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Reuters - 2 hours 35 minutes ago

China buries quake dead as school collapses in focus

BEICHUAN, China - China struggled to bury the dead and help tens of thousands of injured, homeless and hungry on Friday, four days after a massive earthquake which is expected to have killed more than 50,000. President Hu Jintao flew to the battered province of Sichuan and Premier Wen Jiabao said the quake damage could exceed the devastating 1976 tremor in the north-eastern city of Tangshan that killed up to 300,000 people.

Top California court rules gays may marry

SAN FRANCISCO - The California Supreme Court overturned a ban on same-sex marriages on Thursday in a major victory for gay rights advocates that will allow homosexual couples to marry in the most populous U.S. state. The court found that California laws limiting marriage to heterosexual couples are at odds with rights guaranteed by the state's constitution. Opponents of gay marriage vowed to contest the ruling with a statewide ballot measure for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages.

Clinton campaigns on amid clamour to drop out

BATH, South Dakota - Sitting on board Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign plane are the remnants of a colourful balloon replica of the candidate, once nearly life-size but now almost deflated and shrivelled. Like the once cheery caricature, the former first lady soldiers on, but her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination is on the down-swing.

Taliban man convicted in U.S. for "narco-terrorism"

WASHINGTON - A member of an Afghan Taliban cell was convicted by a federal jury on Thursday on charges of narco-terrorism and narcotics distribution, the U.S. Justice Department said in a statement. Khan Mohammed, from Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan, is the first person to be convicted under a narco-terrorism provision of the USA Patriot Act that went into effect in March 2006, the statement said.

New storm deepens misery in cyclone-hit Myanmar

YANGON - Torrential tropical downpours lashed Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta on Friday, deepening the misery of an estimated 2.5 million destitute survivors of Cyclone Nargis and further hampering the military government's aid efforts. In the storm-struck town of Kunyangon, around 100 km southwest of Yangon, thousands of men, women and children stood in mud and rain, their hands clasped together in supplication at the occasional passing aid vehicle.

Lebanese head for crisis talks in Qatar

BEIRUT - Rival Lebanese leaders head for Qatar on Friday aiming to end a protracted political conflict that pushed the country to the brink of a new civil war. Leaders of the U.S.-backed ruling coalition and the Hezbollah-led opposition will try to forge a deal to end the standoff which has paralysed government for 18 months and left Lebanon without a president since November.

Suspected suicide blast kills 9 in Sri Lanka

COLOMBO - Nine people, including seven policemen, were killed when a suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber on a motorbike rammed a bus in the Sri Lankan capital on Friday, the military and hospital authorities said. Doctors at the National Hospital in Colombo said seven policemen and two civilians were killed and more than 85 people were wounded in the blast, which happened in a commercial quarter of the capital near the Hilton Hotel.

Ten held in 3 European countries in al Qaeda probe

PARIS - Police in France, Germany and the Netherlands have arrested 10 people on suspicion of having financial ties with an Uzbek group linked to al Qaeda, a source close to the French investigation said on Friday. Eight suspects arrested in the eastern French city of Mulhouse and the Rhone department of eastern France were Turkish or of Turkish origin, as were two others arrested in Germany and the Netherlands, the source said.

Indian village proud after double "honour killing"

BALLA, India - Five armed men burst into the small room and courtyard at dawn, just as 21-year-old, 22-week pregnant, Sunita was drying her face on a towel. They punched and kicked her stomach as she called out for her sleeping boyfriend "Jassa", 22-year-old Jasbir Singh, witnesses said. When he woke, both were dragged into waiting cars, driven away and strangled.

U.S. Democrats outraged by Bush "appeasement" remark

WASHINGTON - U.S. Democrats erupted in outrage on Thursday after President George W. Bush suggested a pledge by the party's presidential front-runner Barack Obama to meet Iran's leader was akin to appeasement of Nazi Germany. Bush's comments, made in Jerusalem to the Israeli parliament during celebrations for Israel's 60th anniversary, stirred up the campaign for the November election and prompted Obama to accuse him of engaging in "the politics of fear."

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