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Oil price hits at 94.74 USD marking two years highest

Oil hovered around its highest levels in more than two years on Friday, supported by cold weather across the globe, appetite for risk assets and signals from OPEC it would not arrest the rally. European benchmark ICE Brent crude for February closed 48 cents down at $93.46 on Friday after hitting $94.74 a barrel, its highest level since October 2008. Global benchmark U.S. crude futures, which hit a 26-month high of $91.63 on Thursday, did not trade on Friday with the NYMEX floor closed for the Christmas holiday. Brent, trading at a premium to U.S. crude, has surged partly due to a severe cold snap in continental Europe and Britain. Heavy snow stranded thousands of Christmas travellers in Europe on Friday, threatening to prolong chaos at airlines and rail networks and further boost fuel demand. Analysts said oil could continue its rally on strong global demand and falling inventories in 2011, which promises to be a strong year for risk assets as confidence about the global econ
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Disputed Ivory Coast President Gbagbo will not step down

The disputed head of the Ivory Coast will not step down, one of his key ministers said Saturday, despite the threat by West African leaders to use military force to force him out. A day earlier, a statement from the 15-member Economic Community of West African States said its 15 members would not hesitate to use "legitimate force" if necessary to defuse an escalating crisis in the Ivory Coast. But Alcide Djedje, the foreign affairs minister for incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo, on Saturday dismissed the threat as part of a Western plot spearheaded by France. He said that his regime views the prospect of outside military action unlikely, claiming that the West African group's members would be reluctant to send soldiers into the Ivory Coast. The organization's move was the latest to isolate Gbagbo, amid sweeping international sentiment that he is not the Ivory Coast's rightfully elected leader and that his forces have perpetrated human rights abuses against
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