AFGHANISTAN: Despite denying responsibility for the killing of 11 Chinese workers, a Taliban spokesman said more attacks would follow ahead of the general elections
Two men have been arrested following the shocking murders of 11 Chinese construction workers in Afghanistan, according to the government in Beijing, but mystery remains as to who masterminded the brutal attack.

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DENIAL: Behind the new marble buildings of what President Saparmurat Niyazov calls Turkmenistan's `Golden Century,' drug dealers and addicts roam the potholed streets
Kristina tapped the veins on top of her right foot and plunged in a syringe filled with cloudy fluid, slowly pressing the stopper down to deliver her dose of heroin.

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SIX-WAY TALKS: According to reports, the North Korean leader told Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi his negotiators would talk with the US until they are hoarse
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is so eager for dialogue with the US that his negotiators to six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions will talk until they are hoarse, Japan's Kyodo news agency said yesterday.

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TERRORISM: A bomb disposal expert was killed and two others were injured while trying to defuse the homemade device, which was planted close to a popular restaurant
Suspected Muslim extremists planted a homemade bomb in a southern Philippine town to disrupt Independence Day celebrations early yesterday, killing a bomb disposal expert who was trying to defuse the device, an army commander said.

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Hong Kong's anti-graft agency has launched a criminal investigation into a concert series headlined by the Rolling Stones that critics said cost too much, was poorly managed and failed to improve the territory's image, officials said yesterday.

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CZECH REPUBLIC: In 1989 it would have been unthinkable, but Czechs turned out on Friday to choose representation in a European legislature
Czechs made good Friday on what was unimaginable under communist rule just 15 years ago -- choosing European Parliament representatives as sign of membership in the continent's club of democracy.

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With the words of William Wordsworth on his lips and riding on a black stallion, Eugene Terre'Blanche trotted out of jail and back into South African politics yesterday.

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UNHAPPY RETURNS: The British prime minster got back from the US to find that his party had suffered a thrashing at the polls, but he seems unlikely to change Iraq policy
A humbled Tony Blair returned to Britain yesterday to answer critics in his own party after voter backlash against his support for war in Iraq brought an unprecedented trouncing in local elections.

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`NOT LEAVING': They feel the terror threat, but some Western workers choose to remain and deal with the danger by figuring out how to fit in with the locals
The surge of terror attacks targeting foreigners at the office, in the home and on the street have rattled the nearly 9 million outsiders who play a key role in Saudi Arabia's economy.

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Using a tiny, hidden camera, Hans-Peter Martin filmed his European Parliament colleagues as they signed in at work to get a daily allowance -- and then headed to the airport to fly home.

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MAYHEM CONTINUES: The attack was the second assassination of a senior Iraqi official in the last month
Gunmen killed a deputy foreign minister yesterday on his way to work as insurgents stepped up attacks in advance of the handover of power June 30. A radical cleric whose uprising killed hundreds pledged to support the new government if it works to end the US military presence.

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FADE TO BLACK: The death of the 40th president stirred emotions in a nation nostalgic for his warmth, charm and optimism
Ronald Reagan was laid to rest in the rolling California hills that he loved on Friday in a sunset ceremony that ended a week of national mourning for the 40th president -- the last chapter of what President George W. Bush called "a great American story."

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Convicted Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols was spared the death penalty Friday by jurors who convicted him of 161 counts of murder but deadlocked over his sentence.

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The UN Security Council unanimously approved a resolution giving a green light for the UN to prepare for a peacekeeping operation in southern Sudan and calling for a halt to fighting in the western Darfur region and elsewhere.

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■ Pakistan
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