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Article: Beware the Chinese offering aid; One of the main reasons for China's interest in Africa is to win a share of the continent's oil production for its booming economy, writes Patrick Laurence.(News)
- Article from:
- The Mercury (South Africa)
- Article date:
- July 6, 2006
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Independent News & Media PLC. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The wooden horse subterfuge, by which, as chronicled by Homer in the Iliad, the ancient Greeks captured and set fire to the famed city of Troy, has bequeathed to the modern world the maxim: "Beware the Greeks when they come bearing gifts".
It alludes to the hollow wooden horse that the Greeks left outside Troy after besieging the city for 10 years, ostensibly to propitiate the gods for a safe journey home, but in reality to (successfully) entice the Trojans to drag the horse into the city and thereby enable the soldiers secreted within it to open the gates to their brethren outside.
Today the adage has become a generalised proverb about the risk of ...