SOCIAL UNREST: A demonstration by more than 2,000 farmers in Sichuan Province ended after police attacked the protesters, arresting several, a human rights group said
Police in southwestern China assaulted and detained five villagers who took part in a demonstration by more than 2,000 farmers protesting inadequate land compensation, a human rights group said yesterday.

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Indonesia on yesterday confirmed a second case of polio, but health authorities who were confronting the disease for the first time in a decade said they were confident of preventing a major outbreak.

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Meng Zhaoguo, a rural worker from northeast China's Wuchang city, says he was 29 years old when he broke his marital vows for the first and only time -- with a female extraterrestrial of unusually robust build.

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In a delicate ballet 7,500m above the open sea, four Japanese F-15s pull up to a US Air Force tanker, the insignia of the rising sun shining from their wings. One by one, they maneuver into range of the tanker's refueling boom, hold their position, then dip their wings and vanish.

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Senior Iraqi leaders in Australia yesterday condemned the kidnapping of an Australian engineer in Iraq and advised his family to use "every channel available" to secure his release.

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DECISIVE ISSUE: The British prime minister faced renewed criticism over the war in Iraq as families of soldiers protested outside his office two days before the election
The families of British troops killed in Iraq marched on Prime Minister Tony Blair's office, demanding a public inquiry into the legality of the war and stirring a fiery debate two days before the national election.

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TIT-FOR-TAT: Israeli Prime Minister Sharon said nothing has been done to disband militant groups, while Abbas accused Israel of wanting to see `Palestinian blood flow'
The honeymoon between Ariel Sharon and Mahmud Abbas is well and truly over, with the Israeli prime minister accusing his Palestinian counterpart of failing to lift a finger against militants and freezing plans to transfer responsibility for security in the West Bank.

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CALLING-CARD OF STUPIDITY: Britain's thieves are increasingly thoughtless while either committing a crime or when it comes time to conceal their deeds
Britain's growing company of inept petty thieves may have gained a new member on Tuesday after a man was arrested because of his bizarre and incriminating fashion sense.

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Smoking may be increasingly difficult to mix with a successful social life, but those addicted could soon be given the chance to be just a bit virtuous -- by going green.

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Kenya's first lady, Lucy Kibaki, entered the offices of the country's biggest-circulation newspaper late on Monday, where she allegedly slapped a TV cameraman and seized reporters' notebooks and tape recorders to protest at stories about her eccentric behavior.

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Togo's constitutional court on Tuesday certified election results showing the son of this West African nation's late dictator had won last month's presidential ballot.

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FORMER ALLIES: Although the US president's visit on the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II is a coup for the Russian leader, the latter isn't pleased with tour plans
US President George W. Bush's attendance, by the side of Russian President Vladimir Putin, at next week's Red Square parade celebrating the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe is meant to recall the great wartime alliance that defeated Nazi Germany.

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Three students from an elite private school have been expelled for posting horrifying Holocaust images on a student Web site, then lashing out at a student who objected by calling her a "hooknosed parasite" who "should be thrown into an oven with the rest of them."

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Iran said it would not abandon nuclear fuel work as a guarantee against fears it might make nuclear weapons as several countries spoke up on Tuesday for the right to peaceful atomic technology, at a UN conference on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

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When Donald Herbert broke 10 years of virtual silence on Saturday and announced that he wanted to speak to his wife, his family and doctors were astonished and bewildered.

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■ Hong Kong
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