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SA-EU

SOUTH Africa has struck a deal to clear tons of oranges stuck at European ports amid a trade dispute with the EU that growers say has cost them millions of dollars. The temporary agreement will bring some relief to South Africa’s $2billion (R32bn) citrus industry, but trade group, South Africa’s Citrus Growers’ Association, warned it would not resolve the underlying threat to their business.

South Africa, the world’s second largest exporter of fresh citrus after

Spain, filed a complaint with the World Trade Organisation last month after the EU introduced new safety requirements on citrus imports. The rules, which aim at tackling the spread of a pest called the false codling moth, require South African farmers to apply extreme cold treatment to all Europe-bound oranges.

But when the regulations came into force in July, ships carrying more than 1 000 containers of fruit were already at sea, forcing them to be held up on arrival, said the Citrus Growers’ Association. | AFP

United States

THE US Justice Department has announced charges against a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards for allegedly plotting to kill former White House national security advisor John Bolton, pictured – an accusation Tehran has dismissed as “fiction”. The department claimed this week that Shahram Poursafi, 45, had offered to pay an individual in the US $300000 (R4.8 million) to kill Bolton, also a former ambassador to the UN. The plan was likely made in retaliation for the US killing of top Guards commander Qasem Soleimani in Iraq in 2020, the department said. According to the charges, Poursafi is a member of the Guards’ elite Quds Force. | AFP

NEW wildfire outbreaks are feared as blazes rage in France and officials warned that flare-ups could cause a massive wildfire to further spread in the country’s parched south-west, where fresh blazes blackened swathes of land this week. President Emmanuel Macron tweeted on Thursday that Germany, Greece, Poland, Romania and Austria were also providing help for firefighters battling eight major wildfires across the country, including the massive blaze in the south-west. “Thank you to them. European solidarity is at work!” he wrote, following help received from Sweden and Italy. | AFP