AMMAN – Security forces shot dead 17 people in Syria yesterday and rebels killed seven police in an ambush, activists said, after the U.N. human rights chief put the death toll from nine months of protest against President Bashar al-Assad at 5,000.
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JERUSALEM – An Israeli minister denounced a group of hardline Jewish settlers as “terrorists” yesterday after they vandalised an Israeli army base in the occupied West Bank.
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TEHRAN – U.S. President Barack Obama should apologise for sending an unmanned spy plane into Iranian territory rather than asking for it back after it was seized, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said yesterday.
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STRASBOURG, France – Up to 26 European Union countries will finalise a pact to enforce budget discipline more strictly in the euro zone by March, a top official said yesterday, as the bloc tries to move quickly to rebuild confidence but without Britain’s backing.
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LONDON – Canada still has a legal obligation under United Nations rules to cut its emissions despite the country’s pullout from the Kyoto Protocol, the U.N. climate chief said yesterday.
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WASHINGTON – The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives defied a White House veto threat yesterday and passed a bill to expedite approval of the Keystone XL Canada-to-Texas pipeline project.
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MEXICO CITY – Major developed economies and rising world powers need to back the International Monetary Fund with more resources to fight financial crisis, President Felipe Calderon said yesterday, as his country took over leadership of the Group of 20 heavyweight economies.
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HAVANA – Cuba has detained top executives of the powerful military-run Tecnotex company, broadening a corruption investigation that has already shuttered three foreign firms, foreign business sources told Reuters.
