CALLING ALL ALLIES: Bush's new penalties targeted the country's junta leaders and urged China and India, its neighbors and main allies, to step up pressure on the regime
Military-run Myanmar was under renewed pressure yesterday after the US announced a new round of sanctions following the junta's bloody crackdown on dissent.

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Speculation abounds over the likely top appointments in the Chinese Communist Party, as senior leaders lobby for their favorites behind closed doors.

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A Canadian schoolteacher who allegedly had sex with dozens of young boys will be held in a Thai jail for at least 12 days pending a trial on molestation charges, a court ordered yesterday.

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DESPERATE: Hundreds of thousands of people are going hungry in areas left devastated by floods, but tonnes of corn and flour are sitting in warehouses
Shipments of thousands of tonnes of food aid to impoverished North Korea are being delayed because of a railway dispute between the regime and Chinese train companies, the UN food agency said on Friday.

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China said yesterday it was "totally unreasonable" for Japan to blame it over an impasse in talks about their competing claims on the energy-rich East China Sea.

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POSSIBLE ERRORS: Mistranslation and photos may have led Israelis to believe a Syrian air strike target was a nuclear facility. Authorities are examining the satellite images
The UN said an interpreter responsible for an erroneous report that Syria has a nuclear facility has been reprimanded and the world body has apologized to Syria's UN Mission.

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ACTIVE: Russian President Vladimir Putin called on the intelligence agency to step up its efforts. Former leader Mikhail Gorbachev founded a new movement
Russia's foreign intelligence service must work harder to protect the interests of Russian companies abroad, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday, introducing his former prime minister as head of the spy agency.

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They roamed the savannahs and open plains for thousands of years, but the hunter-gatherer lifestyle of southern Africa's San tribes is slowly being squeezed towards extinction.

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A peace concert in London today aims to focus British Muslims on the bloody conflict in Darfur but also symbolizes efforts to unite the community amid widespread suspicion of Islam, organizers say.

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President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain on Friday endorsed Tony Blair to be the first to fill a re-created EU presidency, even as critics questioned how a leader from a nation deeply skeptical of the EU could serve in the role.

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AT ODDS: While US President George W. Bush called for more aid to assist Saudi Arabia in battling terrorism, critics alleged the kingdom was promoting religious intolerance
US President George W. Bush on Friday renewed Saudi Arabia as a key anti-terrorism ally despite concerns over its track record and fears it is exporting extremist ideology.

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TWIN MISSION: Aside from promoting breast cancer awareness, the first lady is expected to give a boost to US `public diplomacy' during the weeklong regional tour
US first lady Laura Bush left for the Middle East yesterday to promote research on breast cancer and try to restore the US' image in a crucial region.

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A Marine Corps general on Friday ordered criminal charges to proceed to separate courts-martial for a former battalion commander and an enlisted man involved in a battle in Haditha in 2005 in which 24 Iraqis died.

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UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday proposed an accelerated plan to renovate the UN's headquarters overlooking New York's East River that would complete the overhaul by 2013.

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The bodies of two dozen people washed ashore in southern Mexico, a state official said on Friday, after a boat believed to be carrying Central American migrants capsized in the Pacific Ocean.

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The family of a New York City police detective who died after working at Ground Zero met for several hours on Friday with New York City medical examiners who had concluded that the detective's death could not be linked to the toxic dust there.

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■ AUSTRALIA
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