Iran military wants ‘swift retribution’

Top Iranian military officials have called for even faster prosecutions and demanded "swift retribution" for post-election detainees, despite more than 100 Iranians going through mass trials this month, Iranian media reported. The detainees were among those arrested amid protests against the disputed election, in which hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the overwhelming winner.

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AIDS patients struggle in isolated Cambodian town

Van Thy says the government evicted her from her home in the Cambodian capital and trucked her and others out to a town an hour away where she now lives in a hot green metal shed with no running water and dim prospects. Before the move, she had a job as a dishwasher, but now the 36-year-old woman is unemployed, penniless and her health has taken a turn for the worse

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Former president and Nobel laureate laid to rest

South Korea bade farewell to former President Kim Dae-jung Sunday in a ceremony attended by thousands of citizens, dignitaries and politicians. The solemn Sunday afternoon ceremony was held outside parliament, with a large portrait of Kim placed on a shrine surrounded by flowers. The funeral followed six days of mourning for Kim, who died Tuesday of a heart failure

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Blair denies Libyan claims of Lockerbie deal

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Saturday no deals were ever made with Libya while he was in power to arrange the Lockerbie bomber’s release, a move that has caused outrage in the United States. In an exclusive interview with CNN, Blair denied claims — made Friday by the son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi — that he raised the case of Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi every time he visited Libya as prime minister. “Let me make one thing absolutely clear,” Blair, who stepped down as PM in 2007, told CNN’s John Vause on Saturday in Guiyang, China.

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The Rage over Goldman Sachs

Lloyd Blankfein, the 54-year-old chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, is powerfully perplexed. In the past six months, his investment-banking and securities-trading firm has roared ahead in profitability by taking risks — that other firms would not — for itself and its clients in an edgy market. It has paid back the billions of dollars, and then some, of taxpayer money the government forced it to take last October; raised billions of dollars in capital from private investors, including $5 billion from Warren Buffett; and urged its cadre of well-paid and high-performing executives to show some restraint on the conspicuous-consumption front.

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