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A United Nations agency said on Wednesday that it wanted a tidal wave warning system set up in the Indian Ocean by the end of next year.
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The giant, deadly waves of seawater that crashed through coastal towns in Asia and parts of east Africa last weekend are commonly called tidal waves, but that term is not strictly correct, say scientists, who prefer the word "tsunami".
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Tourists are staying put on the beaches of Indonesias resort island of Bali, unfazed by the tsunami waves that have wreaked havoc at holiday destinations across Asia.
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A little girl clinging to a broken door for two days in the Indian Ocean, people offering dazed strangers comfort and the shirts off their backs. Amid the chaos and grief surrounding the tsunami horror wrought on Asia have emerged some remarkable t
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Confirmed deaths and warnings that disease could multiply the horror of Asias tsunami catastrophe took estimates of the final toll to over 100,000 as the worlds biggest ever relief operation stutters into life against enormous odds.
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Iraq faces the prospect of civil war as Prime Minister Ayad Allawis government loses credibility and violence against US forces increases, according to almost a half dozen former and serving administration officials.
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Boozy smell story stinks An actor was jailed for drunken driving after his lawyer failed to produce evidence to back up his clients defence that he wasnt actually drunk, he only seemed to be drunk.
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Archeologists have uncovered elaborate paving and a water channel for a pool where Christian Scriptures say a blind man received his sight from Jesus.
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The worlds sole physical link to the liturgy of Jerusalems famed Temple of Solomon turns out to be a forgery, Haaretz newspaper has reported.
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On a December Friday morning, an ordinary-looking bus filled with ordinary-looking people departs Tel Avivs central station. An air of anticipation runs through the crowded bus, packed with groups of wealthy middle-aged ladies, elderly couples,
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The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday it was sending 31 tons of food to assist some 2,000 people in Somalias northern Hafuni island, which was battered by surging waves spawned by the mammoth earthquake off Indonesia.
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A Christian leader during Christmas midnight mass in Bethlehem urged Palestinian leaders to work with Jews for peace.
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Marek Halter sits at an outdoor cafe fronting the elegant Place des Voges, stirring his cappuccino and explaining why Sarah - the beautiful and barren wife of Abraham - can also be credited with passing down his tale to future generations.
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British Prime Minister Tony Blair, on a surprise visit to Iraq on Tuesday, urged all Iraqis to take part in next months elections, saying that the country was confronting a "battle between democracy and terror".
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On the streets of the city of Haifa, home to a diverse population of Jews, Arab Christians and Muslims, a series of painted yellow footprints appeared in the ramshackle Wadi Nisnas neighborhood in late November, leading the visitor on a walking tou
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Saddam Hussein has urged the Iraqi people from his prison cell to be united and cautioned them to be wary of the elections slated for January 30, his Jordan-based legal team said on Sunday.
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A Turkish Islamist militant on Monday rejected charges of terrorism but spoke out in favor of religious rule for Turkey as his trial for allegedly plotting to overthrow the countrys secular system opened here under tight security.
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US Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper has canceled a trip to Israel because he would not meet defense ministry director-general Amos Yaron.
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A Cornell University poll finds that 44 percent of the US population believe that Muslim Americans are a threat and their civil liberties should be curtailed.
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A Lebanese television station accused of spreading anti-Semitic propaganda for the Muslim militant group Hizbullah was taken off-air in Europe on Tuesday following a French ruling banning it, the Paris-based satellite company Eutelsat said.
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It was built to house dozens of buses, but Bethlehems now entirely empty coach station bears painful testimony to the collapse of a once-booming tourist industry after four years of Palestinian-Israeli violence.
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The funeral rites of the Parsis people of India rely a good deal on vultures.
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Ivory poaching is rife in a national park in the north of the Congo Republic because unemployment is rife, too.
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Indian scientists have carried out vasectomies on scores of crossbred lions, the results of experiments to create new sub-species, to let them die out in a "controlled extinction".
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At least six people were killed in a failed escape bid at an Afghan prison where three US vigilantes are being held for conducting a private war on terror, officials said on Friday.
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About 1,000 protestors gathered in downtown Cairo on Sunday to stage the countrys first open demonstration against President Hosni Mubaraks regime.
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The European Union took a giant step toward shedding its image as a rich, Christian club with an aging population and spluttering economy on Thursday when it gave the green light to start membership talks with Turkey - a poor, populous and predomin
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Muslim-Christian relations in Egypt soured last week after Coptic Christians around the country held demonstrations against what they said was the governments failure to stop forced conversions to Islam.
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A summary of bizarre events in Egypt. Share experts take stock of the fatwa Financial experts believe that the otherwise stable Egyptian stock market could collapse under the weight of a random fatwa uttered against share dealings.
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A summary of news from around Egypt.
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Security forces detained about 14 people on Thursday in Saudi Arabias main cities of Jeddah and Riyadh, deploying in force to confront demonstrations called by a dissident Islamist group against the strictly conservative regime.
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Campaigning for the first post-Saddam Hussein elections got underway on Thursday amid more bloodshed, as US President George W. Bush warned Iran and Syria to stop meddling in Iraq in the run-up to the vote.
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Israeli arms deals with China have provoked tensions between Israel and its top ally the United States, the head of Israels parliamentary defense committee acknowledged on Thursday. "There are tensions, which are hidden from the public,
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Osama Bin Laden called on Saudi rulers to abandon power or face a popular uprising, laying the blame for deadly unrest gripping the country on the kingdoms own regime, in a new purported audiotape message on Thursday. "The people have aw
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A summary of news from around the region.
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A pacifist Islamic professor has given up hope of getting a US visa and announced his resignation from the University of Notre Dame. "As you may imagine, my family has experienced enormous stress and uncertainty during this period, and I
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Kidnappers who had been cornered by police killed a Turkish engineer taken hostage with a driver and interpreter in Afghanistan, officials said on Wednesday. The victim, named by Turkish diplomats as Eyup Orel, was working on a US-funded
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An historic US military recruiting station has found its place among thousands of lights in New Yorks Times Square. A Bangladeshi immigrant eases himself inside, determined to sign up regardless of the debate surrounding the war in Iraq.
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US troops in Afghanistan detained a group of wealthy Arabs who had entered the country to hunt rare birds. The group, including at least nine Qataris, was arrested on Friday in the town of Spin Boldak near the Pakistani border.
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Tunisian astrologer Hassan Al Sharibi on Tuesday predicted the capture of Osama Bin Laden and the death of ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein next year.
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The commander of Israeli forces in the West Bank held a recent meeting in prison with a senior member of Hamas armed wing in a bid to understand what makes him tick, the Maariv daily reported on Monday. Imad Qawasmeh,
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The US Army acknowledged on Monday that eight prisoners have died in US military custody in Afghanistan since US-led forces toppled the Taliban regime, two more than previously disclosed. The Pentagon released a list of the death cases in
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In a tiny room amid the ruins of Iraqs air force headquarters, Abdel Razak Abu Sajad runs his clinic to heal people physically and spiritually. With only his hands and feet, a dose of Koranic verses or ingredients like honey or amber, Ab
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Afghan security forces have captured the former security chief of fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar in the south of the country, officials and police said on Tuesday. Mullah Naqeebullah Khan, a commander in charge of planning u
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Ali Hassan Al Majid, a cousin of Saddam Hussein nicknamed "Chemical Ali" for the gassing of the Kurds, will be the first member of Iraqs ousted leadership to go on trial, a minister announced on Wednesday. "The trials will take place fro
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PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas ended a two-day landmark visit to Kuwait on Monday saying that the 14-year-old rift over Iraqs invasion of the emirate had been patched up. "The most important thing in this visit is that it has taken place and
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Israeli helicopter gun-ships fired rockets into the densely-populated Gaza City early on Monday in a swift response to a daring attack on an army post that left five soldiers and two Palestinian militants dead. The Israeli military said t
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Jailed intifada leader Marwan Barghouti called off his campaign to become Palestinian president on Sunday, throwing his support behind PLO chairman and the now overwhelming favorite Mahmoud Abbas. In a statement read out by his campaign m
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In a partnership hailed as a major boost to often chilly ties, Egypt and Israel on Tuesday signed a first joint trade accord with the United States since their historic peace treaty 25 years ago. The deal is an "important step toward cons
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US forces launched airstrikes on Fallujah on Monday after eight US marines were killed in weekend clashes with Iraqi rebels in Anbar province despite claims that the insurgency was being defeated.
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Wheelchair-bound Nadia Ali Abdel Karim brandishes a sword during a fencing duel at her club in war-torn Baghdad. "I am fighting for life itself.
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Controversial Palestinian director Hanna Elias, who made a movie with an Israeli crew, wants to promote nonviolence as a means to ending Israeli settlements and prove the two sides can live together in peace. "Its the only film on which
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With a quick sniff and a contented sigh Antonia picked up a needle-shaped bone and stuck it into the flesh of a huge ham, traditional appetite-whetter on Spanish Christmas menus. "These are from 2001," said Paco Vazquez, head butcher with
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Hundreds of Afghan refugee women took to the streets in Islamabad on international human rights day to demand that notorious warlords and fundamentalists in their country be kept out of the new cabinet in Kabul. Joined by men and childr
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A US soldier who said he shot dead an unarmed and wounded Iraqi civilian to "put him out of his misery" was found guilty of murder at a court martial in Baghdad on Friday. Staff Sergeant Johnny Horne was convicted of the unpremeditated mu
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An FBI investigation into alleged Israeli espionage against the United States and the possibility that a pro-Israel lobby group was involved in passing classified US data to Tel Aviv has intensified because a confessed Pentagon spy has stopped coop
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The army is working to get more armored vehicles out to soldiers and marines in Iraq, a top general said on December 9, hoping to quiet a controversy started by a soldiers public complaint to the US defense secretary. "I dont need to te
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In the past, scholars of Islam used to gain prominence by issuing important fatwas (religious edicts) that were characterized by their objectivity and integrity. But things have changed.
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Nearly 1 million US troops have been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan since 9/11, the Pentagon said. The Pentagon confirmed to United Press International on Wednesday that a cumulative total of 955,000 troops from all military services had
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The US Marine Corps on Thursday charged a corporal with desertion for his disappearance from a US military camp near Fallujah, Iraq, in June. Cpl.
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Jailed intifada leader Marwan Barghouti was under growing pressure to pull out of the race for Palestinian Authority president as polls on Monday showed him running neck and neck with PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas. Last weeks decision by th
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Saudi Arabia on Tuesday named the slain gunmen who stormed the US diplomatic mission in Jeddah and dealt a sharp blow to the kingdoms efforts to wipe out suspected Al Qaeda militants behind a wave of attacks. Mondays brazen broad-daylig
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The eleventh hour candidacy of jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti for the upcoming Palestinian presidential elections has exposed the rift within the movements ranks. Barghouti, 45, who had initially supported official Fatah candidate
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A US soldier who walked out on the 82nd Airborne Division and fled his country rather than fight in Iraq launched on Monday a long-shot bid for political refuge in Canada. Jeremy Hinzman, 26, a veteran of the US-led war in Afghanistan, ap
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A summary of bizarre events in Egypt.
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On a dark, chilly Autumn night, Tel Avivs normally quiet College for Geographical Photography is abuzz with activity. Spotlights illuminate the trees in the courtyard; tables are loaded with bottles of red wine and snacks.
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A British archaeologist has uncovered a cave in the mountains near Jerusalem which he believes conclusively proves that the Biblical figure of John the Baptist existed. "The first concrete evidence of the existence of John the Baptist has
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Dutch police said on Tuesday that they had arrested a man suspected of aiding former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in committing war crimes and genocide by supplying him with the materials to make chemical weapons used in attacks in the 1980s. {/bold
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Iran confirmed on Tuesday that it had tried and sentenced fugitive members of Al Qaeda detained on its soil, but maintained a tight secrecy over which members of Osama Bin Ladens network were in the Islamic republic. "The sentences have
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Raped, treated as the sexual booty of war or slain by indiscriminate bombings, women are too often the first victims of conflict, Amnesty International charged on Wednesday in a report demanding legal redress. The London-based human rig
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Equality between men and women in Eritrea is still some way off, since while they fought alongside one another in independence wars, the challenges facing women in this Horn of Africa nation are numerous. Among the population above the ag
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Sitting on a chair that he hopes will soon become his throne, Iraqs royal pretender is convinced that Iraqis will vote to restore the monarchy at key January elections after 46 years of republican dictatorship. "We will win more that hal
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Israels once-unshakable faith in the morality of the army has been put to the test by a series of recent scandals, one of which saw a soldier empty his weapon into the body of a young Palestinian girl, who had been killed moments earlier on her wa
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A summary of news from around the region.
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The swarms of locusts that filled the Cairo skies last month may have left nothing more than mild anxiety in the Egyptian capital, but they have caused widespread damage and panic elsewhere in Egypt. Millions of red locusts migrated in sw
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Egypt and Israel have come close to an agreement on a deal to allow hundreds of additional Egyptian soldiers to patrol the border with the Gaza Strip ahead of an Israeli pullout of the territory. The understanding would fly in the face of
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A collection of funny events in Egypt. Hell hath no fury...
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One year after dovish Israelis and Palestinians presented a draft peace agreement called the Geneva Accord, prominent personalities from both camps launched a campaign designed to convince the people that there is a partner for peace on the other s
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A New York-based human rights group has condemned Egypts legal system as biased against women and called for a reform of the divorce laws. "Egyptian women are at a distinct disadvantage in access to divorce for no reason other than that
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A chilling security breach has resulted in a warning from the British embassy in Iraq against using the road to the Baghdad airport or taking a flight out of Iraq. The Al Ayyam (Independent) newspaper reported on Tuesda
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A Saudi mans sex-change operation may cost him half his fortune, The Times of London reported on Tuesday. Relatives said the man identified only as Ahmed is due just half the fortune he inherited from his father becaus
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A teenager, arrested for stealing olives from a West Bank orchard, had a message advocating the death of the Israeli prime minister on her mobile phone. The girl was arrested with another teenage girl.
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Israel has complained to Paris about an incorrect citation on Yasser Arafats death certificate. At issue is the place of birth of the 75-year-old Palestinian leader, who died on November 11 from a still-mysterious illness at a military h
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The United States announced plans to increase its forces in Iraq to their highest levels since last years invasion, as the countrys interim government engaged in a flurry of contacts to rally support for the January 30 elections. US for
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"I seriously believe the Death Squad did it," says Mustafa Al Jammal, 21, a law student at Al Azhar University in Gaza, commenting on the latest assassination of an assistant professor at the university on November 27. Yasser Al Madhoun,
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On a wooden porch in Tiberias, northern Israel, shaded by fruit trees heavy with pomegranates, Noa Ilan sits quietly in a pool of sunshine. "Life is a terminal illness," she says, "But its not the end."
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Iran has boasted it humiliated the United States at the UNs atomic watchdog by agreeing to what it insisted was only a temporary freeze of its suspect nuclear program. "We have proved that, in an international institution, we are capable
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The 10-year-old son of King Abdullah II now stands as the legitimate heir to the Jordanian throne after the monarch stripped his half-brother, Hamzeh, of the title of crown prince. The shock decision is in line with the law in the desert
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The Palestinian Authority (PA) on Monday ordered its mass media to stop inciting violence against Israel. Official sources told UPI that PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas recently visited PA media and television operations in Ramallah and Gaza a
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Abu Rami is a 49-year-old fisherman who supports a family of nine children. His work in Gazas old fishermens dock, packed with small fishing boats, has became increasingly difficult due to growing competition and a lack of fishing grounds as a re
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Thousands of people demonstrated in central Paris on Saturday to demand legislation to protect women from violence, a month after a young Tunisian woman was stoned to death in southern France. Numbered by police at 2,800 and organizers at
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Three American vigilantes appealed on Monday against their convictions for running a private jail and torturing suspects in a "private war on terror" in Afghanistan. The groups ringleader Jonathan Jack Idema, described by US media as a
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A collection of short summaries of events around the region.
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World powers on Tuesday readied to hammer out a statement on Iraqs future at a conference in Egypt, as the nation ravaged by unyielding violence prepared for its first post-Saddam elections on January 30. Baghdad and its neighbors on Mon
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US-led forces rounded up scores of suspected rebels in Iraqs "triangle of death" on Thursday as officials said that more than 2,000 people were killed in the anti-insurgent operation in Fallujah. Iraqi soldiers combing the remains of Fal
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Ethiopia offered fresh hope on Thursday for a breakthrough in its stalled peace process with neighboring Eritrea, finally accepting a ruling designed to resolve a border dispute that sparked a devastating war between 1998 and 2000. Eritre
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A collection of short summaries of news and events in Egypt.
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A former Republican Guard soldier known as "Mark Abu Al Dak", or "Mark the father of tattoos", is pioneering the new business of body art in war-torn Iraq. He has turned his bedroom in a poor Baghdad residential area into a workshop where he fulfills hi
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Alan, seven, Sasha, 11, and David, 12, sit engrossed in painting pictures on a sunny terrace overlooking a peaceful Mediterranean vista. Below them several children splash happily in the swimming pool.
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The sugarcane and cotton plants grow thick in this fertile basin of Pakistans southern Punjab. Behind their dense curtain nobody can see the village thugs gang-rape women, girls and sometimes boys.