AMMAN/UNITED NATIONS – Syrian government forces reasserted control of Damascus suburbs yesterday after beating back rebels at the capital’s gates, ahead of a push at the United Nations for a resolution calling for President Bashar al-Assad to give up powers.

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ORLANDO/TAMPA – Anticipating victory in Florida’s game-changing Republican presidential primary yesterday, Mitt Romney looked ahead while his struggling rival Newt Gingrich vowed to press on with his White House quest.

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LONDON – The euro zone creaked under the weight of record unemployment at the end of 2011 while jobless rates in Germany fell to historic lows, putting the onus firmly on Europe’s top economy to take the lead in steering the struggling region back to recovery.

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ADEN/SANAA – Gunmen riddled the car of Yemen’s information minister with bullets as he left a cabinet meeting in the capital yesterday but he escaped the assassination attempt unhurt, an aide said.

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TEHRAN – Iran completed a “constructive” round of talks with the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog yesterday and further meetings are planned, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

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CAIRO – The Muslim Brotherhood is devising a blueprint for a parliamentary democracy that would overturn Egypt’s tradition of strong heads of state, flexing its muscles after emerging as the country’s dominant political force.

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PARIS/ANKARA – French lawmakers appealed to their country’s highest court yesterday to overturn a law that makes it illegal to deny that the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks nearly a century ago was genocide.

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BEIJING – China urged Sudan yesterday to seek urgently the release of 29 Chinese workers held by rebels in the border state of South Kordofan, declaring that it was “shocked” by their abduction.