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DUBAI - Iran blamed Western and Arab countries on Friday for the failure of Kofi Annan's Syria peace plan, the official IRNA news agency said on Friday, a day after the former U.N. secretary general quit as international envoy.
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LONDON - British hope Jessica Ennis, the poster girl of the London Olympics, lit up a packed stadium on Friday where the track and field events got under way but the hosts' cycling team were under scrutiny after a ?planned" crash.
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WASHINGTON - U.S. employment probably only inched up in July as the economy struggled to regain momentum, strengthening expectations of additional monetary stimulus from the Federal Reserve.
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FRANKFURT - The European Central Bank indicated on Thursday it may again start buying government bonds to reduce crippling Spanish and Italian borrowing costs but the conditions it set and the dissenting voice of its key German member disappointed markets.
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ULAN BATOR - A Mongolian court has jailed former president Nambaryn Enkhbayar for four years for corruption, a move that could threaten the government's fragile coalition and increase uncertainties for foreign investors.
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NEW DELHI - India's monsoon rains will not be enough to save the country from its first drought in three years, the weather office said on Thursday as it forecast that the El Nino weather pattern should reduce rains again in the second half of the June to September season.
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BEIJING/SEOUL - North Korea's new young leader has told chief backer China that his priority is to develop the decaying economy and improve living standards in one of the world's poorest states, the latest sign that he may be planning economic reforms.
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WASHINGTON - The U.S. government's only facility for handling, processing and storing weapons-grade uranium has been temporarily shut after anti-nuclear activists, including an 82-year-old nun, breached security fences, government officials said on Thursday.
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JERUSALEM - For all its recent tough talk, Israel looks highly unlikely to launch an attack against Iran ahead of U.S. presidential elections in November, hoping that Washington will ultimately do the heavy lifting.
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KAMPALA - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will press South Sudan to resolve disputes with its former rulers in the north, on her first visit to the world's newest country on Friday.
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SHANGHAI - Chinese television may get more boring after the country's top broadcasting regulator issued six new guidelines banning remakes of foreign shows and demanding serials cut back on excessive family conflict and jokes in historical dramas.
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NEW YORK - NBC briefly tore down the digital wall protecting its Olympics coverage on Thursday and permitted consumers without a pay TV subscription to watch live online a much-anticipated race starring American swimmers Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte.
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