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Libyans savour joys of consumerism (AFP)by Imed Lamloum 51 minutes ago
TRIPOLI (AFP) - Libyans are shaking off decades of deprivation resulting from an iron-fisted socialist rule, international isolation and sanctions to savour the joys of their new market economy. Gone are the days of having to queue outside gloomy state shops to buy subsidised consumer goods in Libya, which is an OPEC member and Africa's number two oil producer with reserves estimated to total 42 billion barrels. |
SKorea seeks to calm NKorea following threat (AP)
China toy export industry sees 1st bankruptcies: report (Reuters)
UN chief calls for improved security in Lebanon (AP)
Gunshots fired near US Consulate in Mexico (AP)
Meltdown trips up Chinese, Israelis on tiny island (AP)
Glance at Islamic terror money (AP)
Britons guilty in Dubai beach sex trial (Reuters)
Construction workers find Roman city of the dead (AP)
By JAE-SOON CHANG, Associated Press Writer 18 minutes ago
SEOUL, South Korea - South Korea sought to calm North Korea on Friday after the communist nation threatened to end all relations with the South, saying Seoul does not want confrontation with Pyongyang and dialogue is the best way to resolve problems.
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23 minutes ago
BEIJING (Reuters) - Two factories subcontracting to Hong Kong-listed toymaker Smart Union Group have shut their doors, the China Daily reported, calling it the first recent bankruptcies for an industry heavily dependent upon exports to the United States. The two factories, in Dongguan, an export-dependent city about an hour-and-a-half north of Hong Kong by train, did not pay their 6,500 employees in September or October, the paper said in an online report late on Thursday.
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By CARLEY PETESCH, Associated Press Writer 24 minutes ago
UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Thursday praised improving ties between Lebanon and Syria, but called on the two countries to take further steps to bolster security along their border. He also warned that Lebanon will not be a fully sovereign state until Hezbollah, and other militia groups are disarmed.
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By MARK WALSH, Associated Press Writer 58 minutes ago
MONTERREY, Mexico - Gunshots were fired Thursday near the U. S. Consulate in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey, prompting officials to beef up security at the building. No one was injured and it wasn't clear if the gunshots were directed at the consulate.
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By VIVIAN TYSON and BEN FOX, Associated Press Writers 40 minutes ago
PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos - The global financial meltdown turned an idyllic Atlantic island into the site of an ugly dispute Thursday when hundreds of Chinese laborers on a stalled resort project allegedly detained Israeli contractors.
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By The Associated Press 40 minutes ago
A look at the ways analysts say al-Qaida and other Islamic terrorist groups get money and how it has changed over time:
• Soviet war in Afghanistan:
Many Islamic terror groups have their origins in the Soviet war in Afghanistan that started in 1979.
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37 minutes ago
DUBAI (Reuters) - Two Britons were found guilty on Thursday of having sex on a Dubai beach and sentenced to three months' jail followed by deportation. Vince Acors and Michelle Palmer, who were also fined 1,000 dirhams (157 pounds) each, had pleaded not guilty to charges of having sex in public and committing an indecent act in public, but admitted to an alcohol-related offence.
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By ARIEL DAVID, Associated Press Writer 9 minutes ago
ROME - Workers renovating a rugby stadium have uncovered a vast complex of tombs beneath Rome that mimic the houses, blocks and streets of a real city, officials said Thursday as they unveiled a series of new finds here. Culture Ministry officials said that medieval pottery shards in the city of the dead, or necropolis, show the area may have been inhabited by the living during the Dark Ages after being used for centuries for burials during the Roman period.
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31 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States on Thursday welcomed "progress" in Azerbaijan's presidential election despite criticism in Europe over the absence of a real opposition candidate. The US reaction was in contrast to that from Europe's OSCE watchdog which said the election -- in which incumbent President Ilham Aliyev won 90 percent of the vote -- did not reflect democratic principles.
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By MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press Writer 4 minutes ago
NAIROBI, Kenya - As U. S. warships watched a hijacked vessel laden with tanks and other gunboats patrolled the dangerous waters off Somalia, pirates seized another cargo vessel this week — and now hold about a dozen despite the international effort to protect a major shipping lane.
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By MATT SIEGEL, Associated Press Writer 3 minutes ago
BAKU, Azerbaijan - The president of oil-rich Azerbaijan won re-election by a landslide in a vote boycotted by opposition parties, and OSCE monitors said Thursday the ballot failed to meet international standards. With 70 percent of precincts counted, President Ilham Aliyev won 89 percent of Wednesday's vote, Central Election Commission chief Mazahir Panahov said Thursday.
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By DANIELA PETROFF, Associated Press Writer 30 minutes ago
VATICAN CITY - The longtime private secretary of the late Pope John Paul II revealed in a film screened Thursday that the pope was lightly wounded in a 1982 knife attack by a priest in Portugal. Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz made the revelation in "Testimony," a movie on John Paul's life that was screened for Pope Benedict XVI and top clergy at the Vatican.
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By Madeline Chambers and Josie Cox 19 minutes ago
BERLIN (Reuters) - About 200 people chanting anti-Muslim slogans demonstrated on Thursday at the opening of the first mosque in the formerly communist eastern part of Germany. Attacks on the site and protests by residents and the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) have dogged the mosque's construction.
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AP - The race is over as far as Ireland's biggest bookmaker is concerned.
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By Chor Sokunthea 25 minutes ago
PREAH VIHEAR, Cambodia (Reuters) - Thai and Cambodian army commanders ended five hours of talks on Thursday with no agreement to withdraw their forces after heavy fighting near a disputed 900-year-old temple killed two Cambodian soldiers. "We did not make much progress.
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By SEBASTIAN ABBOT, Associated Press Writer 16 minutes ago
CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida, which gets its money from the drug trade in Afghanistan and sympathizers in the oil-rich Gulf states, is likely to escape the effects of the global financial crisis. One reason is that al-Qaida and other Islamic terrorists have been forced to avoid using banks, relying instead on less-efficient ways to move their cash around the world, analysts said.
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12 minutes ago
JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva arrived Thursday in Mozambique to launch a project to make anti-AIDS drugs in the southern African country, the foreign ministry said. Brazil, long considered a model in the fight against AIDS, will invest 23 million dollars to build a factory to produce generic medications, the foreign ministry said.
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27 minutes ago
MADRID (AFP) - Atletico Madrid said Thursday UEFA has postponed a two-match stadium ban imposed against the club, meaning Liverpool's Champion's League match next week can be played in the Spanish capital. "UEFA's appeal committee. . . has decided on a temporary suspension requested by Atletico Madrid of the sanction imposed by UEFA's disciplinary committee," the club said in a statement.
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5 minutes ago
COLOMBO (AFP) - Sri Lanka's military on Thursday stepped up attacks against suspected Tamil Tiger positions in the island's north and accused the rebels of blocking a UN-escorted food convoy. The UN's World Food Programme was escorting a convoy of trucks taking essentials for hundreds of thousands of people in rebel-held areas on Thursday when it fell victim to a roadside bomb attack, the defence ministry said.
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By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press Writer 23 minutes ago
LONDON - Millvina Dean was just two months old when she was wrapped in a sack and lowered into a lifeboat from the deck of the sinking RMS Titanic. Now, more than 95 years later, Dean — the last living survivor of the disaster — is selling artifacts of her rescue to help pay her nursing home fees.
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