BANGKOK: Thai troops launched a crackdown Monday to enforce a state of emergency in Bangkok, firing warning shots and tear gas as anti-government protesters hurled petrol bombs in clashes that left 70 injured.Columns of smoke rose over the capital Bangkok as hundreds of heavily-armed soldiers cleared a busy intersection blocked by demonstrators calling for Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to quit after just four months in office.Abhisit issued an emergency decree in and around Bangkok on Sunday to curb mass protests against his government, a day after demonstrators forced the humiliating cancellation of a major Asian summit at the Pattaya beach resort.The government said soldiers had cleared the intersection and arrested several of the red-clad protesters, who are loyal to Thaksin Shinawatra, the fugitive former premier ousted in a 2006 military coup.
BEIRUT: Thousands of people converged Saturday on central Beirut to mark the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Lebanese former premier Rafiq Hariri.Waving Lebanese flags and carrying pictures of the slain leader, men, women and children gathered under sunny skies in Martyr's Square where members of the parliamentary majority were to address the crowd. The rally comes as final preparations are underway in The Hague for the launch of the international tribunal set up to bring Hariri's killers to justice. It also comes as the country prepares for legislative elections in June that will pit Western-backed political parties against a Hezbollah-led alliance backed by Syria and Iran.Hariri died in a massive car bombing on February 14, 2005 that also killed 22 others. The assassination was widely blamed on then Lebanese power-broker Syria, which has denied any involvement. The attack on the Beirut seafront was one of the worst acts of political violence to rock Lebanon since t...
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