One of those disputes is with the major construction contractor, a Chinese company called Metallurgical Corporation of China, another is with Clive Palmer, the self-made Australian millionaire with a plan to build a replica of Titanic, the unsinkable passenger liner that claimed 1502 lives when it sank in the North Atlantic in 1912.

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The 2, 200-passenger liner also was meant to double as a troop transport ship if war broke out.

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