SUKKUR, Pakistan – Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari returned home yesterday from foreign visits to a chorus of criticism over his government’s response to the country’s worst flooding in 80 years.
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MOSCOW – Russia’s deadly summer heatwave could wipe up to $14 billion off economic growth, economists said yesterday, as wildfires raged on in several provinces and forecasters said sweltering weather would not abate this week.
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RAMALLAH – U.S. peace envoy George Mitchell had “serious and positive” talks yesterday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, but there was no agreement on a move to direct negotiations with Israel.
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BEIRUT – Iran has offered support to Lebanon’s army, a week after a deadly cross-border clash between Lebanon and Israel which prompted U.S. lawmakers to block funding to the Lebanese military.
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WASHINGTON – The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday approved, and President Barack Obama promptly signed into law, an election-year bill providing $26 billion to struggling states by closing tax loopholes for multinational companies and cutting food aid to the poor.
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HOUSTON – An approaching storm in the Gulf of Mexico will delay BP Plc’s work on a relief well, the final step in permanently killing the source of the world’s worst offshore oil spill, by two to three days, the top U.S. spill official said yesterday.
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KIGALI – Rwandan President Paul Kagame danced his way towards a second seven-year term yesterday after preliminary results gave the bush war veteran 93 percent of the vote in more than a third of country’s districts.