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Militia Clashes Kill 10 in East DR Congo

Fighting between two rival militia forces has killed at least 10 people in the Masisi territory of the east of Democratic Republic of Congo, official and civic sources said Monday.

"There were clashes between the APCLS (Alliance of Patriots for a Free and Sovereign Congo) and elements of the Sheka on Friday and Saturday at Kalembe," John Banyene, chairman of Masisi's civil society association, told Agence France Presse.

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India's Sonia Gandhi Declares Strong Support for Embattled PM

The head of India's ruling party strongly defended Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday, just days after her son heaped embarrassment on him and his government over a move to protect convicted MPs.

Sonia Gandhi, the country's most powerful politician, said the Congress party firmly "stands behind" the prime minister after her son Rahul Gandhi, number two in the party hierarchy, branded a government decree "complete nonsense".

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Italian Court Orders New DNA Test in Knox Murder Retrial

Judges at the retrial of Amanda Knox for the murder of a British student on Monday ordered new DNA testing on the alleged murder weapon, a kitchen knife, on the first day of hearings.

The court in Florence also said it would re-hear the testimony of Luciano Aviello, a jailed mafia turncoat who at one point had accused his own brother of the grisly murder but then retracted.

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Cameroon Ruling Party Expected to Win Legislative Polls

Voters in Cameroon began going to the polls Monday for legislative and local polls set to shore up the strong parliamentary majority of President Paul Biya's ruling party.

The election in the central African country began on schedule at 8:00 am (0700 GMT), but few people turned out in the early hours and some flaws in the electoral rolls were already noticed by an Agence France Presse correspondent in the capital Yaounde.

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Iran Guards Chief Criticizes Rouhani-Obama Call

Iran's Revolutionary Guards chief said Monday President Hassan Rouhani should have refused a telephone call from his U.S. counterpart, in the first public criticism of the move by a senior official.

Rouhani's landmark conversation with Barack Obama last week was the first contact between leaders of the two countries since the rupture of diplomatic relations in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

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Briton Jailed in U.S. over Iran Arms Smuggling Returns to UK

A British businessman jailed in the United States for trying to smuggle a key missile component to Iran has returned to Britain to serve out his sentence, his lawyer said Monday.

Christopher Tappin was extradited from Britain last year and eventually pleaded guilty in the United States to attempting to ship to Iran specialized batteries used for the Hawk air defense missile, using false export papers.

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Hollande Urged to Act as France's Roma Row Splits Govt

President Francois Hollande came under mounting pressure to rein in his squabbling ministers on Monday as a row over the treatment of France's Roma population rumbled on.

Against a background of opposition claims that the Socialist-Green coalition is in disarray, Hollande side-stepped the controversy triggered by Interior Minister Manuel Valls's claim that most Roma in France will never integrate and should be sent back to their countries of origin.

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Thirteen Migrants Die Swimming Ashore in Italy

Thirteen asylum-seekers drowned on Monday while attempting to swim ashore after their vessel ran aground off Italy's coast, the local mayor said.

"There were 13 dead. Some people were saved and sent to nearby hospitals," Franco Susino, the mayor of Scicli in southeast Sicily near where the incident happened, said on the news channel SkyTG24.

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Erdogan Announces Reforms Key to Kurdish Peace Process

Turkey on Monday moved to scrap restrictions on the use of the minority Kurdish language among democratic reforms designed to revive the stalled peace process with the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

But the proposed reforms fell short of satisfying a key Kurdish politician.

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Briton Freed without Charge after Kenya Mall Attack

Kenyan police have released a British man without charge after he was arrested in Nairobi following the attack on a shopping mall by Islamist militants, British sources said on Monday.

"We can confirm that a British national has been released from custody in Nairobi," a spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said.

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