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East Asia
Singapore PM Lee Hsien Loong to make official visit to China next week
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will make an official visit to China from Sunday till next Saturday at the invitation of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. Besides Beijing, Lee will also visit China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Liaoning Province, according to the Prime Minister’s Office. In Beijing, Prime Minister…
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West Asia
Syrian gov’t agrees to UN investigation on last week’s chemical weapons attack
Syria agreed Sunday to a U.N. investigation into last week’s alleged chemical weapons attack outside Damascus – a deal a senior White House official dismissed as “too late to be credible,” saying the United States has “very little doubt” President Bashar Assad’s forces used such weapons. The hardening of the…
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East Asia
Disgraced politician Bo Xilai stands on trial accused of power abuse, bribery
Trial resumed Friday for disgraced politician Bo Xilai a day after he fiercely denied taking $3.5 million in bribes from businessmen and cross-examined one of them with a lawyer’s precision. His unexpectedly spirited defense at the proceedings aimed at capping China’s biggest scandal in decades appeared to be a last-ditch…
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West Asia
Egypt’s deposed autocrat Mubarak released and placed under house arrest
Egypt’s Prime Minister ordered Wednesday that deposed autocrat Hosni Mubarak be placed under house arrest after he’s released from prison following more than two years in detention. The announcement came hours after a court ordered Mubarak be released for the first time since he was first detained in April 2011,…
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West Asia
At least 130 killed in Syria in worst chemical attack, opposition says
The images showed lifeless children – wrapped in simple white cloths, their pale faces unmarked by any wound – lined up shoulder to shoulder in a vivid demonstration of an attack Wednesday in which activists say the Syrian regime killed at least 130 people with toxic gas. The Syrian government…
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Central Asia
Turkish PM accuses Israel of being behind ouster of Egypt’s President
Turkey’s prime minister on Tuesday accused Israel of being behind the ouster of Egypt’s Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, offering as the only evidence for his claim a statement by a Jewish French intellectual during a meeting with an Israeli official. The Egyptian Cabinet rejected Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s statement as baseless…
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West Asia
Israel-Palestine to make “dramatic decisions” to reach final agreement
Israel will make “dramatic decisions” to reach a final peace agreement that will end the conflict with the Palestinians, Israel’s chief negotiator said Tuesday while warning that hawks inside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition are making her job more difficult. Tzipi Livni’s remarks came as a senior Palestinian official said…
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Central Asia
Former Pakistani President Musharraf indicted for murder of ex-PM Bhutto
In an unprecedented ruling that tests the military’s aura of inviolability, a court indicted former president and army chief Pervez Musharraf Tuesday on murder charges stemming from the 2007 assassination of ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Musharraf, who became a key U.S. ally in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001…
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South Asia
Pakistan’s PM Nawaz Sharif calls for peace talks with anti-gov’t militants
Pakistan’s prime minister reiterated Monday an offer of peace talks with militants in the country’s northwest who have waged a bloody campaign against the government and so far rejected any talk of negotiations. But Nawaz Sharif also held out the option of new military operations to root out the militants…
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West Asia
The top leader of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood arrested in Cairo
General Guide of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Mohamed Badie was arrested by police in Cairo, official news agency MENA reported early Tuesday, citing a security source. He has been transferred with intensive security measures to Torah prison, where former President Hosni Mubarak and his two sons are detained, the report said.…
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