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WASHINGON: The crew of the International Space Station will try to fix a faulty toilet on Wednesday, but its one American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts will not have to evacuate the outpost if the repair fails, NASA said Tuesday. The US space shuttle Discovery arrived at the ISS on Monday with a replacement pump for the Russian-built commode, which began to malfunction last week, forcing the station's three crewmembers to rig up a bypass for liquid waste.
-- AFP
YANGON: US warships laden with supplies for Myanmar's cyclone victims will sail away after the junta refused their help, even as aid workers Wednesday pleaded for more help to reach about a million survivors. The US Navy said they would withdraw the four ships carrying helicopters, amphibious vehicles and water-purifying equipment. "They have refused us each and every time. It is time for the USS Essex group to move on to its next mission," Admiral Timothy Keating, commander of US Pacific Command, said.
-- AFP
SEOUL: South Korea on Wednesday offered to provide 50,000 tons of corn in humanitarian aid to famine-hit North Korea despite strained relations with the communist state. Unification Minister Kim Ha Joong said he had proposed that both Koreas should discuss the food aid three weeks ago, but Pyongyang has yet to respond. Kim's proposal was the first humanitarian aid offer to North Korea by the conservative government of President Lee Myung Bak, who took office in February.
-- AFP
WASHINGTON: Top officials of the United States and Israel Tuesday reiterated their calls for increasing international pressure on Iran. "Our partners in Europe and beyond need to exploit Iran's vulnerabilities more vigorously and impose greater costs on the regime economically, financially, politically and diplomatically," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. "A regime that denies the Holocaust, threatens and murders its neighbors' citizens, and seeks to destroy a member of the United Nations should not be allowed to cross the nuclear threshold."
-- Xinhua
JAKARTA: The Indonesian police on Wednesday called on the government to outlaw the radical Islam Defender Front (FPI) whose dozens of members were detained for Sunday's attack on a religious freedom rally. "We remind authorities that the FPI has thus far incited unrest," national police spokesman Abubakar Nataprawira said after thousands of officers raided the FPI headquarters just before dawn, resulting in the arrest of at least 58 FPI followers in connection with Sunday's attack in which some 70 people were injured.
-- Xinhua
AMMAN: Jordan is eyeing to largely slash the Internet sales tax on household users in a bid to increase Internet patrons, local daily Jordan Times reported Wednesday. The Ministry of Finance is finalizing a decision to reduce the tax from currently 16 percent to between 5 percent and 8 percent, said a senior official. The decision will help expand the Internet penetration in Jordan and accelerate the implementation of its Information and Communication Technology strategy.
-- Xinhua
COLOMBO: At least 18 people were wounded near the Sri Lankan capital Wednesday when suspected Tamil Tiger rebels set off a bomb alongside a packed commuter train, officials said. The bomb exploded between Colombo's Wellawatte and Dehiwela areas when the train was rolling past, police spokesman Ranjith Gunasekera said. The blast came nine days after a similar attack against a commuter train-also blamed on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam-killed nine people and wounded 84 people.
-- AFP
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