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Xinhua world news summary at 1530 GMT, Jan. 12

Xinhua, January 12, 2015 Adjust font size:

The threat of a return to the kind of strikes that hit Belgium in the last few months of 2014 has been ruled out for the immediate future following a meeting of the social partners on Monday.

Following a meeting of employers and trade unions on Monday, it was agreed that dialogue between the parties would be resumed with the intention of avoiding the kind of scenes that saw the country witness a series of regional actions, including a general strike, in the last few months of 2014. (Belgium-Strike)

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FREETOWN -- Pujehun district in the southern region of Sierra Leone has gone for 44 days without a single case of the Ebola virus, the chairman of the district council said Monday.

Sadiq Siilah was addressing stakeholders from the district called to assess the situation since the last case of the disease was reported in the district.

He attributed the success so far to the vigilance of the security sector, which include the police and the military who provided security for the holding center, quarantine homes, checkpoints as well as the border post with neighboring Liberia. (Sierra Leone-Ebola)

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TIKRIT, Iraq -- Eight militiamen and soldiers were killed and some 16 others wounded on Monday as a suicide car bomber struck a building housing Shiite militiamen in the country's northern central province of Salahudin, a provincial security source said.

The attack occurred in the town of Abbasiyah, some 140 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, when a suicide bomber drove his explosive-laden car into the building and blew it up, destroying large part of the building, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The death toll could rise as ambulances and military vehicles continue to evacuate the casualties, the source said. (Iraq-Suicide-Bombing)

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WARSAW -- The Polish ministry of foreign affairs informed on Monday that 179 people of Polish origin, who were evacuated from dangerous areas in Eastern Ukraine to Kharkov are coming to Poland in the next few days.

According to foreign ministry spokesman Marcin Wojciechowski, the hopes are that visas issued under the so-called Polish Charter, a document confirming one's belonging to the Polish nation, will be completed in the upcoming days. The next stage will be bringing the evacuated to Poland. (Poland-Ukraine-Evacuation) Endi