Insight: Once a symbol of new Afghanistan, can policewomen survive?

KABUL (Reuters) - Shortly after Friba joined the Afghan National Police, she gave herself the nickname "dragon" and vowed to bring law and order to her tormented homeland. Five years later, she is tired of rebuffing the sexual advances of male colleagues, worries the budget for the female force will shrink and fears the government will abandon them. Women in the police force...

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Philippine leader signs US$49b anti-poverty budget

MANILA: Philippine President Benigno Aquino on Wednesday signed into law a 2.005 trillion-peso ($49 billion) budget for 2013, vowing to use higher taxes on tobacco and alcohol to boost programmes to reduce poverty.Education, health, agriculture and a cash-transfer scheme for the poor are the key priorities of the appropriations, which are 10.5 percent higher than the 2012 national budget,...

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Lok Sabha adjourned till 2pm after uproar over quota bill

NEW DELHI: Lok Sabha members divided over quota in job promotions for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes on Wednesday disrupted proceedings of the house, forcing the speaker to adjourn the house till 2 pm The house was earlier adjourned till 12 noon. As soon as the question hour began in the morning, Parliament members from the Samajwadi Party (SP), Janata Dal-United (JD-U)) and Shiv Sena...

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Experts: Kids are resilient in coping with trauma

WASHINGTON (AP) — They might not want to talk about the gunshots or the screams. But their toys might start getting into imaginary shootouts.Last week's school shooting in Connecticut raises the question: What will be the psychological fallout for the children who survived?For people of any age, regaining a sense of security after surviving violence can take a long time. They're at risk for lingering...

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Newtown Settles In for Prayerful, Somber Christmas

Residents of Sandy Hook, Conn., gather every year under an enormous tree in the middle of town to sing carols and light the tree. The tree is lit this year, too, but the scene beneath it is starkly different.The tree looms over hundreds of teddy bears and toys, but they are for children who will never receive them. The ornaments are adorned with names and jarringly recent birth...

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Syrian rebels take control of Damascus Palestinian camp

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian rebels took full control of the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp on Monday after fighting raged for days in the district on the southern edge of President Bashar al-Assad's Damascus powerbase, rebel and Palestinian sources said. The battle had pitted rebels, backed by some Palestinians, against Palestinian fighters of the pro-Assad Popular Front for the Liberation...

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Malaysia Airlines to buy 36 turboprop planes

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Airlines on Tuesday said it will buy 36 new ATR turboprop aircraft for 3.0 billion ringgit ($916 million) as it looks to further expand its regional and domestic networks.Of the 36 ATR-72-600 planes, the carrier said 20 will go to subsidiary Firefly, which is fast expanding its lucrative routes, while 16 are for MASwings which flies to Sarawak and Sabah on Borneo...

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Delhi gangrape: Sushma Swaraj demands capital punishment for rapists

NEW DELHI: Amid massive outrage over the rape of a 23-year-old on a moving bus in Delhi, leader of opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj on Tuesday demanded capital punishment for the rapists. "It's a shame if you can't be safe at 9:30pm in Delhi. The government must take stern action, the rapists should be hanged," she told the Lok Sabha. The senior BJP leader further demanded that Union home...

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Experts: No link between Asperger's, violence

NEW YORK (AP) — While an official has said that the 20-year-old gunman in the Connecticut school shooting had Asperger's syndrome, experts say there is no connection between the disorder and violence.Asperger's is a mild form of autism often characterized by social awkwardness."There really is no clear association between Asperger's and violent behavior," said psychologist Elizabeth Laugeson, an assistant...

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Conn. Kids Laid to Rest: 'Our Hearts Are With You'

Visibly shaken attendees exiting the funeral today for 6-year-old Noah Pozner, one of 20 children killed in the Connecticut school massacre last week, said they were touched by a story that summed up the first-grader best.His mother, Veronique, would often tell him how much she loved him and he'd respond: "Not as much as I [love] you," said a New York man who attended the funeral...

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