FORCE: The defense ministry said at least 27 national army personnel were killed and 21 injured as the vehicle was reduced to smoldering, mangled pieces of metal
A suicide bomber wearing an army uniform blew up a bus carrying Afghan soldiers in Kabul yesterday, killing at least 31 people and wounding many others, the health and defense ministries said.

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Sri Lankan warplanes pounded Tamil Tiger targets in the far north of the island yesterday, and nine rebels and a soldier were killed in a series of battles in the same region, the military said.

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TALKS: The move was in response to Pyongyang's progress on reporting its nuclear facilities, but the US negotiator said that more needs to be done
Six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear program entered a third day yesterday after US President George W. Bush authorized US$25 million in energy aid for the impoverished nation.

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Indian troops were called out to keep the peace after 30 people were hurt in clashes between police and fans of the winner of TV show "Indian Idol," police said yesterday.

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RECRUITER: The Muslim cleric was shot after Friday prayers for his `nationalist positions,' his aides said. The aides captured the assassin and turned him over to the authorities
A Sunni Muslim cleric who in the past has been suspected of recruiting militants to fight in Iraq was shot dead as he left a mosque after prayers on Friday in the northern city of Aleppo, aides said.

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Thousands of opposition supporters rallied in Georgia's capital, demanding President Mikhail Saakashvili step down following the arrest of a former defense minister who accused the president of a murder plot.

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The US, the UK and France chose unity over speed and agreed to delay until November a UN Security Council vote on a third sanctions resolution against Iran.

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Egypt's prosecutor general reversed a decision to send an outspoken tabloid newspaper editor who questioned President Hosni Mubarak's health to the country's emergency court of no appeal, a judiciary official said on Friday.

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DEADLINE: The mediation 'troika' of the EU, the US and Russia has until Dec. 10 to complete their final attempts to find an acceptable compromise between the two sides
Serbia and Kosovo's Albanian leaders on Friday failed to narrow their differences in the first direct talks at the UN on the breakaway province's future status but agreed to meet again in Brussels next month.

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LONG-TERM: The US president believes the 16 principal polluters should create an international clean technology fund to help finance projects in the developing world
US President George W. Bush went on the offensive on climate change on Friday, proposing a summit among major emitters of greenhouse gases that would set a long-term global goal for curbing this dangerous pollution.

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IRONIC: Stratospheric war budgets are not going down well with people who seek to provide health insurance to the 10 million children from low-income families
Democrats and their allies mapped out a strategy on Friday that they hoped would enable them to override US President George W. Bush's expected veto of a bipartisan bill providing health insurance for 10 million children, most of them in low-income families.

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Ecologists have photographed a little-known nomadic tribe deep in Peru's Amazon, a sighting that could intensify debate about the presence of isolated Indians as oil firms line up to explore the jungle.

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The sacked head of a 9/11 survivors network came under fire on Friday, accused of betraying Sept. 11 victims after a report alleged she invented her tale of living through the attacks on the twin towers.

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In the "before" shot, from May 2004, the village is there, a cluster of seven roofs near a small lake. In the "after" shot, from February this year, the houses are gone.

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■ CHINA
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