HELP SOUGHT: A US State Department spokesman said that the FBI had received a request from Dhaka for assistance in investigating last Thursday’s mutiny by troops
Bangladesh is at risk of more attacks “to foil the country’s democracy” after a savage mutiny in which at least 74 people were killed, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said in comments published yesterday.

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DEATH TOLL: The search for bodies will continue for another three weeks and the death toll, which has remained at 210 for a week, is expected to rise
Australian authorities yesterday declared the worst of the deadly wildfire season over, telling thousands of people who fled their homes that it was safe to return.

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Sri Lanka’s wounded and shaken cricketers returned home yesterday to tearful hugs from their relatives, saying they were lucky to be alive after a deadly attack on their team bus in Pakistan.

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Two mysterious explosions shook parks near busy thoroughfares in Myanmar’s largest city, where blasts are usually blamed on ethnic militants battling the military-run government.

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PRESSURE? : The Japanese opposition leader said a raid of his office by prosecutors might be politically motivated as parliamentary elections must take place before Sept. 10
Japan’s opposition leader said yesterday he would not quit after the arrest of a key aide in a donations scandal that dealt a major blow to the party’s efforts to topple unpopular Prime Minister Taro Aso’s government.

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A Hong Kong professor and two pro-democracy politicians were barred from Macau, escalating concerns over a possible curb on freedom of expression, a broadcaster said yesterday.

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NO STRAIGHT DEAL: The Russian leader rebutted claims the US president wanted a straight swap: trade abandonment of an anti-missile system for pressure on Iran
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev seemed open to discussing a US plan to cancel an anti-missile system in Europe if Russia helps prevent Iran from developing long-range weapons, a proposal that could snugly fit the Kremlin’s strategic objectives.

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Their thirst for reinvention saw the elegantly quiffed Hamburg rockers become the mop-topped fab four, hippy harbingers of sexual liberation and, eventually, druggy psychedelic visionaries.

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Rescue teams yesterday morning restarted the search for missing people after the collapse of the Cologne’s six-story city archive center and two neighboring buildings.

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COME TOGETHER: Top biologists, paleontologists and molecular geneticists joined theologians and philosophers for a seminar commemorating Darwin
The Vatican sought on Tuesday to show that it isn’t opposed to science and evolutionary theory, hosting a conference on Charles Darwin and trying to debunk the idea that it embraces creationism or intelligent design.

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Former billionaire oligarch and government critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky went on trial for a second time in Moscow on Tuesday in a case seen as a test of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his promise to end the country’s “legal nihilism.”

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Iran’s top authority said yesterday US President Barack Obama was pursuing the same “wrong path” as his predecessor George W. Bush in supporting Israel and described the Jewish state as a “cancerous tumor.”

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OVERTURNED: Aside from restoring rules to protect endangered species, Obama also called for a review of laws issued in the waning days of the Bush administration
US President Barack Obama on Tuesday restored rules aimed at saving endangered species from harm by government projects, in his latest move to undo Bush-era laws seen as damaging to the environment.

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A man who was tracked down after a video of him sexually assaulting a two-year-old girl was found in the Nevada desert was convicted on Tuesday of that attack and another on a six-year-old.

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Hundreds of heavily armed soldiers fanned out across Mexico’s bloodiest drug war city on Tuesday trying to prevent a collapse in law and order just south of the US border.

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A man accused of beheading and cannibalizing a passenger on a Greyhound bus apologized to police when he was arrested and begged officers to kill him. The details emerged as Vince Li faced his murder trial by pleading not guilty.

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The auditions are over. The first YouTube Symphony Orchestra — selected by viewers of the Web site — will consist of more than 90 musicians from some 30 countries.

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BARRAGE: The main US-Iraqi base in Mosul was also attacked, underscoring the resilience of insurgents in the northern part of the country. One soldier was killed
Iraqi officials said a suicide bomber killed at least two people and wounded eight in an attack outside a police intelligence unit in Baghdad.

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■THAILAND

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