STAYING PUT: A spokesman said US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill would remain in Beijing and work to jump-start the North Korea denuclearization talks
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ordered a top Asia diplomat to stay in China yesterday to look at fresh ways of unblocking the stalled effort to get North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons.

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Australia has up to A$23 billion (US$21.5 billion) in risky defense projects under way and will re-think several costly purchases, including US fighter planes, Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said yesterday.

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Australia and New Zealand yesterday said they would unite to push for more democracy in the troubled South Pacific as they condemned a crackdown on critics by Fiji's military-installed government.

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ORCHESTRAL MANEUVERS IN THE DPRK: Orchestra members, some moved to tears, paused with their instruments and waved to the audience in a very emotional finale to the concert
Musicians from North Korea and the US joined for an exchange of musical harmony yesterday as the New York Philharmonic concluded a historic visit that could herald warmer ties between the communist state and the West.

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GOLD MINE: Prosecutors began conducting raids after German intelligence paid an informant as much as 5 million euros for names of people allegedly evading taxes
A wide-ranging investigation of tax evasion by Germans stashing their money abroad has led to the recovery of more than US$40 million and netted 163 people, a prosecutor said.

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Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan suspended day-to-day mediation talks in Kenya yesterday and said that he would take up the remaining divisive issues with Kenya's leaders directly.

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SPECULATION: French President Nicolas Sarkozy's office denied any link between the cancelation and disagreements over plans for a Mediterranean Union
France and Germany canceled a second top-level meeting on Tuesday, fueling suggestions of a diplomatic spat over economic issues and French plans for a new Mediterranean Union that would exclude Berlin.

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A vault carved into the Arctic permafrost and filled with samples of the world's most important seeds was inaugurated on Tuesday, providing a Noah's Ark of food crops in the event of a global catastrophe.

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Five London men were jailed on Tuesday under new anti-terrorist legislation for taking part in al-Qaeda-style training camps and paintballing sessions.

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Turkey is engaged in a bold and profound attempt to rewrite the basis for Islamic Shariah law while also officially reinterpreting the Koran for the modern age.

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TESTY EXCHANGE: Both candidates faced pointed questions as they discussed health care, NAFTA, election funding and a controversial photo of Obama
Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama clashed over trade, health care and the war in Iraq in a crackling debate at close quarters one week before a pivotal number of primaries in the Democratic presidential race.

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Turkey must limit its military operations against Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq to days or a couple of weeks rather than months, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said yesterday.

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British Prime Minister Gordon Brown held telephone talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki yesterday about video footage of one of five British hostages being held by militants in Iraq.

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Half the world's population will live in urban areas by the end of this year and about 70 percent will be city dwellers by 2050, with cities and towns in Asia and Africa registering the biggest growth, according to new UN projections released on Tuesday.

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REFORM PLAN: Written evidence and closed-door trials will be replaced by open trials with prosecutors and defense lawyers giving oral arguments to a judge
Mexico's lawmakers on Tuesday approved a sweeping judicial reform that would introduce public, oral trials and guarantee the presumption of innocence, while lawmakers deleted a proposal to allow police to search homes without a warrant.

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A majority of Israelis want their government to hold talks with the Hamas militants who control the Gaza Strip, a poll showed yesterday.

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■ MALAYSIA
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