Authorities evacuated campers and closed beaches along one of Australia's most popular vacation coastlines yesterday as forecasters predicted wild weather and waves up to 6m could pummel the region.

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ONLY ON PAPER: Under the conditions of the 2002 peace agreement, Sri Lanka or the LTTE must give two weeks' notice to Norway before they can formally end it
The Sri Lankan defense secretary said the government should formally pull out of a ceasefire with Tamil Tiger rebels amid escalating fighting in the island, a state-run daily reported yesterday.

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Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono urged better forest management across the country yesterday as he toured an area stricken by deadly landslides and floods this week.

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PLAY BALL: Responses in Japan to warming Beijing-Tokyo ties ranged from the celebratory to requests that China drop anti-Japanese discourse in its schools
Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda enjoyed a round of baseball diplomacy with his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) yesterday, one day after the leaders pledged to build on their rapidly warming ties.

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An eight-year-old girl taken from an American couple and returned to her Chinese parents after a seven-year custody battle faces another big adjustment -- moving to China.

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Military-ruled Myanmar has detected a new outbreak of bird flu among chickens in the country's eastern Shan State, an official and state media said yesterday.

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Malaysia has released four alleged members of a Southeast Asian terror network who had been imprisoned without trial for more than five years, a human rights group said.

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'CALCULATED TO DISCREDIT': The African National Congress leader has said that prosecutors are hitting him with unfounded allegations to smear his reputation
The newly elected leader of South Africa's ruling party has been ordered to stand trial on corruption and other charges next year, possibly derailing his attempts to become the country's president.

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Amid continued political wrangling between Lebanon's feuding factions, the parliament speaker on Friday postponed a parliamentary session to elect a president until Jan. 12.

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JUMPING THE GUN: Orange Democratic Movement officials declared the race over despite the fact that the central election authority was still counting votes
Kenya's opposition yesterday declared victory in the country's presidential election, although the electoral commission was still counting votes and the incumbent was closing the gap.

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Six French charity workers convicted of trying to kidnap 103 children in Chad arrived on Friday back in France where prosecutors were mulling how to adjust their hard labor sentences.

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NEXT STEP: The change is, for many smokers, the most distressing part of a phased ban that began last February in schools, workplaces and hospitals
From next week, one of France's most iconic institutions -- the smoky cafe -- will be but a hazy memory.

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PRESIDENTIAL OVERSIGHT: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez personally supervised the launch of the mission to pick up the hostages, joined by international observers
Two Venezuelan helicopters landed in Colombia on Friday for a mission to pick up three hostages, including a three-year-old boy, to be freed by Marxist rebels in the jungle.

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After slaughtering their parents, Joseph McEnroe apologized to his girlfriend's young niece and nephew before shooting both in the head to end a Christmas Eve massacre, prosecutors alleged.

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HANGINGS POSTPONED: Key people in the former Iraqi regime, originally sentenced to hang by the end of the day on Oct. 4, are still on death row
Iraq marks the first anniversary of Saddam Hussein's execution today with some of his most notorious aides still managing to avoid the gallows despite being sentenced to death.

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Turmoil in Pakistan has moved foreign policy to the forefront of the presidential campaign in the US, a potentially unwelcome development for two Republican former governors with thin credentials on world affairs.

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■ CHINA

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