Asia News

Karzai sworn in for second term

By News Thu, Nov 19, 2009 3:17PM UTC

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been sworn in for a second five-year term during a ceremony in the Afghan capital of Kabul. Karzai was sworn in Thursday by the head of the Supreme Court, Abdul Salam Azimi, before hundreds of guests and foreign dignitaries from more than 40 countries. Karzai

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Indonesia urged to free imprisoned flag wavers

By News Thu, Nov 19, 2009 3:12PM UTC

Indonesia should release three men imprisoned for raising a banned separatist flag because the harsh punishment undermines the country’s democratic values, a prominent rights group said Thursday. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (pictured) should overturn the prison terms of up to three years handed down last week for using the symbol

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PAD’s nationalist and extreme rhetoric

By Bangkok Pundit Thu, Nov 19, 2009 2:00PM UTC

Prachatai has translated a number of statements made at the anti-Thaksin PAD rally on Sunday. These are statements from the stage – usually accompanied by jeers. One really doesn’t know which excerpts to exclude as there are so many. You have talk of non-humans: Then some students came up to

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Bangladesh court upholds death sentences for coup

By News Thu, Nov 19, 2009 1:50PM UTC

The Supreme Court rejected final appeals Thursday by five former soldiers sentenced to death in the 1975 killing of Bangladesh’s independence leader in a military coup, a government attorney said. A five-member jury dismissed the men’s plea to commute the penalty in a packed courtroom in capital Dhaka, attorney Anisul

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Obama: US envoy to visit North Korea next month

By News Thu, Nov 19, 2009 1:14PM UTC

President Barack Obama says his envoy on North Korea will travel to the communist country early next month for the first bilateral talks with the regime since he took office. Obama said Thursday at a joint news conference in Seoul with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak that Ambassador Stephen Bosworth

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