VIENTIANE -- Shohrat Zakir, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress (NPC), led a delegation to visit Laos from May 24 to 28, at the invitation of Laos' National Assembly (NA).
During the visit, he held talks with General Secretary of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP) Central Committee and Lao President Thongloun Sisoulith, President of the Lao National Assembly Xaysomphone Phomvihane, and Vice President of the Lao National Assembly Sommad Pholsena, among others. (Laos-Senior-NPC-Visit)
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PHNOM PENH -- Cambodia and Pakistan on Tuesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the establishment of a joint trade committee.
The deal was inked in Phnom Penh between Cambodian Minister of Commerce Cham Nimul and Pakistani Ambassador to Cambodia Zaheeruddin Babar Thaheem, said a news release from Cambodia's Ministry of Commerce. (Cambodia-Pakistan-MoU)
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DHAKA -- Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has disclosed that a white man had offered her a smooth reelection in the Jan. 7 polls if she allowed a foreign country to establish an air base in Bangladesh.
"If an election took place, there would be no problem for me to be sworn into power if I had allowed a country to set up an airbase inside our country," she said at a meeting of the Awami League-led 14-party alliance in Dhaka recently, adding that "the offer came from a white man." (Bangladesh-U.S.)
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SYDNEY -- Thousands of residents are being evacuated from the still-active massive landslide in Papua New Guinea's remote Enga province on Tuesday, after parts of a mountain collapsed early Friday, burying over 2,000 people.
Nearly 8,000 people have been told to be on standby for evacuation from the landslide-prone area, Radio New Zealand Pacific reported on Tuesday. (PNG-Landslide-Evacuation, 1st LD Writethru)
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NEW DELHI -- Seventeen people were killed and several others feared trapped under the debris as a stone quarry collapsed Tuesday in India's northeastern state of Mizoram, police said.
The stone quarry collapsed amid heavy rains that the state received in the aftermath of cyclone Remal, which made landfall between the coasts of West Bengal and Bangladesh on Sunday night. (Inida-Mizoram-Stone Quarry, 2nd LD Writethru)
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ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan condemns in the strongest terms Israeli bombardment and targeting of tents for the displaced Palestinians in the southern Gaza city of Rafah that has resulted in multiple casualties, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry has said.
"Targeting of individuals who were displaced earlier because of Israeli bombardment and were sheltered in a refugee camp is yet another breach of international humanitarian law by the Israeli forces," the ministry said in a late-night statement. (Pakistan-Palestine-Israel-Gaza)
