'WILL OF THE PEOPLE': A KMT official said passing a legislative resolution on joining the UN as the `Republic of China' would make referendums on the topic superfluous
By Flora Wang
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus said yesterday it will seek to pass a binding resolution that requires the government to "return to" or "join" the UN using the national title "Republic of China (ROC)" after the new legislature convenes next Friday as a measure to solve the UN referendum dispute.

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French bank Societe Generale said yesterday it uncovered a 4.9 billion euro (US$7.14 billion) fraud -- one of history's biggest -- by a single futures trader whose scheme of fictitious transactions came undone when stock markets plunged this week.

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Palestinians thronged out of Gaza into Egypt for a second consecutive day yesterday in an attempt to stock up on scarce supplies after militants blew open the border of the Hamas-run territory.

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TAINTED TRIAL? : The Bolivian president has insinuated that a Californian who bombed two low-rent hotels in La Paz is part of a US plot to destabilize his government
A California eccentric who named himself after a literary vampire was sentenced to 30 years in jail without parole for bombing two La Paz hotels in 2006, attacks that killed two and put a bizarre kink in already delicate Bolivia-US relations.

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Taiwanese director Ang Lee (李安) mourned the death of Heath Ledger, saying working with the Australian-born actor was "one of the purest joys of my life."

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A military plane carrying officers home from a flight-safety conference crashed in a forested area in northwestern Poland, killing all 20 people on board, the prime minister said early yesterday.

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