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Lockerbie bomber Megrahi dies in Libya leaving unanswered questions
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 TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the 1988 bombing of a PanAm flight over Lockerbie, died of cancer on Sunday aged 60, leaving many questions on the attack and its aftermath unanswered. Megrahi, who said he was not responsible for bringing the jumbo jet down on the Scottish town and killing 270 people, was found guilty in 2001 but was freed in 2009 and returned to Libya because he had terminal cancer and was not expected to live long. ...
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| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T21:11:48Z |
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Italy quake kills at least six, damages historic buildings
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 SANT' AGOSTINO, Italy (Reuters) - A strong earthquake in northern Italy killed at least six people, injured dozens and damaged historic buildings including a famed mediaeval castle early on Sunday, waking terrified citizens and sending thousands running into the streets. The quake, which the U.S. Geological Survey recorded at magnitude 6.0, struck at 4:04 a.m. (0204 GMT) and was followed by a series of jolting aftershocks. At least two of them reached magnitude 5.1, sowing fresh panic, further damaging already weakened buildings and causing more structures to collapse. ...
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| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T21:55:10Z |
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Serb rightist wins presidency, backs EU path
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 BELGRADE (Reuters) - Opposition leader Tomislav Nikolic, last in power when Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia was bombed by NATO in 1999, was elected president on Sunday and pledged to keep the former Yugoslav republic moving towards the European Union. In a major upset, rightist Nikolic narrowly defeated liberal leader Boris Tadic, ending his eight years as head of state in a tense run-off election in which fewer than half of Serbia's eligible voters turned out. "There is divine justice," Nikolic told jubilant supporters in the capital, Belgrade. ...
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| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T22:25:48Z |
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France's "Mr. Normal" stands out in diplomatic debut
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 CHICAGO (Reuters) - New French president Francois Hollande likes to style himself as "Mr. Normal," but his sudden debut on the global stage this week has been anything but. From the Oval Office to a meeting of G8 leaders at the Camp David presidential retreat to the NATO summit in Chicago, Hollande, a life-long party official who has never held a ministerial post, sometimes looked as though he were trying the role of international summiteer on for size. Despite some awkwardness, Hollande appeared to pass his initial diplomatic tests. ...
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| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T21:13:40Z |
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Explosion near U.N. ceasefire monitor chief's convoy: Reuters witness
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 DOUMA, Syria (Reuters) - A roadside bomb exploded on Sunday about 150 meters (yards) from a United Nations convoy carrying the head of a Syria ceasefire monitoring mission and a senior U.N. official in the town of Douma, a Reuters witness said. Major General Robert Mood's car was stopped at an army checkpoint when the bomb detonated in an nearby alleyway and the convoy left, the Reuters journalist said, adding that there were no reports of casualties. United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Hervé Ladsous, who is visiting Syria, was also part of the convoy. ...
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| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T19:25:11Z |
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Insight: Indonesia tycoon Bakrie gears up for presidential bid
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| TANGERANG, Indonesia (Reuters) - There are many ways to describe Indonesia's Aburizal Bakrie: multi-millionaire businessman, global mining tycoon, heavyweight contender for the presidency in 2014. One description that does not spring to mind is man of the common people. So when Bakrie strode into a railway station in south Jakarta last week and slapped the equivalent of one U.S. dollar down on the counter for a ticket, it was a moment of political theatre. It also signaled an early step in the march to presidential elections in mid-2014 in the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation. ... |
| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T21:03:29Z |
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Russia says West still considering military action on Iran
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 MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's deputy foreign minister said on Sunday that military action against Iran over its nuclear program was being considered in some Western countries. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was speaking to reporters on a plane on his way back from the G8 summit in Camp David, where the G8 leaders signaled their readiness to tap into emergency oil stockpiles quickly this summer if tougher new sanctions on Iran threatened to strain supplies. ...
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| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T23:59:00Z |
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Alleged perpetrator of mass beheadings in Mexico arrested
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| MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican soldiers have arrested an alleged perpetrator of the massacre of 49 people whose corpses were decapitated, dismembered and dumped on a highway last week. Daniel Elizondo, alias "The Madman," a leader of the Zetas drug cartel, was detained in the northern state of Nuevo Leon, a spokesman for the army said Sunday. Elizondo headed the Zetas trafficking operations in Cadereyta, an industrial town on the outskirts of Monterrey, close to where the bodies were dumped, the official said. ... |
| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T20:17:29Z |
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U.N. nuclear chief hopeful on Iran deal before Baghdad meet
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 VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear supervisor flew to Tehran on Sunday voicing optimism he could reach a deal to investigate suspected atom bomb research - a possible breakthrough that Iran may hope could help ease Western sanctions pressure and deflect threats of war. "I really think this is the right time to reach agreement. Nothing is certain but I stay positive," Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said at Vienna airport, adding "good progress" had already been made. ...
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| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T18:53:07Z |
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Lone bomber, not mafia, sought for Italy school attack
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| BRINDISI (Reuters) - A bomb attack which killed a teenage girl and wounded 10 other people in the southern Italian town of Brindisi was probably done by an individual operating alone, a senior official said on Sunday, playing down initial suspicions of mafia involvement. Saturday's attack on the Francesca Morvillo Falcone school, a vocational training institute named after the wife of a famed anti-mafia judge, horrified Italy and sparked speculation it was the work of southern Italy's organized crime gangs. ... |
| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T16:09:18Z |
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Gunbattle in Beirut amid fears of Syria spillover
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 Gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns early Monday in intense street battles in the Lebanese capital, wounding six people as fears mounted that the conflict in neighboring Syria was bleeding across the border.
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| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T23:23:41Z |
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Nationalist wins Serb presidential runoff
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 Nationalist candidate Tomislav Nikolic won the Serbian presidency on Sunday, a result that adds to the political turmoil in the Balkan country and could slow down its attempts to join the European Union.
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| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T21:46:25Z |
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Egyptian detainees start hunger strike
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 More than 100 Egyptians held since a mass arrest over two weeks ago began an open-ended hunger strike Sunday to protest their continued detention and the possibility they will face military prosecution, activists said.
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| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T20:57:47Z |
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Yemen troops clash with al-Qaida in south; 17 dead
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| Fresh clashes between al-Qaida fighters and government forces in Yemen left 17 dead on Sunday, military officials said, as the army pushed on with an offensive to regain a key town in the county's south that fell to the militants more than a year ago. |
| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T19:59:43Z |
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Palestinian rivals set timetable for unity deal
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| Palestinian rivals Hamas and Fatah agreed on Sunday on a new timetable for a power-sharing deal that envisions elections in about six months, officials from both sides said. |
| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T19:39:53Z |
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Strong quake kills 4 in Italy cheese region
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 A magnitude-6.0 earthquake shook several small towns in northeast Italy Sunday, killing four people, knocking down a clock tower and other centuries-old buildings and causing millions in losses to the region known for making Parmesan cheese.
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| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T17:21:32Z |
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Greeks' crisis is personal as well as political
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| Like many Greeks left unemployed by their country's economic tailspin, Dimitris Spachos finds it easier to talk about his nation's problems than his own. |
| Date Posted : 2012-05-19T23:13:55Z |
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Profiles of Egypt's main presidential candidates
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 Profiles of Egypt's main presidential candidates:
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| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T19:31:28Z |
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Former Israeli PM: Jerusalem must be partitioned
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 Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday urged Israeli leaders to relinquish the idea of a unified Jerusalem if they truly want peace, contending in a pair of interviews that years of government neglect have kept the Jewish and Arab sectors irreparably divided.
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| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T17:43:51Z |
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Pakistan blocks Twitter over contentious tweets
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| Pakistan blocked the social networking website Twitter for much of Sunday because it refused to remove tweets considered offensive to Islam, said one of the country's top telecommunications officials. |
| Date Posted : 2012-05-20T18:22:30Z |
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