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DAILY NEWS IN ENGLISH

South African white Solidarity union strikes against Sasol share exclusion The action is being reported as the first ever strike by white employees in South Africa over racial exclusion. Solidarity spokesman Francois Redelinghuys told DW that 4,000 of its members took part in the go slowaction on Monday. "As Solidarity we are pleased with the development of the action and the manner in which it was conducted. The go-slow will continue tomorrow." "On Wednesday we will deliver a Memorandum to Sasol at the Sasolburg plant and on Thursday our members in Secunda will embark on a full scale strike," Redelinghuys said. In its defense of the scheme, petrochemical giant Sasol, which employs 26,000 people in South Africa, said all companies there are obliged to meet quotas as part of the governmentʼs effort to reversedecades of exclusion of black workersfrom company ownership, employment and procurement.

German health minister calls for opt-out organ donation Germany should change its laws on organ donation and adopt an opt-out scheme to increase the number of organs available for transplantation, Health Minister Jens Spahn said in comments published on Monday. "I am in favor of a double opt-out solution," Spahn told the mass-circulation Bild newspaper. "Thatʼs the only way to make organ donation the norm." Spahn admitted that a new law of this kind would represent an intrusion by the state "into the freedom of the individual." But he argued that all previous attempts at a political level to increase the declining number of organ donors had "unfortunately been without success."

202/2018 • 04 SEPTEMBER, 2018

Is the honeymoon over?

Myanmar jails Reuters journalists for seven years

French President Emmanuel Macron:

Two reporters from the global news agency Reuters had pleaded not guilty to violating the colonial-era Official Secrets Act while investigating acrackdown on the Muslim Rohingya minority in Myanmar. On Monday, a court in Yangon sentenced them to seven years in prison. Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were detained as they researched the killing of 10 Rohingya and other abuses involving soldiers and police in Inn Din, a village in western Rakhine state. They argued that they had been framed by police officers who handed them official documents in a Yangon restaurant before arresting them on December 12.

Emmanuel Macron is showing the first signs of wear: Unpopular reforms, a resigned environment minister and a bodyguard embroiled in scandal. Macron is under pressure, and itʼs not doing his European project any good.

Fire at Brazil National Museum

Africaʼs leaders race to China summit to talk cooperation Exalted as a "mega-event," the Africa-China summit is expected to draw nearly all of Africaʼs leaders to Beijing. Barely a squeak of criticism has come out of China or Africa, even though there is plenty to be said. "It will be the biggest summit of all time." Those were the words of Chinaʼs Foreign Minister Wang Yi at a press briefing last week. The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) is set to take place in Beijing on Monday and Tuesday — "an event of global significance, which Beijing awaits with feverish enthusiasm." China and Africa are in a "win-win

situation," and the cooperation will benefit all countries concerned, according to Chinaʼs chief diplomat. Africa offensive in Chinaʼs media In the run-up to the FOCAC summit, Chinese state media embarked on a propaganda offensive on the topic of Africa. On an almost daily basis, over weeks and on all channels — especially the China Global Television Net‐ work (CNTV) — Chinese Africa experts praised China-Africa cooperation. Shen Xiaolei of the Institute of West Asian and African Studies in Beijing noted that China has been Africaʼs biggest trading partner for past nine years.

Beethovenfest kicks off in Bonn with quietly dramatic opening The notes played by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France right at the beginning seemed as light as leaves scattered by an autumn breeze. In the World Conference Center Bonn (WCCB), music director Mikko Franck elicited tender tones in Maurice Ravelʼs Le tombeau de Couperin (Couperinʼs Tomb), transforming each of the three movements to a quiet, melancholy yet precious remembrance of Ravelʼs friends who had fallen in World War I. The words"Beethoven" and "fate" have

more dramatic connotations. The image comes to mind of the deaf musician whose career as a pianist and conductor was curtailed at age 30 and who subsequently defied fate. The opening of this yearʼs Beethovenfest on August 31 was notably lacking in musical ballistics, also in the "Egyptian" piano concerto by Camille Saint-Saens with the elegantlyperforming virtuoso Bertrand Chamayou as soloist — and even in Beethovenʼs "Fate Symphony," the "Fifth."

engulfs 200-year-old building Brazilʼs National Museum in Rio de Janeiro was engulfed by a huge fire on Sunday night, putting in jeopardy millions of the countryʼs most valuable historical treasures. Firefighters in northern Rio de Janeiro battled the blaze into the early hours. After five hours, they had managed to bring the blaze under control, but were still working to extinguish it completely. Spokesman for the fire department, Roberto Robadey, said firefighters were hindered in tackling the fire as two hydrants closest to the museum were not working. Water had to be brought from a nearby lake. Some of the museumʼs artefacts were saved, Robadey told Globo News television: "We were able to remove a lot of things from inside with the help of workers of the museum." Television footage showed the fierce flames light up the night sky, as thick plumes of smoke rose out of the burning building.

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