Egypt leader claims victory in captives' release
SARAH EL DEEB Associated Press= CAIRO (AP) — The safe release Wednesday of seven conscripts kidnapped by suspected militants in Sinai brought a victory for Egypt's Islamist president after months of criticism that his government is mismanaging the country. Seated with top military brass and senior officials, an animated Mohammed Morsi lauded the release as a show of how unified and strong his leadership is and urged his opponents to work with his government in dealing with Egypt's multiple crises. Despite the end of the nearly weeklong kidnapping drama, however, Morsi's government has left unresolved the issue of widespread lawlessness and growing power of Islamic militants in the Sinai...
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Amnesty report condemns 'inaction' over rights abuses
Amnesty International has accused governments of using state sovereignty as an "excuse" for failing to intervene in emergencies such as in Syria. In its annual report, the human rights group also blames world leaders for prioritising immigration control over the rights of people. The study documents torture in at least 112 countries. It also criticises the UN for what it describes as its lack of action over human rights abuses. Continue reading the main story “Start Quote Increasingly, there is very little that governments and corporations can do in hiding behind 'sovereign' boundaries” End Quote Salil...
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Cruise Ship Captain to Be Tried for Manslaughter
ROME -- An Italian judge on Wednesday ordered the captain of the cruise ship Costa Concordia to stand trial on manslaughter and other charges related to the deadly capsizing of the vessel off the coast of Tuscany in January 2012. The judge set a July 9 trial date for the captain, Francesco Schettino, 52. He is accused of causing the ship to run aground, resulting in the deaths of 32 people, and then abandoning the vessel while many of its 4,229 passengers and...
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Colombia: 10 soldiers killed by in rebel attack
BOGOTA, Colombia — At least 10 Colombian soldiers were killed and six wounded Wednesday in a pre-dawn attack on an army patrol with homemade explosives by the country's second-largest leftist rebel band, the military said. The 2 a.m. attack by the National Liberation Army, or ELN, occurred in a rural area of Chitaga in the northeastern state of Norte de Santander, said the regional divisional commander, Gen. Juan Pablo Amaya. He said two of the wounded...
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Iran's Nuclear Program Gets 2 Major Upgrades In Uranium Enrichment And Plutonium Production, IAEA Says
VIENNA -- The U.N. atomic agency on Wednesday detailed rapid Iranian progress in two programs that the West fears are geared toward making nuclear weapons, saying Tehran has upgraded its uranium enrichment facilities and advanced in building a plutonium-producing reactor. In a confidential report obtained by The Associated Press, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Tehran had installed close to 700 high-tech centrifuges used for uranium enrichment, which can produce the core of nuclear weapons. It also said Tehran had added hundreds of older-generation machines at its main enrichment site to bring the total number to over 13,000. Iran denies that either its enrichment program or the...
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'Soldier' killed in London attack
A man reported to be a serving soldier has been murdered near a military training barracks in southeast London, in what police say may be a politically motivated attack. British Prime Minister David Cameron has called a meeting of his government's emergency Cobra security committee after the killing, his office said on Wednesday. Britian's government convenes Cobra meetings only to deal with incidents that have implications for national security. 69 Source: Al Jazeera Featured on Al Jazeera Revised Guantanamo force-feed policy exposed Al Jazeera's exclusive publishing of a key Guantanamo prison military document lays bare the brutality of force-feeding. Report: Canada could see...
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Report: Palestinian organizations use U.S. funding to demonize Israel
On Tuesday, a report presented to Congress by Jerusalem-based watchdog NGO Monitor showed that several NGOs (“non-government organizations”) in the region that receive U.S. tax dollars are hostile toward Israel and the peace process. Gerald M. Steinberg, NGO Monitor’s president, is quoted in the report as saying: Some of the NGO grantees conduct activities that sharply contradict program objectives and policies. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), for instance, funded by the US Government, in turn funds political advocacy NGOs that demonize Israel and promote BDS (boycotts, divestment, and sanctions) campaigns targeting Israel. This activity is entirely inconsistent with US policy....
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Israel warns Syria of 'consequences' if Golan fire continues
May 21: The head of Israel's armed forces warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday of "consequences" if fire continues from Syrian territory against Israeli troops in the occupied Golan Heights. "If he disturbs the Golan Heights, he will have to bear the consequences," Lieutenant General Benny Gantz said in an address at Haifa University and broadcast on Israeli television. "We cannot and shall not allow the Golan Heights to become a comfort zone for Assad," he said. He spoke hours after Israeli troops and Syrian forces exchanged fire across the sensitive ceasefire line on the Golan Heights, but the Jewish state denied Syrian claims one of its vehicles had been destroyed. The...
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UN calls on businesses to help limit risks from disaster
Paper Edition | Page: 12 The United Nation (UN) wants the private sector to share responsibility in reducing risks of both natural and man-made disasters. During a biennial conference on disaster risk reduction on Tuesday, UN deputy secretary general Jan Eliasson said that there was a man-made component to any natural disaster and if it was not addressed properly business and economic sustainability would be undermined. “When we think about reducing risk from disaster we should not only cover the issues of human lives and casualties but also the sustainability of the...
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Severity of weather events bear out warnings of climatologists
Nobody can say with certainty that the devastating tornado that hit Oklahoma on Monday or the strong cyclone that struck Bangladesh last Thursday provide conclusive evidence of climate change. But scientists have been warning for years that these are the type of extreme weather events we can expect to see happening in different parts of the world as a result of the build-up of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Earth’s atmosphere. Although the death toll in Bangladesh was quite low, more than a million people had to be...
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A Chinese Folk Remedy Draws Charges of Cruelty From Bear Advocates
CHENGDU, China — It was, at first glance, a rather modest initial public offering by a small Chinese company seeking to expand production of the key ingredient used in traditional remedies said to shrink gallstones, reduce fevers and sooth the aftereffects of excessive drinking. Multimedia A Controversial Cure A Controversial Cure Close Video See More Videos » Connect With Us on Twitter Follow @nytimesworld for international breaking news and headlines. Twitter List: Reporters and Editors Enlarge This Image Mu Chen/European Pressphoto Agency Caged bears awaiting bile extraction. But Guizhentang Pharmaceutical, the country’s largest producer of bear bile extract, apparently overlooked...
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Fed assurances boost US stocks
The Dow and the S&P 500 have closed at new all-time highs as Federal Reserve officials' comments eased some concerns that the central bank could start reducing its stimulus programme. But after a rally of about 17 per cent for the major US stock indexes since the start of the year, investors are trying to assess how much further equities can run. Goldman Sachs said in a note to clients that it sees the S&P 500 at 1750 by the end of the year - up 5 per cent from Monday's close - and expects a 12-month rally to 1825....
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Wall Street rises on Fed officials' dovish remarks, with Dow, S&P refreshing new records
NEW YORK, May 21 (Xinhua) -- U.S. stocks went up Tuesday after Monday's slip, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Standard & Poor's 500-stock Index closing at record highs, boosted by dovish remarks by top U.S. Federal Reserve officials. The blue-chip Dow gained 52.30 points, or 0.34 percent, to 15, 387.58 points. The broader S&P 500 went up 2.87 points, or 0.17 percent, to 1,669.16 points. The...
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Search nearly complete after Oklahoma tornado
Helmeted rescue workers raced Tuesday to complete the search for survivors and the dead in the Oklahoma City suburb where a mammoth tornado destroyed countless homes, cleared lots down to bare red earth and claimed 24 lives. Scientists concluded the storm was a rare and extraordinarily powerful type of twister known as an EF5, which is capable of lifting reinforced buildings off the ground, hurling cars like missiles and stripping trees completely free of bark. Meanwhile, residents of Moore began returning to their homes a day after the tornado smashed some neighborhoods into jagged wood scraps and gnarled pieces of metal. In place of their houses, many families found only empty lots. The...
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Nigeria: Islamic extremist inmates to be released
ENUGU, Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria's military said Tuesday that the West African nation would release some of the prisoners it has taken in the country's fight against Islamic extremists — including all the women now held in custody. The surprise statement from the Defense Ministry, while lacking specifics about how many would be released and when, represents a clear concession by the Nigerian government to the insurgents it is fighting in a military offensive in the nation's restive northeast. The leader of the Islamic extremist network Boko Haram, the main group now fighting the government, repeatedly has mentioned security agencies...
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Iraqi PM Orders Security Shakeup as Violence Surges
Iraq's Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has ordered a shakeup of senior government security officers, as a weeks-long wave of violence grips the country and fears of all-out sectarian war spread. The shakeup was confirmed on the prime...
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McConnell calls for end of import sanctions on Myanmar
Facebook Follow @washtimes Do you believe Jay Carney's assertion that aides insulated President Obama from the IRS scandal? Login to Vote View results Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday urged Congress not to extend import sanctions on Myanmar, warning that sticking with the sanctions would be “a slap in the face” to reformers in the Southeast Asian nation. Mr. McConnell said Congress must end the sanctions as an acknowledgement of the reforms taking place in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. “I believe renewing sanctions would be a slap in the...
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Car bomb, other attacks kill 20 in Iraq
BAGHDAD (AP) — A car bomb exploded as Sunni worshippers were leaving a mosque after evening prayers Tuesday in Baghdad, the deadliest in a string of attacks that killed at least 20 people nationwide in a week of the most sustained sectarian violence in the country since U.S. troops withdrew more than a year ago. Rising tensions between Sunnis and the Shiite-led government have burst into a new round of bloodshed with 279 people killed since last week and scenes reminiscent of some of the worst carnage during the days when the two Islamic sects battled each other as well as U.S.-led forces in the chaotic years after Saddam Hussein's...
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Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad ally barred from Iran election
DUBAI (Reuters) - Iranian authorities on Tuesday barred former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a relative moderate, from running in the June 14 election, along with a protégé of the current president, leaving mainly hardliners left to contest the vote. Rafsanjani and Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, a close aide to current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, failed to make it onto a list of candidates approved by the Guardian Council, state news agencies and television reported. Both Rafsanjani, a relative moderate who was president between 1989 and 1997, and...
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Military discharges, rather than treats
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — The U.S. Army has discharged escalating numbers of traumatized combat veterans who commit crimes and in ways that make them ineligible for Veterans Administration health assistance, The Gazette of Colorado Springs reports. The Gazette found (http://tinyurl.com/nhbp3wh) that the numbers of combat veterans discharged has risen since 2006. Many have post-traumatic stress disorder or brain...
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Congolese army, rebels clash for a second day, 19 dead
GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) - Two days of clashes between Congo's army and rebel fighters near the eastern city of Goma have killed at least 19 people, threatening an uneasy six-month peace just days before a scheduled visit by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Government forces and the M23 insurgents began exchanging heavy weapons fire for a second day early on Tuesday, with explosions still being heard late into the afternoon. A Reuters witness saw rebel fighters blocking the road heading north away from the...
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Fight for Somalia turns town to dust
- In a town not far from Mogadishu, vehicles slow to a crawl to negotiate the potholes that dot the town's only tarmac road; ownerless donkeys wander about, scavenging for food; once-elegant villas with shining rooftops are now abandoned, with overgrown vegetation taking over their compounds. This is Elasha Biyaha - a town 16 kilometres southwest of the capital that was once home to more than half a million residents at the height of Somalia's civil war. People escaping the battles raging on the streets of Mogadishu fled here during the past fifteen years; schools, universities, hospitals and shopping malls soon followed. Last May, the tides turned on the town, as al-Shabaab, an armed group...
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Awaiting rebound in Europe, Poland stifles growth at home
WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland has turned its back on policies that once made it Europe's growth leader and is flirting with the recession that it alone among its emerging European Union peers has evaded through years of crisis. It weathered the global turmoil after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 thanks to its 38-million-strong consumer market and a surge in infrastructure spending. But now the region's biggest economy has turned to budget tightening and the hope of rising exports, a shift that has flattened the economy and driven unemployment to a six-year high. At the same time, monetary authorities have resisted calls from business leaders to quickly cut borrowing costs, pushing real...
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Physician dismisses force-feeding concerns
A military physician who oversees a team of nurses force-feeding hunger-striking prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility has dismissed ethical concerns raised by human rights groups and medical organisations about the procedure, saying the medical community was motivated to speak out about the practice for political reasons. In an interview with Al Jazeera at the prison's detention hospital last week, the physician, who, for security reasons, could only be identified as a senior medical officer of the Joint Medical Group, was defensive when pressed about questions regarding medical ethics and force-feeding. "It's very easy for folks outside of this place to make policies and...
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Egypt army ready to release kidnapped soldiers
CAIRO - The Egyptian army sent more troops to Sinai Peninsula on Monday, getting ready for a possible military operation to release the seven kidnapped soldiers, a military source told Xinhua. On Thursday, a group of militants abducted seven military recruits in North Sinai's Green Valley,...
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Hezbollah pulled more deeply into Syria civil war
ZEINA KARAM Associated Press= BEIRUT (AP) — Hezbollah was pulled more deeply into Syria's civil war as 28 guerrillas from the Lebanese Shiite militant group were killed and dozens more wounded while fighting rebels, Syria activists said Monday. The intense battle drove rebels from large parts of the town of Qusair, part of a withering government offensive aimed at securing a strategic land corridor from Damascus to the Mediterranean coast. Hezbollah-affiliated hospitals in Lebanon urged blood donations through mosque loudspeakers and ambulances raced along the Damascus road in a stark indication of the group's increasingly prominent role in Syria. The overt Hezbollah involvement — several...
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US and Chinese leaders to hold summit in California
The US and Chinese presidents will hold their first summit in California in June, both sides have announced. Barack Obama and Xi Jinping will meet from 7-8 June at an estate in Rancho Mirage, a US statement said. Topics on the agenda are likely to include North Korea, cyber espionage, tensions in...
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Action wanted as 11- year-olds take their lives
An Aboriginal group has called what it describes as a "crisis meeting" for Tuesday, demanding the Mental Health Minister attends to discuss the high rate of suicide within the indigenous population. Representatives from the Dumbartung Aboriginal Corporation and the wider Aboriginal community will gather at the corporation's headquarters in Waterford to discuss the matter. According to the Australian Bureau of Statitics, suicides accounted for 4.2 per cent of all...
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Wave of attacks kills at least 95 in Iraq
BAGHDAD: A wave of attacks killed at least 95 people in Shiite and Sunni areas of Iraq today, officials said, pushing the death toll over the past week to more than 240 and extending one of the most sustained bouts of sectarian violence the country has seen in years. The bloodshed is still far shy of the pace, scale and...
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Pistorius will not compete in 2013
Peet van Zyl told Press Association Sport the 26-year-old was not mentally ready to return to the track. The six-time Paralympic gold medallist was charged with the premeditated murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in...
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Mourinho to Leave Real Madrid at End of Season
MADRID — Real Madrid coach Jose Mourinho will leave at the end of the season after three years at the Spanish club, paving the way for an expected return to Chelsea. The 50-year-old Portuguese coach has two remaining matches of a season that will end on June 1 without Madrid winning a trophy. President Florentino Perez announced at a...
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China Premier Li Keqiang to discuss border and trade in India
China's Premier Li Keqiang is due to hold talks with Indian leaders in an attempt to rebuild trust after a recent flare-up in border tensions. Mr Li is also expected to discuss trade ties and other bilateral issues at meetings with his Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, and other...
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Tunisian police clash with Salafists over banning of annual congress
Security forces and hardline Islamists fought street battles in Tunis on Sunday, with one protester killed and 15 policemen wounded, after the authorities banned the Salafists from staging their annual congress. A Tunisian protester jumps amid smoke after police fired tear gas during a rally outside the Interior ministry earlier this year Photo: AFP/GETTY 3:10AM BST 20 May 2013 The confrontations infuriated moderate Islamist Prime Minister Ali Larayedh, who for the first time linked the Salafist Ansar al-Sharia group which is considered close to al-Qaeda to "terrorism". "Ansar al-Sharia is an illegal organisation which defies and provokes state authority," Larayedh told Tunisian state...
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Sinai abduction: Egypt President Morsi rules out talks
The Egyptian president has ruled out negotiating with the abductors of seven members of the security forces seized last week in the Sinai peninsula. In a statement, Mohammed Morsi said there was "no room for dialogue with the criminals". He was speaking after a video emerged apparently showing the three police officers and...
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Army launch recruitment drive for 10,000 new young soldiers ahead of redundancies
The Army has launched a campaign to sign up 10,000 new recruits just weeks before thousands of experienced soldiers who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan will lose their jobs. A Royal Navy Sea King helicopter landing at FOB Shahzad to pickup soldiers rotating back to Camp Bastion Photo: HEATHCLIFF O'MALLEY By Rowena Mason, Political Correspondent 12:01AM BST 20 May 2013 Ahead of next month's round of 5,000 redundancies, the Ministry of Defence will appeal for fresh applicants to join the Army in a television campaign today. Critics argue the Army is losing valuable expertise as it sheds trained soldiers in favour of young recruits, many of whome are on starting salaries of £275...
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Zimbabwe PM: We will end police, military abuse
GILLIAN GOTORA Associated Press= HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said Sunday his party will end years of bias and abuse by the police, military and intelligence services and will make sure the services uphold the country's new constitution which demands impartiality in their duties. Tsvangirai said if his party comes to power it will manage the police and military so that Zimbabweans "will not fear their soldiers and policemen" any longer. Launching his party's election platform, Tsvangirai said security services must be...
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North Korea test-fires 3short-range missiles
(Bloomberg) North Korea fired three short-range missiles yesterday as it showcased its military ambitions in defiance of international sanctions and diplomatic efforts to convince the totalitarian state to return to...
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Assad warns U.S. to avoid interfering in Syria politics
BEIRUT -- Syrian President Bashar Assad said in a newspaper interview Saturday he won't step down before elections and that the United States has no right to interfere in his country's politics, raising new doubts about a U.S.-Russian effort to get Mr. Assad and his opponents to negotiate an end to the country's civil war. In the capital Damascus, a car bomb killed at least three people and wounded five, according to Syrian state TV. It said bomb experts dismantled other explosives in the area. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group, said eight people were killed, including four members of the security forces. Discrepancies in death tolls are...
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Denmark wins Eurovision contest
Denmark's Emmelie de Forest has won this year's Eurovision Song Contest with her ethno-inspired flute and drum tune Only Teardrops, despite tough competition from spectacular stage shows by performers from Azerbaijan and Ukraine. Juries and television viewers across Europe awarded the barefoot, hippie-chic 20-year-old for the catchy love song that is driven by her deep, Shakira-like voice. She received a total of 281 points in the glitzy music battle, which also featured a bizarre opera pop number from Romania, the comeback of Total Eclipse of the Heart star Bonnie Tyler and an Armenian rock song written by the guitarist of Black Sabbath. "It was overwhelming and I could really feel the fans...
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Texas to take BP and Halliburton to court
Texas has joined the crowd of Gulf of Mexico states to file suit against BP Plc, Halliburton Co and others for their role in one of the worst oil spills in US history. The complaint, filed on Friday in US District Court in Beaumont, Texas, alleges that the companies and others "engaged in wilful and wanton misconduct" for their role in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The state has accused the firms - as well as Transocean, Anadarko and BP America in its suit - of violating Texas' environmental regulations. Texas is seeking money from "lost" tourism revenues due to the spill, as well as monies that would have been generated from state park entrance and concession fees by visitors to the...
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Gunmen kill senior woman member of Pakistani party led by Imran Khan
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a senior female politician from a reformist party in Pakistan on Saturday night, the latest violent incident in a bloody election campaign and one that set off a war of words between two major opposition parties. Around 150 people were killed in the run-up to national elections held last week, which handed a landslide victory to opposition leader Nawaz Sharif and his PML-N party. It marked the first time an elected government...
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Ivory Coast Militia Leader Arrested for 2011 Massacre
Soldiers in Ivory Coast have arrested a militia leader who was allegedly involved in a 2011 massacre of...
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Assad Says He Will Not Step Down
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says in a newspaper interview that he will not step down before next year's elections. Mr. Assad's...
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Afghans block law protecting women’s rights
Conservative religious lawmakers in Afghanistan blocked a law that aims to protect women’s freedoms, with some arguing that parts of it violate Islamic principles or encourage women to have sex outside of marriage. The failure highlights how tenuous women’s rights remain a dozen years after the overthrow of the Taliban. Khalil Ahmad Shaheedzada, a conservative lawmaker for Herat province, said the legislation was withdrawn shortly after being introduced in parliament because of fierce opposition...
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Nigeria says 10 rebels killed in northeast, 65 arrested
LAGOS (Reuters) - Nigeria's military said on Saturday it had killed 10 insurgents and arrested 65 more as part of an offensive meant to wrest back control of parts of its remote northeast from an Islamist group seen as the main security threat to Africa's top oil producer. President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian southerner, had been accused of not taking seriously enough the violence in the largely Muslim north where some fear Islamist insurgents allied to al Qaeda could take over large swathes of territory as they did in Mali before French-led troops ejected them this year. Jonathan has since won plaudits from some quarters...
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Euro rivals reject EC's threat of Chinese tariffs
Two of Europe's biggest telecommunications equipment makers, Ericsson and Nokia Siemens, have urged the European Commission to back off from threatening tariffs on their Chinese rivals in a row over alleged illegal government subsidies. The European Commission said on Wednesday that it was prepared to probe possible Chinese subsidies to network...
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FBI Executes Search Warrant In Ricin Letters Case
SPOKANE, Wash. -- The FBI and other law enforcement agencies are executing a search warrant Saturday in the case of two letters containing the deadly poison ricin that were intercepted this week at a post office in Washington state. Police say the investigation has focused on a neighborhood near downtown Spokane. The FBI, U.S. Postal Inspection Service and Spokane police are involved, but further details were not immediately available. Ricin is a highly toxic substance made from castor beans. As little as 500 micrograms, the size of the head of a pin, can kill an adult if inhaled or ingested. Two letters containing the substance were intercepted at the downtown Spokane post office Tuesday....
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Nigeria Imposes Curfew in Military Campaign
Nigeria's military has imposed a 24-hour curfew in parts of the northeastern city of Maiduguri, as security forces continue to pursue suspected Islamist militants in the region. The military on Saturday listed more...
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Myanmar leader to meet Obama but stalls on reforms
MATTHEW PENNINGTON Associated Press= WASHINGTON (AP) — Myanmar President Thein Sein's historic White House visit next week is the culmination of U.S. outreach to a former pariah regime. That's been based on a principle of taking "action for action" by deepening ties in response to democratic reforms. But in the six months since Barack Obama became the first U.S. president to visit Myanmar, the Southeast Asian nation has been buffeted by communal and ethnic violence, and security forces are still accused of serious rights abuses. Activists and some in Congress are concerned it may be premature to welcome Myanmar's leader to the White House for the first time in 47 years. In November, on the...
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Syria crisis: US rues Russian missiles sent to Damascus
The US has chided Russia for what it calls an "unfortunate decision" to send missiles to the Syrian government. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen Martin Dempsey said the shipment "will embolden the regime and prolong the suffering" that has killed 80,000. The sophisticated anti-ship missiles could be used to counter any future foreign military intervention, US officials told The New York Times. Some 1.5 million people have fled the conflict, says the UN refugee agency. Most have fled to Jordan and Lebanon, but not all have been registered yet, meaning the true total is likely to be far higher, according to the UNHCR. Meanwhile,...
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