SPACE MILITARIZATION: China's successful operation of destroying a satellite has prompted Cold War-style speculation about the intentions behind the action
Newspapers around the world yesterday expressed concern after China shot down a satellite, urging new efforts to prevent an arms race in space.

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NO CONSENT: The appointment of three bishops in China without Vatican approval has sparked calls for a new policy to maintain control
The Vatican began two days of meetings on Friday over the church's relations with China, which have soured after a dispute over appointing bishops.

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EXECUTION PENDING: Nigerian Tochi Iwuchukwu, due to be executed on Friday, was arrested at the Singaporean airport in 2004 with 100 capsules containing 727g of heroin
Human rights group Amnesty International has urged members to push Singapore's government to grant clemency to a 21-year-old Nigerian scheduled to be executed next week for drug trafficking.

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Angela Yiu (姚婷芝) and Stella Cheng (鄭婉儀) spent weeks meeting with fashion stylists and photographers before deciding on the miniskirts and high heels to wear in their promotion campaign.

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An Indonesian woman has died of bird flu, raising the country's death toll to 62, while South Korea was set to slaughter 273,000 poultry after an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain at a chicken farm, officials said.

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NO PITY: The defendent portrayed the victim as a manipulative gold-digger, saying he gave her cash after hearing `sob stories' about her lack of money
A prominent political analyst charged with abetting the murder of a Mongolian woman confessed to having an affair with her and claimed she blackmailed him in a stunning twist to a grisly and lurid case gripping Malaysia.

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One of three people critically wounded after a hand grenade was thrown by suspected separatist rebels into a crowded market in India's insurgency-wracked northeast has died, police said yesterday.

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WORLDWIDE ANGER: Turks and heads of states united to condemn the slaying of a journalist whose views on the killing of Armenians made some uncomfortable
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Istanbul and Ankara after Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, targeted by nationalist circles and the courts for his views on the 1915 to 1918 killings of Armenians, was shot dead outside his office on Friday.

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CHALLENGES AHEAD: As the African Union readies for a peacekeeping mission in Somalia, the recently defeated Islamists say they will launch a guerrilla war
An Ethiopian military convoy was ambushed as fresh violence erupted on the streets of Mogadishu yesterday, hours after the African Union agreed to send peacekeepers to war-torn Somalia.

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Aged 72, Mary Martin is a great-grandmother, but she still remembers how her classmates labeled her "witch spawn" and "evil eye" -- because her grandmother was one of the last people jailed in Britain over witchcraft charges.

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FIGHTING AGAIN: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Friday that Fidel Castro was 'battling for his life' and that he spoke with the ailing Cuban leader several days ago
Cuban President Fidel Castro is making a "slow but progressive" recovery, although his condition is serious due to his advanced age, a Spanish doctor who has examined him said on Friday.

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The top US commander in Iraq predicted that some of the extra troops US President George W. Bush is sending could make an impact and start returning home by late summer, an optimistic note in contrast to skepticism of the plan back home.

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A Republican former congressman was sentenced to two-and- a-half years in prison for trading political favors for golf trips, campaign donations and other gifts in an influence peddling scandal.

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■ Hong Kong
Condoms help set mood
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