POWER HUNGRY: While Chenzhou went a 13th day without electricity or water, farming families in the mountains of Guizhou haven't had electricity since Jan. 14
More than 4 million people were still without power yesterday in storm-battered central China, as families nationwide began gathering for the biggest holiday of the year.

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`DALIT' HEROINE: Party members have filled the coffers of Mayawati Kumari, making her one of India's top earners, in spite of corruption claims
India's so-called Dalit Queen, a former schoolteacher who has become the country's most powerful untouchable politician championing the poorest people, was revealed on Tuesday to be on track to earn 600 million rupees (US$15 million) this year.

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US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday played down fears that Afghanistan could become a lost cause but admitted Washington faced a "bumpy" ride to press allies into sharing the burden there.

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The party of assassinated Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto said yesterday it has not decided whether her husband will be its candidate for prime minister after parliamentary elections this month.

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Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who introduced transcendental meditation to the West and gained fame in the 1960s as the spiritual guru to the Beatles, died on Tuesday at his home and headquarters in Vlodrop, the Netherlands. He is believed to have been in his 90s.

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Former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed scored a victory against the government yesterday with a court ruling that she could not be tried for corruption under emergency laws.

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ESCALATING VIOLENCE: Israeli aircraft fired at Gaza militants who earlier had launched rockets, casting doubt on progress in US-backed efforts for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal
Israel targeted Gazan militants in at least one airstrike yesterday, injuring four Palestinians, as Hamas continued its rocket attacks on Israeli border communities a day after taking responsibility for the first suicide bombing in Israel in more than a year.

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COUNTER-TERRORISM: Police and civil rights groups backed the change, while MI5 and MI6 argued that it would reveal their sophisticated intercept techniques
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown may approve the use of evidence gathered by phone-tapping and other intercept evidence in criminal court cases.

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Twenty people, most of them Ethiopians, were killed and at least 80 wounded in northeastern Somalia when twin explosions rocked a residential area late on Tuesday, the information ministry said.

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Iraqis are once again leaving Iraq for Syria in greater numbers than they are returning, despite the decreasing levels of bloodshed in their homeland, the UN refugee agency said yesterday.

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A new study published on Tuesday dealt a fresh blow to accusations that a triple vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) is linked to autism.

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■ HONG KONG

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