NO EVIDENCE: A Queensland state commission dismissed claims that ministers gagged social workers dealing with hundreds of cases involving abuse of Aboriginal children
A corruption watchdog in Australia cleared officials yesterday of covering up hundreds of Aboriginal child abuse cases amid a furore over why nine males who gang raped a 10-year-old girl were not jailed.

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CLEAN-UP: Aside from US decontamination experts, Singapore, China and Japan are sending support to help South Korea save scores of marine farms
Favorable winds and frantic clean-up efforts have largely stopped a huge seaborne oil slick from spreading, workers battling South Korea's worst oil spill said yesterday.

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Uganda gets plenty of sun, making it a great spot for solar energy. There's only one problem: In one of the world's most impoverished nations, not many people can afford to install an imported solar panel on the roof.

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Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi defended a decision to detain five ethnic Indian activists under a tough security law as in the interests of public order, state media reported.

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Intensified fighting between government troops and Tamil rebels pushing for a breakaway state led to at least 16 more deaths in Sri Lanka's northern region, the military said.

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RELEASED: The two men identified by an Algerian security official had both spent time in prison before for terrorist-related activity, but were released on amnesties
A 64-year-old cancer patient and another man, both of whom had been convicted on terror charges but amnestied, were the suicide bombers who struck UN and government buildings in Algeria this week, a security official said on Thursday. The death toll rose to 34.

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Israeli restrictions on movement in the West Bank and Gaza could neutralize increased aid to the Palestinians, aid groups warned, but the Palestinian prime minister said he failed to win a pledge from Israel to ease the measures.

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STANDING TOGETHER: Members of the union hoped that a consensus could help avoid a repeat of the bloc's inability to prevent fighting in the Balkans in the 1990s
EU leaders, keen to avoid the mistakes of the past, were set to try at a summit yesterday to forge unity on how to handle Kosovo's bid for independence from Serbia without inciting new violence in the Balkans.

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A radical Islamic group that was driven from power one year ago by a Western-supported offensive is making a significant comeback in Somalia and the government can do little to stop it, officials said, as violence took at least 17 more lives.

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Army investigators looked into the possible involvement of al-Qaeda-inspired extremists in the bombing that killed a Lebanese general who had led a major offensive against Islamic militants.

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`PRODUCED BY THE FBI': The Bush administration hoped the case would show the FBI successfully prevented terrorism plots, but it was instead accused of entrapment
In a stinging defeat for the administration of US President George W. Bush, one of seven Miami men accused of plotting to join forces with al-Qaeda to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower was acquitted on Thursday, and the case against the rest ended in a hung jury.

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A US underwater archeology team announced on Thursday it has likely discovered the shattered remnants of a ship once captained by the notorious buccaneer William Kidd off a tiny Dominican Republic island.

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The Senate passed a trimmed-back energy bill that would bring higher-gas mileage cars into showrooms in the coming decade and fill their tanks with ethanol.

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SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET: Bill Shaheen said he regretted suggesting that voters should ask whether Barack Obama's shadowy youth included drug dealing
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday accepted the resignation of a top adviser who a day earlier suggested voters should ask rival Barack Obama if he was a drug dealer.

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Four states in open revolt against an overhaul to the Constitution by Bolivian President Evo Morales and his pro-indigenous allies declared their intention to create independent regional governments.

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A Marine reservist has been found guilty of killing an Iraqi soldier while they stood watch together at a guard post in Fallujah.

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■ MYANMAR

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