TEHRAN – Iran and six world powers seeking to defuse a protracted standoff over Tehran’s nuclear programme will start talks on Oct. 1, in what a senior US official described as an “important first step”.
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NEW YORK – US President Barack Obama warned financial firms yesterday to heed the lessons of Lehman Brothers’ collapse a year ago and get behind a regulatory overhaul he wants Congress to pass this year.
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LONDON – Three Britons were jailed for life yesterday for plotting a “terrorist outrage” on the scale of the September 11 attacks by blowing up transatlantic airliners bound for North America using bombs made from liquid explosives.
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WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s decision to restrict tire imports from China after union workers complained of a surge could lead to copycat cases in areas such as steel, clothing, paper, machinery and consumer goods, trade experts said yesterday
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BRUSSELS – The euro zone is emerging from recession, the European Commission said yesterday, but kept a gloomy overall forecast for 2009 as data showed job losses across the region still rising and sapping growth.
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JERUSALEM – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday Israel would not freeze all building in West Bank settlements as demanded by Washington but could limit its scope to help restart peace talks with the Palestinians.
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TOKYO – Japan’s leader-to-be Yukio Hatoyama is likely to appoint veteran lawmaker Hirohisa Fujii as the next finance minister, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported, although another report said he may instead choose his party’s policy chief, Masayuki Naoshima, for the key post.
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ISLAMABAD – Pakistani security forces intensified a hunt yesterday for the Pakistani Taliban leader in the Swat valley, military officials said, and a US drone killed four militants in a missile strike near the Afghan border.
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MOGADISHU – US special forces in helicopters attacked a car in southern Somalia yesterday and killed one of east Africa’s most wanted al Qaeda militants, witnesses and US sources said.
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GENEVA – The Honduran ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva said on Monday he had been ordered out of the UN Human Rights Council after other Latin American countries accused him of representing an “illegal” regime.