| Syrian opposition struggles for unity as battle rages |
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Sunday, May 26, 2013 3:20:18 AM
ISTANBUL: Syria's opposition resumed talks on Saturday aimed at closing their fractious ranks, as government forces launched a fierce onslaught on a rebel-held border town to try to gain the upper hand in the civil war.
A failure of the opposition to unite could weaken the hand of Russia and the United States, co-sponsors of a proposed peace conference on the war, which has killed 80,000 and threatens to spill over borders and whip up wider sectarian violence.
The U.S. and Russian foreign ministers are to meet in Paris on Monday to discuss how to shepherd Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a....
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| Police arrest three more over killing of soldier |
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Sunday, May 26, 2013 3:10:40 AM
LONDON: Counter-terrorism police arrested three men on Saturday on suspicion of conspiracy to murder over the killing of a soldier near a barracks in London.
Police arrested two men, aged 24 and 28, at a house in the south of the capital, the city's police force said. A third man, aged 21, was detained in southeast London.
Two men are recovering in hospital after being shot and arrested by police on suspicion of the murder of soldier Lee Rigby in London on Wednesday. --REUTERS....
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| Bomb in Yemeni military vehicle kills two and injures six |
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Saturday, May 25, 2013 11:36:34 PM
ADEN: A remotely-detonated bomb planted in a military vehicle killed a soldier and a civilian and injured six other soldiers in the Hadramaut region of eastern Yemen on Saturday evening, a local security official said.
The explosion took place in the town of al-Shehr as the vehicle drove along a main road, the official said. He added religious militants were suspected of the bombing.
Religious militants seized control of swathes of south and east Yemen during the political chaos of the Arab Spring in 2011. They instituted Islamic law in captured towns and allied with al Qaeda in ....
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| Two freight trains collide in Missouri, 7 injured |
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Saturday, May 25, 2013 11:23:54 PM
MISSOURI: Two freight trains collided at a rail intersection in southeastern Missouri on Saturday, triggering the collapse of a highway overpass when several rail cars derailed and struck a support pillar, authorities said.
None of the seven people hurt - two aboard the trains and five people who had been in cars on the two-lane overpass - suffered life-threatening injuries, Scott County Sheriff Rick Walter said in a statement.
"One train T-boned the other one and caused it to derail, and the derailed train hit a pillar which caused the overpass to collapse," Sheriff's dispatcher Clay Slip....
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| British police arrest man after spy claim in soldier case |
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Saturday, May 25, 2013 7:51:53 PM
LONDON: British police arrested a man under anti-terrorism laws at BBC headquarters after an interviewee said security services tried to recruit one of the two men arrested after a soldier was hacked to death in a London street.
Michael Adebolajo, 28 and Michael Adebowale, 22, are under armed guard in hospital after being shot and arrested by police on suspicion of the murder of 25-year-old Lee Rigby, a veteran of the Afghan war, on Wednesday.
A man identified by the BBC as Abu Nusaybah told its flagship news program "Newsnight" that intelligence officers had approached Adebolajo six mont....
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| IMF's Lagarde escapes formal investigation in court |
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Saturday, May 25, 2013 10:21:03 AM
PARIS: French magistrates decided on Friday not to place IMF chief Christine Lagarde under formal investigation over her role in a 285-million-euro arbitration payment made to a supporter of former president Nicolas Sarkozy.
Lagarde instead was given the status of a "supervised witness" after two full days of questioning on her 2008 decision as Sarkozy's finance minister to use arbitration to settle a legal battle between the state and businessman Bernard Tapie.
The decision removes a headache for Lagarde, the only French national heading a major international institution today, and for th....
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| Stockholm calmer but violence spreads outside Swedish capital |
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Saturday, May 25, 2013 10:17:55 AM
STOCKHOLM: A nearly week-long spate of rioting spread outside Stockholm but authorities said police reinforcements sent to the Swedish capital had reduced the violence there, even though dozens of youths set cars and a recycling station ablaze.
The rioting - set off earlier this month by the police shooting of a 69-year-old man - continued for a sixth night in mainly poor immigrant areas in Stockholm.
In a country with a reputation for openness, tolerance and a model welfare state, the rioting has exposed a fault-line between a well-off majority and a minority - often young people with imm....
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| In Syria's shadow, Iraq violence presents new test for U.S. |
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Saturday, May 25, 2013 10:07:12 AM
WASHINGTON: Saddled with Middle East problems ranging from Iran to Syria and beyond, President Barack Obama now faces one that is both old and new: Iraq.
Unresolved sectarian tensions, inflamed by the raging civil war in neighboring Syria, have combined to send violence in Iraq to its highest level since Obama withdrew the last U.S. troops in December 2011, U.S. officials and Middle East analysts say.
A Sunni Muslim insurgency against the Shi'ite-led Baghdad government has also been reawakened. The insurgents' defeat had been a major outcome of then-President George W. Bush's troop "surge....
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| ITV News Twitter account hacked by Syrian Electronic Army |
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Saturday, May 25, 2013 10:05:00 AM
LONDON: British broadcaster ITV (ITV.L) on Friday became the latest media outlet to have one of its Twitter feeds hacked by anonymous supporters of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, just days after Twitter beefed up security to prevent such attacks.
Twitter Inc said on Wednesday that it had started rolling out an optional two-step authentication regime for its users to thwart hackers.
The Associated Press, Britain's Financial Times and Daily Telegraph newspapers have all previously succumbed to attacks from the self-styled Syrian Electronic Army.
ITV's London news Twitter account @itvlon....
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| Syria opposition unity talks face collapse |
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Saturday, May 25, 2013 7:40:42 AM
ISTANBUL: Syrian opposition talks aimed at presenting a coherent front at an international peace conference to end the civil war faced the prospect of collapse after President Bashar al-Assad's foes failed to cut an internal deal, opposition sources said on Friday.
The failure of the Syrian National Coalition to alter its Islamist-dominated membership as demanded by its international backers and replace a leadership undermined by power struggles is playing into the hands of Assad, whose forces are attacking a key town as his ally Russia said he would send representatives to the conference, ....
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