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Libya's rival officials conclude election talks without deal

Rival Libyan officials wrapped up weeklong talks in the Egyptian capital without an agreement on constitutional arrangements for elections, the United Nations said Tuesday.

Twelve lawmakers from Libya's east-based parliament and 12 from the High Council of State, an advisory body in the capital of Tripoli in western Libya, took part in the U.N.-brokered talks that concluded Monday in Cairo.

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In Cyprus, Bou Habib says Lebanon ready to cooperate on offshore gas

Lebanon is ready to work with Cyprus to exploit potential gas deposits in waters between the two east Mediterranean countries, Lebanon's top diplomat said, even though a deal on offshore rights hasn't been formally finalized.

Cyprus and Lebanon signed an agreement delineating their respective offshore exclusive economic zones in 2007, but the Lebanese parliament has yet to ratify it amid the country's ongoing maritime border dispute with Israel.

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Over 900 civilians dead around Kyiv, Russia vows new attacks

Indignant over what it called Ukrainian strikes in Russian territory and following the stunning loss of its Black Sea flagship, Moscow threatened renewed missile attacks on Kyiv, where authorities said the bodies of more than 900 civilians were found outside the capital. Most had been shot dead, police said, and likely "simply executed."

Russian forces prepared for a renewed offensive in eastern Ukraine, and fighting also went on in the pummeled southern port city of Mariupol, where locals reported seeing Russian troops digging up bodies. In the northeastern city of Kharkiv, the shelling of a residential area killed seven people, including a 7-month-old child, and wounded 34, according to regional Gov. Oleh Sinehubov.

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In Gaza, an application languishes, and a toddler dies

Jalal al-Masri and his wife spent eight years and their life savings on fertility treatments in order to have their daughter, Fatma. When she was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect in December, they waited another three months for an Israeli permit to take her for treatment outside the Gaza Strip.

The permit never came. The 19-month-old died on March 25.

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Suspect in Syria killings faces German war crimes charges

A man who allegedly launched a grenade into a crowd of civilians waiting for food in Damascus in 2014, killing at least seven people, has been charged in Germany with war crimes and murder, prosecutors said Thursday.

The stateless man, identified only as Moafak D. in line with German privacy rules, was a member of the Free Palestine Movement, one of the groups that at the time controlled the Yarmouk district of the Syrian capital on behalf of Syrian President Bashar Assad's government, federal prosecutors said in a statement.

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Libya's rival officials meet in Egypt for talks on elections

Rival Libyan officials began talks Wednesday in the Egyptian capital on disputed constitutional arrangements for their country's elections. The U.N.-brokered talks come as the North African nation is increasingly deadlocked.

Twelve lawmakers from Libya's east-based parliament and 12 from the High Council of State, an advisory body in the capital of Tripoli, in western Libya, are taking part, according to the parliament's spokesman, Abdullah Bliheg.

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UK inflation rises at the fastest pace in 30 years

British consumer prices rose at the fastest pace in 30 years last month, fueled by soaring costs for household energy and motor fuels — the latest grim figures as inflation surges around the world.

Inflation in the United Kingdom accelerated to 7% in the 12 months through March, the highest annual rate since March 1992, the Office for National Statistics said Wednesday.

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Russia has yet to slow a Western arms express into Ukraine

Western weaponry pouring into Ukraine helped blunt Russia's initial offensive and seems certain to play a central role in the approaching, potentially decisive, battle for Ukraine's contested Donbas region. Yet the Russian military is making little headway halting what has become a historic arms express.

The U.S. numbers alone are mounting: more than 12,000 weapons designed to defeat armored vehicles, some 1,400 shoulder-fired Stinger missiles to shoot down aircraft and more than 50 million rounds of ammunition, among many other things. Dozens of other nations are adding to the totals.

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Polish, Baltic presidents see 'pain and suffering' in Ukraine

The Polish and Baltic presidents on Wednesday visited the Ukrainian town of Borodyanka not far from Kyiv, with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda saying it was "permeated with pain and suffering". 

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Forced into a basement in Ukraine, residents began to die

The Russian soldiers forced more than 300 villagers into a school basement. Then, during weeks of stress and deprivation, some began to die.

Residents of Yahidne, a village 140 kilometers (87 miles) from Kyiv, told The Associated Press about being ordered into the basement at gunpoint after the Russians took control of the area around the northern city of Chernihiv in early March.

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