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DIPLOMACY. Chavez vows to stand by Syria. </B>Thousands of Syrians lined the streets of the capital yesterday waving banners and flags to welcome Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who pledged to stand by Syria in opposition to American ?imperialist aggression? in the Middle East. Syrian President Bashar Assad hosted Chavez at the People?s Palace, where the two leaders strolled down a red carpet alongside a 21-gun salute while a marching band played the Syrian and Venezuelan national anthems.
<B>ANKARA. Turks march to protest Kurdish bombings. </B>Hundreds of flag-waving Turks marched yesterday to denounce a rash of bomb attacks by an outlawed Kurdish militant group that killed three people and wounded dozens of others in Istanbul and two resort towns this week, Turkish media reportedThe protesters shouted anti-Kurdish rebel slogans during the march in the Mediterranean resort town of Marmaris, the scene of a bus bombing Sunday that injured 10 Britons and 11 Turks, the Anatolia news agency said. On Monday, another bomb attack killed three people and injured dozens of more people, including several tourists, in the resort city of Antalya.The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, a small, militant group, claimed responsibility for both attacks, as well as another bomb blast in Istanbul that wounded six people on Sunday. The group warned it would turn ?Turkey into hell,? and urged tourists to avoid traveling to the country.
<B>LONDON. Business leaders support ?open door? migration policy. </B>Business leaders have called for the country to retain its ?open door policy? to migrants from eastern Europe ahead of Romania and Bulgaria joining the European Union next year. The Independent reported yesterday that the Business for New Europe group (BNE) has issued a statement saying: ?If Bulgaria and Romania join the EU at the beginning of next year, the UK should continue with its open door policy.?The statment was signed by five members of the group?s advisory council, including the heads of the supermarket chain Sainsburys and the European division of investment bank Merrill Lynch.
<B>KHARTOUM. Britain seek vote on UN troops for Darfur. </B>The United States and Britain plan to push for a vote on a UN resolution sending peacekeeping troops to Darfur, despite a fresh rejection by Sudan on Tuesday of any deployment of UN troops there.
<B>TRIPOLI. Libya seeks death sentences in AIDS case. </B>Prosecutors demanded the death sentence in the retrial of five Bulgarian medics and a Palestinian doctor accused of intentionally infecting Libyan children with HIV;The six are charged with intentionally infecting more than 400 children with the virus that causes AIDS at a hospital in the Libyan city of Benghazi. At least 50 of the children have died. ?Infecting the children with the HIV virus is a savage and inhumane crime and a humanitarian catastrophe,? prosecutor Omar Abdel-Khaleq told the court.The defendants have denied the charges and human rights groups have accused Libya of concocting them to cover up unhygienic conditions at Libyan hospitals.Bulgaria voiced regret that Libyan prosecutors were seeking the death penalty.The charge of intentionally causing an HIV infection ?is not supported by compelling evidence and has already been rejected by world-known medical experts,? Foreign Ministry spokesman Dimitar Tsanchev said.The six have been held in Libya since 1999. They were convicted and sentenced to death in 2004, but Libya?s Supreme Court ordered a retrial in December after international protests that the trial was unfair.
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