PRESSURE: In an effort to secure a deal to allow Benazir Bhutto to become prime minister again, the party will consider leaving parliament if Musharraf runs again
Pakistan's serpentine politics took another twist yesterday after former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's party declared it would contest the Oct. 6 presidential polling -- but only if President General Pervez Musharraf is barred from running.

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COALITION PATROL: Fighting erupted as forces were clearing an area near the district center of Musa Qala, which is one of the Taliban's most critical strongholds
NATO and US-led troops backed up by warplanes have killed more than 120 Taliban insurgents in two major battles in southern Afghanistan, officials said yesterday.

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A trekking expedition has left for the heavily militarized Siachen glacier in disputed Kashmir, despite objections by Pakistan, the Indian army said yesterday.

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China's giant Three Gorges Dam project could lead to ecological "catastrophe" without urgent action to prevent further environmental damage, Chinese experts warned in state media.

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The future of the New Zealand toddler found abandoned this month in an Australian train station became clearer yesterday when a close relative supported a plan for the child to live in China with her grandmother.

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PANDEMIC: U2's Bono called for rich nations to help the cash-strapped fund, which relies on donations from states and big business to fund prevention and treatment programs
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria began a donor meeting in Berlin yesterday in a bid to raise billions of dollars to fight the diseases that kill 6 million people a year.

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Efficient, secretive and sure of himself, former prime minister Ehud Barak has enjoyed a flawless 100 days back in government following a comeback to Israeli national politics, analysts say.

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Balkan antagonism surfaced over a shortening of the official name used to introduce the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, which is a member of the UN.

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The UN war crimes court will tomorrow hand down a first judgment against three Serbs charged over the 1991 Vukovar massacre and a final ruling in a case involving atrocities at a Kosovo Albanian prison camp.

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MILITANT MENACE: Afghan President Hamid Karzai called on international leaders to provide more help in strengthening his nation's military to battle a resurgent Taliban
US President George W. Bush wants fresh assurances that Afghan President Hamid Karzai is dealing with his country's soaring drug trade and pervasive security struggles.

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NO VISA: Under the McCarran-Walter Act the US has a history of barring prominent intellectuals, such as writers Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Graham Greene
The government is increasingly using secret evidence allowed under new anti-terrorism laws to prevent certain critics from entering the US, a group of civil rights and academic organizations said.

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OFFENSIVE? : A number of Iranian-born scholars, experts on the Middle East living in the US, said they were shocked by university president Lee Bollinger's introduction
Before Iran's president took the stage at Columbia University on Monday, the university's president, Lee Bollinger, sent out an early-morning e-mail message, calling on students and faculty "to live up to the best of Columbia's traditions."

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Federal authorities in New York announced that a Swede of Lebanese descent, wanted in connection with establishing a terrorist training camp in Bly, Oregon, in 1999, was extradited to the US on Tuesday.

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The unmarked trucks had out-of-state license plates. They came through the city at night on regular intervals and left with thousands of tonnes of rubbish -- all of it recyclable.

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The US Episcopal Church has agreed to halt the ordination of gay bishops and the blessing of same-sex unions, straining to try to prevent a painful split in the global Anglican Communion.

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■ MALAYSIA
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