LIBERAL SHAKE-UP: Prime Minister John Howard's party has elected Brendan Nelson its new leader -- and his first step was to reverse the refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol
Australian prime minister-elect Kevin Rudd named his Cabinet yesterday, choosing a woman to be deputy leader and former Midnight Oil rock singer Peter Garrett as environment minister.

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Japanese prosecutors searched the Defense Ministry yesterday over a damaging bribery scandal, deepening a crackdown that has already triggered the arrest of a former top ministry bureaucrat.

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Japan has deployed advanced Patriot missile launchers at an air base near Tokyo to bolster the ballistic missile defense shield for the nation's capital, officials said yesterday.

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Sri Lankan forces threw a security blanket over the capital Colombo yesterday and appealed for extra public vigilance a day after twin bomb attacks left 19 people dead and 45 injured, police said.

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The of people estimated to be living with HIV in China has risen to 700,000 and continues to be a challenge among high-risk populations, according to a report released yesterday by the UN and the Chinese government.

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RELIGIOUS VIOLATION: China respects Tibetan Buddhism's religious and historic conventions, a spokesman said, but it cannot accept changes
The Chinese Foreign Ministry condemned the Dalai Lama yesterday for suggesting that his successor as Tibet's spiritual leader might be chosen by referendum, saying that this would "violate religious rituals."

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TOUGH TALK: The French president promised punishments for rioters who fired at police, and prosecutors said they opened an inquiry for attempted homicide cases
Vast deployments of riot police restored calm to the troubled suburbs of northern Paris, with only scattered cases of arson reported yesterday after nights of rioting.

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"Welcome to Denmark's Tora Bora," says Bobby Schultz, gesturing toward a rickety hot-dog van at the junction between two busy streets in Copenhagen's fashionable Norrebo District.

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Poland is facing a rare war-crimes prosecution at a crucial juncture for both the newly elected government's commitment to overseas military engagements and the effort to overhaul the nation's armed forces.

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Alarms over nuclear smuggling were raised on Wednesday night when Slovakian police announced that three men had been arrested in Slovakia and Hungary after allegedly trying to sell radioactive material.

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Nearby Venus is looking a bit more Earth-like with frequent bursts of lightning confirmed by a new European space probe.

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DIPLOMATIC FLURRY: To reinforce the US commitment, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice named Marine General James Jones as her new special envoy for Middle East security
US President George W. Bush assured Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Wednesday the US would actively engage in peacemaking, despite deep skepticism over chances for a deal before he leaves office.

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After more than two years awaiting trial in the US on Enron-related charges, three British bankers pleaded guilty on Wednesday in federal court to one count each of wire fraud.

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Republican presidential rivals Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney scornfully debated immigration in a provocative, no-holds-barred CNN-YouTube debate just over a month before the first votes are cast.

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FIGHTING BACK: Village mayors who signed the agreement say about 200 militants have sought refuge in Hawija and have waged a campaign of killing and intimidation
Nearly 6,000 Sunni Arab residents joined a security pact with US forces in what US officers described as a critical step in plugging the remaining escape routes for extremists flushed from former strongholds.

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Deep in US president Richard Nixon's White House files sit letters from a long-forgotten lobbying campaign to make Mark Felt director of the FBI.

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Broadway producers reached a deal with striking stagehands late on Wednesday, ending more than two weeks of a work stoppage that has brought the curtain down across New York's theater district.

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■ HONG KONG

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