TOP STORIES
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AMMAN/BEIRUT – About 30 Lebanese Hezbollah fighters and 20
Syrian soldiers and militiamen loyal to President Bashar
al-Assad have been killed in the fiercest fighting this year in
the rebel stronghold of Qusair, Syrian activists said on Monday.
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BAGHDAD – More than 60 people were killed in a series of car
bomb explosions targeting Shi’ite Muslims across Iraq on Monday,
police and medics said, part of the worst sectarian violence
since U.S. troops pulled out in December 2011.
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WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama will walk a fine line
between fostering a U.S. ally in China’s backyard and trying to
defend human rights when the president of Myanmar becomes the
first head of his country to visit the White House in 47 years
on Monday.
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SEOUL – North Korea fired two short-range missiles on
Monday, making six launches in three days, and it condemned
South Korea for criticising what it said were its legitimate
military drills.
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MAKHACHKALA, Russia – Two car bombs killed at least three
people and wounded dozens of others on Monday in Dagestan, a
turbulent province in Russia’s North Caucasus region where armed
groups are waging an Islamist insurgency.
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DUBAI – Iran’s electoral watchdog said on Monday it would
bar physically feeble candidates from running for president, in
an apparent hint that it could disqualify 78-year-old former
President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani from the race.
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EL-ARISH, Egypt – The Egyptian army sent reinforcements into
the Sinai Peninsula on Monday after President Mohamed Mursi said
there would be no talks with militant Islamists who abducted
seven members of the security forces last week.
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NEW DELHI – India and China will study new ways to ease
tensions on their ill-defined border after an army standoff in
the Himalayas, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said on Monday on his
first official foreign trip.
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JERUSALEM – Finance Minister Yair Lapid, whose new centrist
party is the second largest in Israel’s government, said on
Monday thousands of Jewish settlers would have to be removed
from occupied land under any peace deal with the Palestinians.
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ISLAMABAD – Pakistan has told civil servants not to wear
socks as the country turns off air-conditioners amid a chronic
power crisis and soaring temperatures.
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GAZIPUR, Bangladesh – A Bangladesh factory where Wal-Mart
Stores Inc and Inditex SA inspectors spotted cracks in the wall
this month is still making Wrangler shirts for the world’s
largest apparel maker, U.S.-based VF Corp .
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CANNES – Japanese director Takashi Miike got the final week
of the Cannes film festival off to an explosive start on Monday,
with big budget cop thriller “Shield of Straw” a sharp contrast
to the more intense, intimate movies screened so far.
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SHANGHAI – Humor may not always translate well, but Jon
Stewart is picking up millions of fans in China, where his
gloves-off political satire is refreshing for many in a country
where such criticism is a rarity – especially when directed at
their own leaders.
