are not lifted by the EU, Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said on Friday. He was referring to an issue that Tripoli has explicitly linked to efforts to prevent illegal immigration into Europe via its Mediterranean coastline.

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/ 17 September 2004

Zimbabwe forcibly evicts black farmers

Hundreds of black peasant farmers in Zimbabwe were this week forcibly evicted from two formerly white-owned farms, witnesses, civic groups and police said on Friday. A witness said he saw scores of huts on fire after riot police had ordered all farmers without official permits to settle on the properties to vacate.

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/ 17 September 2004

Telkom welcomes licensing of SNO

Although the entrance of the country’s second national operator (SNO) is seen as a threat to Telkom’s future revenues, the dual-listed telecommunications giant on Friday said it welcomes Minister of Communications Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri’s granting of the licence to the second operator.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?cg=BreakingNews-Business&ao=122326">Government grants SNO licence</a>

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/ 17 September 2004

Mystery surrounds North Korean blasts

Foreign diplomats taken to the apparent scene of a mystery explosion in North Korea were shown a large building site and told two blasts occurred, but South Korea on Friday cast doubt on Pyongyang’s explanation. Suspicions were aroused last week that a nuclear test could have taken place.

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/ 17 September 2004

Police chief caught in mosquito sting

New Delhi’s police chief, who snared former South Africa cricket skipper Hansie Cronje for match-fixing in 2001, faces being fined for allowing mosquitoes to breed at his offices, an official said on Friday. His office was the subject of a sting operation by health workers fighting dengue fever.