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<B>VILNIUS.us Vice President accuses russia. </B>Vice President Dick Cheney, in one of the Bush administration’s sharpest rebukes to Moscow, accused Russia of backsliding on democracy and urged it to stop using energy supplies for “blackmail”. “Russia has a choice to make,” Cheney told Baltic and Black Sea leaders at a summit in Vilnius, calling on Moscow to return to democratic reform at a time of increasingly chilly relations between the United States and Russia.
<B>BAGHDAD - NIne people killed. </B>A roadside bomb exploded near a courthouse in Baghdad, killing at least nine people. Police said the blast also wounded 46 people.
<B>RUSSIA - Plane crash victims identified. Russia - </B>Relatives began the grim task of identifying bodies of some of the 113 passengers and crew killed when their Armenian airliner crashed into the Black Sea off Russia’s coast.
<B>VATICAN CITY- The Pope angry against China. </B>Pope Benedict said China’s appointment of two Catholic bishops without the approval of the Vatican represented a “grave violation of religious freedom”. “The Holy Father learned the news with deep displeasure,” the Vatican said in an unusually strongly worded statement.
LONDON - Local elections held. </B>Britons voted in local council elections amid a storm of sleaze and incompetence allegations that could damage the ruling Labour Party and even affect how much longer Prime Minister Tony Blair stays in power.
<B>SINGAPORE -Bird flu surveillance net too weak.</B> Asia’s surveillance networks to detect bird flu in poultry and people are so varied and so weak in some countries they are hampering the fight against the disease, health experts said.
KHARTOUM -Women in Darfour victim of sexual violence. </B>Sexual violence against women in Darfur is worsening amid a general deterioration in security and human rights in Sudan’s vast west, the top UN human rights official said after touring the region.
<B>RAMALLAH – Hamas asks for loan. </B>Hamas has asked Palestinian monetary authorities for an emergency $100 million loan to help ease the government’s funding crisis, the head of the Palestine Monetary Authority said.
CAIRO – Budget deficit slashed. </B>More tax revenues and economic reforms will help Egypt’s government slash its budget deficit to 2 to 3 percent of gross domestic product in three to four years, the finance minister said.
<B>TONGA - Fears of tsunami rise after earthquake. </B>A powerful undersea earthquake rocked the islands of Tonga yesterday, generating a small tsunami and sparking fears across the South Pacific of a major disaster, but there were no reports of damage. The 7.9 earthquake at a depth of 55 km (34 miles) struck 160 km (100 miles) south of Tonga’s Neiafu island at 4.26 a.m. local time (1526 GMT), said the US Geological Survey. The centre had earlier said the quake had measured 8.1 and was shallower.
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