Indian police charge 5 in New Delhi gang rape

NEW DELHI (AP) — Authorities filed rape and murder charges Thursday against five men accused of the gang rape of a 23-year-old university student on a New Delhi bus, a crime that horrified Indians and provoked a national debate about the treatment of women.Police said they plan to push for the death penalty in the case, as government officials promised new measures to protect women in the nation's...

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Myanmar fetes 2013 with first public countdown

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar rang in 2013 with its first public New Year's Eve countdown and a grand fireworks display, a celebration unprecedented in the former military-ruled country.The party is the latest, and perhaps most exuberant, example of the country's emergence from decades of isolation.Organizers announced that about 90,000 people gathered at the countdown venue, a large field in Yangon,...

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Gunmen kill 5 female teachers in Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Gunmen in northwest Pakistan killed five female teachers and two aid workers on Tuesday in an ambush on a van carrying workers home from their jobs at a community center, officials said.The attack was another reminder of the risks to women educators and aid workers from Islamic militants who oppose their work. It was in the same conservative province where militants shot...

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Asian nations giving enthusiastic welcome to 2013

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Sydney's skyline erupted with tons of exploding fireworks as revelers cheered in the new year from the city's crammed harbor in the world's first major celebration for 2013.The enthusiastic welcome to 2013 was continuing on a grand scale across Asia.Increasingly democratic Myanmar is having a public countdown for the first time. Jakarta plans a huge street party befitting...

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Pakistan official: 19 killed in attack on Shiites

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — A suicide bomber driving a vehicle packed with explosives rammed into a bus carrying Shiite Muslim pilgrims in southwest Pakistan on Sunday, killing 19 people, a government official and eyewitnesses said.Earlier Sunday, 21 tribal policemen believed to have been kidnapped by the Taliban were found shot dead in Pakistan's troubled northwest tribal region, government officials...

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Pakistan seeks help to rescue 23 missing police

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani officials pressured tribal elders Friday to help rescue 23 policemen believed to have been kidnapped by the Taliban during attacks on their posts in the country's troubled northwest tribal region.Also Friday, missiles fired from unmanned U.S. aircraft killed four suspected militants at a training center elsewhere in the remote frontier area, the main sanctuary for...

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India rape victim in Singapore; PM pledges action

NEW DELHI (AP) — Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pledged Thursday to take action to protect the nation's women while the young victim of a gang rape on a New Delhi bus was flown to Singapore for treatment of severe internal injuries.The Dec. 16 rape and brutal beating of the 23-year-old student triggered widespread protests, including a march on Thursday, demanding a government crackdown on the...

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Air Bagan survivors tell of terrifying landing

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Survivors of a Christmas Day crash-landing of an airliner in Myanmar told terrifying tales of escape Wednesday as carrier Air Bagan apologized for what it called the worst accident since it started flying in 2004.Details of the crash remain unclear but airline officials told a news conference Wednesday that they found the plane's two black boxes and were investigating what went...

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Afghanistan: Woman who killed American is Iranian

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The policewoman who killed an American contractor in Kabul is a native Iranian who came to Afghanistan and displayed "unstable behavior" but no known links to militants, an Interior Ministry spokesman said Tuesday.The policewoman, identified as Sgt. Nargas, shot 49-year-old Joseph Griffin, of Mansfield, Georgia, on Monday, in the first such shooting by a woman in a spate...

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Afghan policewoman kills US adviser in Kabul

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — An Afghan policewoman shot and killed an American adviser outside the police headquarters in Kabul on Monday, the latest in a rising tide of insider attacks by Afghans against their foreign allies, senior Afghan officials said.The killing of the American, who worked as a contractor with the NATO command, was the first known insider attack by a woman in Afghanistan.The woman,...

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Gang rape protesters clash with Indian police

NEW DELHI (AP) — Police in India's capital used tear gas and water cannons for a second day Sunday in a high-security zone to break up protests by thousands of people demonstrating against the gang rape and beating of a 23-year-old student on a bus.Police chased angry protesters with batons some of whom fought pitched battles with steel rods and rocks as they tried to get past steel barricades and...

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Bombing at political rally kills 8 in Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani police say a suicide bomber attacked a political rally in the country's northwest, killing eight people.Police officer Arfan Khan says the bombing Saturday in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, also wounded more than 20 people.Khan says the rally was being held by the Awami National Party, whose members have been repeatedly targeted by the Taliban....

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Coalition soldier missing in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A search is under way in southern Afghanistan for a soldier from the NATO-led coalition, believed to be the first to have gone missing since a U.S. Army sergeant was captured by the Taliban more than three years ago, a military spokesman said Friday.U.S. Army Maj. Martyn Crighton said the soldier was among the 1,560 troops from the former Soviet republic of Georgia serving...

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Afghan president welcomes British pullout timeline

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Afghan president on Thursday welcomed the withdrawal of nearly half of the British troops stationed in Afghanistan next year, saying his forces were ready to take up the country's defense.A statement from Hamid Karzai's office said the partial pull-out was an "appropriate" move as NATO forces transfer responsibility for the war against the Taliban to the Afghan military.British...

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Dictator father looms over SKorea's new president

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — When Park Geun-hye last lived in the presidential Blue House more than 30 years ago, she was a young, stand-in first lady, serving after the assassination of her mother and before the killing of her dictator father.After defeating Moon Jae-in in elections Wednesday, she will return to her childhood home as the first female president of a country where women continue to face...

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Gunmen kill 5 female polio workers in Pakistan

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — Gunmen shot dead five women working on U.N.-backed polio vaccination efforts in two different Pakistani cities on Tuesday, officials said, a major setback for a campaign that international health officials consider vital to contain the crippling disease but which Taliban insurgents say is a cover for espionage.Pakistan is one of only three countries where polio is endemic....

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Philippines OKs divisive contraceptives bill

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine legislators passed a landmark bill Monday that would provide government funding for contraceptives and sexuality classes in schools despite strong opposition by the dominant Roman Catholic Church and its followers, some of whom threatened to ask the Supreme Court to block the legislation.The Senate and the House of Representatives passed different versions of...

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Noda quits as party chief after election loss

TOKYO (AP) — Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has resigned as chief of the Democratic Party of Japan to take responsibility for the party's loss in parliamentary elections.The main opposition Liberal Democratic Party won between 275 and 300 seats in the 480-seat lower house of parliament in Sunday's election, NHK exit polls projected.The DPJ was expected to capture less than 100 seats, far below its...

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Sympathy over US school shooting stretches globe

LONDON (AP) — As the world joined Americans in mourning the school massacre in Connecticut, many urged U.S. politicians to honor the 28 victims, especially the children, by pushing for stronger gun control laws.Twitter users and media personalities in the U.K. immediately invoked Dunblane — a 1996 shooting in that small Scottish town which killed 16 children. That tragedy prompted a campaign that...

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China arrests legislator with 4 wives, 10 children

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese authorities have arrested a legislator found to have four wives.A district official in the northern province of Shanxi said Li Junwen also had 10 children, and had been detained on suspicion of document forgery. Bigamy is a criminal offense in China, while rules restrict most couples to just one child.Another 14 people were sacked or given warnings or demotions for negligence...

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