Bangladesh: Thousands flee huge mall fire

Thousands of shoppers rushed out of a crowded high-rise shopping complex in Bangladesh’s capital city on Friday when a fire broke out in the building’s top floors, a police official said. At least one person died, and 20 others are being treated at a nearby hospital for injuries sustained in the fire and the rush to leave the building, a Shamarita hospital official said. Rescue teams are searching for shoppers who may be trapped inside the nearly 20-story-high Bashundhara City shopping complex in Dhaka, police commissioner Mehabubor Rahman told CNN

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Collapsed building traps 2 in Germany

Rescuers in Germany reduced the number of people they were searching for in a building collapse from nine to two, a fire department spokesman said late Tuesday. Seven people who earlier had been reported missing contacted authorities to say they were safe, the spokesman explained. The two remaining victims are men missing from a residential building heavily damaged when another building collapsed, said the spokesman.

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The Obama Team’s Drink of Choice? Coke, Not Pepsi

In apparent homage to the new President, PepsiCo has plastered the sides of buses and bus stops in the nation’s capital with slogans like “Yes You Can,” “Optimismmmm” and “Hope.” In each poster, the letter “O” is inscribed with the redesigned Pepsi logo, a red, white and blue sphere that echoes the rising sun image used by the Obama campaign. It is not hard to interpret the message. Since 1984, Pepsi has been marketing itself as the hip, happening beverage of youth — “The Choice of a New Generation,” as its longtime slogan went

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Blaze erupts at Marriott Hotel in Pakistan

A fire broke out at a major international hotel in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad Thursday, five months after it was hit by a deadly suicide bombing. Smoke could be seen pouring from the upscale Marriott Hotel, close to the country’s presidential palace

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Three cleared over murder of Russian journalist

A jury in Moscow on Thursday acquitted three men charged with involvement on the murder of independent journalist Anna Politkovskaya. The not guilty verdicts followed a two month trial that was hampered from the start by the man accused of masterminding the shooting, Rustam Makhmudov

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Militant attacks in Afghanistan leave 13 dead

Taliban militants carried out attacks on two government buildings in Afghanistan Wednesday, killing 10 civilians and three officials. The militants targeted the justice ministry in Kabul and a prison near the Khair Khana district, north of the capital. The Taliban claimed they were retaliating against poor treatment of prisoners in Afghan jails, the interior ministry said

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