`VERY GOOD': Although the special UN envoy was optimistic after meeting Chinese officials, there was no indication Beijing had agreed to exert pressure on Myanmar
The UN special envoy on Myanmar gave an upbeat assessment yesterday over his meetings with Chinese officials that are aimed at helping to end the unrest in the Southeast Asian nation.

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On a hot, dusty highway some 70km from Delhi, a human column snakes its way towards the Indian capital carrying a unique message of defiance to the country's leaders: "Give us back our land."

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NO COURT MARTIAL: The mutinous troops allegedly planned to march from their Manila camps to withdraw their support from President Gloria Arroyo during a rally
The Philippine army chief has ordered the dishonorable dismissal of 26 soldiers accused of abandoning their provincial camp to join a failed attempt to overthrow the president last year, officials said yesterday.

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A car bomb that exploded near a convoy carrying a provincial governor in eastern Afghanistan left nine wounded, officials said yesterday.

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A new chief investigator has been appointed to probe the suicide attack on opposition leader and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, after she alleged the previous officer was complicit in the torture of her husband in 1999, an official said yesterday.

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A volcano erupted in central Indonesia yesterday, shooting plumes of white smoke and sand 1,500m into the air and covering nearby villages in ash, officials said.

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MILITARY OFFENSIVE: Turkish warplanes reportedly attacked Kurdistan Workers' Party positions along the Iraqi border as the government mulls a cross-border raid
A high-level Iraqi delegation was expected to visit Ankara yesterday after Turkey's top leadership recommended the government take economic measures to force Iraqi cooperation against Kurdish rebels and Turkey considered a possible military cross-border offensive.

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CONTENTIOUS PLAN: The US wants to install a radar base in the Czech Republic and missiles in Poland as part of a shield against long-range attack
Differences over Kosovo and US plans to install missile defenses in eastern Europe were expected to dominate talks here yesterday between Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and his NATO counterparts.

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UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday he was worried that Lebanese militias were arming to prepare for a "constitutional void" if parliament cannot agree on a new president.

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Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak yesterday approved sanctions against civilians in the Gaza Strip, including electricity and fuel cuts in response to rocket attacks, his ministry said.

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A person's optimism about the future seems to be controlled by a small front part of the mid-brain, according to a study that used brain imaging.

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A 57-year-old woman was in jail in Sicily on Wednesday night, accused of handing over her son to the Mafia to be murdered. Her daughter was also in custody, accused of the same offense. Police said the mother and sister attended the mobsters' "summit" at which his fate was planned.

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OLD FOES: President George W. Bush said `the socialist paradise is a tropical Gulag,' a reference to former Soviet prison camps, but made no reference to Guantanamo Bay
US President George W. Bush called on the world to steer Cuba out of its "tropical Gulag" toward democracy, drawing charges from Havana that he is inciting violence.

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A bill to grant legal status to illegal immigrants who are high school graduates was defeated on Wednesday in a test vote in the US Senate, significantly dimming the prospects for any major immigration legislation this year.

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STORM BREWING: The backdoor Trojan horse could have already infected millions of computers worldwide to form a massive `botnet'
A specter is haunting the Internet but, outside of techie circles, nobody seems to be talking about it. The threat it represents to our security and wellbeing may be less dramatic than anything posed by global terrorism, but it has the potential to wreak much more havoc. And so far, nobody has come up with a good idea on how to counter it.

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SORRY? : The US secretary of state said Washington would 'try to do better' after admitting some fault in a case in which a man was sent to Syria and tortured
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged on Wednesday that the US "mishandled" the case of a Canadian engineer seized by US officials and taken to Syria, where he and the Canadian government say he was tortured.

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At least 18 oil workers were killed when a drilling rig hit an oil platform in stormy weather, spilling gas and oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the state-owned oil company said on Wednesday. Seven workers were still missing.

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The US Congress is moving to put under military control all armed contractors operating in combat zones, a Pentagon recommendation that could run into resistance at the State Department.

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■ INDONESIA
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