WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama called yesterday for a sweeping overhaul of Wall Street regulations, saying big changes were needed to avoid a repeat of the financial meltdown.
Obama convened a high-level White House meeting on the issue that included key Democratic and Republican lawmakers to discuss an effort to craft legislation in the coming weeks.
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BUSHEHR, Iran – Iran said yesterday it plans a nearly 10-fold expansion of its uranium enrichment capacity in the next five years, denying a U.N. report which said its nuclear activities had slowed.
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AMSTERDAM – A Turkish Airlines plane with 134 passengers and crew aboard crashed in light fog while trying to land at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport yesterday, killing nine people and injuring dozens.
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MUMBAI – Police charged the man they say is the lone surviving gunman in last year’s Mumbai attacks with “waging war” against India and included two Pakistani soldiers among 37 others charged yesterday, government officials said.
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ISLAMABAD – Pakistan plunged towards a debilitating power struggle yesterday as the Supreme Court brought down a provincial government controlled by President Asif Ali Zardari’s main rival, former premier Nawaz Sharif.
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WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama yesterday nominated former Washington state Governor Gary Locke to be U.S. commerce secretary, turning to a West Coast politician with a history of working with China after his two previous nominees backed out.
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MOGADISHU – Islamist rebels battled African Union peacekeepers and Somali police for a second day yesterday, taking the death toll in the worst fighting for weeks to 81, witnesses and a rights group said.
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WASHINGTON – The United States sharply criticised China yesterday in its annual report on human rights, a week after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton soft-pedaled rights concerns during a visit to Beijing.