DENIS D. GRAY

Associated Press
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Myanmar minorities suffer abuses despite reforms

Deep in jungles far from the international spotlight, Myanmar's army continues to torture and kill civilians in campaigns to stamp out some of the world's longest-running insurgencies.

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Thailand flooding damages its ancient capital

Water fowl, monitor lizards and stray dogs have replaced the throngs of tourists at one of Thailand's greatest historical sites. Record flooding has turned Ayutthaya's ancient temples into islands, and a giant statue of the reclining Buddha appears to float miraculously on the lapping water.

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Armies' pickups get military muscle in Thailand

The humble pickup truck has plowed through the desert sands of Libya in pursuit of Moammar Gadhafi's forces and patrols the high passes of Afghanistan. Tough, multitasking and relatively cheap, it's the choice of Latin American armies, al-Qaida terrorists, Somali warlords and even U.S. Special Forces trying to blend in with the locals.

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In Thailand, a battle royal with water

As Thailand's ailing king surveys the calamitous scene from his 16th floor hospital window, the 83-year-old monarch encounters an element that has challenged, virtually obsessed, him most of his life: water.

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Asia pays watery price for overdevelopment

As millions of urbanites living a modern lifestyle fear that torrents of floodwater will rage through Thailand's capital, some in enclaves of a bygone era watch the rising waters with hardly a worry — they live in old-fashioned houses perched on stilts with boats rather than cars parked outside.

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AP Enterprise: Global Islamic group rising in Asia

The chanting crowd at the radical Muslim protest in Indonesia stood out for its normalcy: smartly dressed businessmen, engineers, lawyers, smiling mothers, scampering children.

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Islamic healing is on the rise in Southeast Asia

A 47-year-old housewife who recently started using Islamic alternative cures emerged tearfully from an exorcism, speaking of newfound tranquility after a turbulent time in her life. Also, her abdominal pains are finally easing.

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Last stand in Asia for shy, defenseless anteater

As the 20 cardboard boxes bound for China rolled through the X-ray machine at Jakarta's airport, Indonesian customs officials suspected what was inside didn't match what was declared. Instead of fresh fish, a closer look revealed the meat and scales of the most illegally trafficked mammal in Asia: the pangolin.

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AP ENTERPRISE: Sand for sale; environment ravaged

Round a bend in Cambodia's Tatai River and the virtual silence of a tropical idyll turns suddenly into an industrial nightmare.

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Threatened snow leopards found in Afghanistan

A healthy population of snow leopards, elusive big cats threatened across the mountain ranges of Central Asia, has been found in one of the few peaceful areas of Afghanistan, a wildlife group said.

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Vulture comeback: Rebirth among birds of death

A wake of vultures perches on the bare branches of a towering tree, dark shapes silhouetted against a pale sky, sharp beaks and talons ready to tear apart a dead cow laid out in a Cambodian jungle clearing.

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Cambodia's king seen as a 'prisoner' in his palace

As the sun sets and the last tourist departs his vast, fairy-tale palace, the gentle, dignified man is left almost alone with memories of happier times, before he became the reluctant king of Cambodia — and perhaps its last.

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Elephant therapy program for Thai autistic kids

Kuk-kik, a 14-year-old boy, punctuates his few, slurred words with yelps. Kong screams and bites his fingers when he can't figure out how much to pay for bananas. Other children freeze mid-motion, fix their gazes on minute objects and withdraw.

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Water wars? Thirsty, energy-short China stirs fear

The wall of water raced through narrow Himalayan gorges in northeast India, gathering speed as it raked the banks of towering trees and boulders. When the torrent struck their island in the Brahmaputra river, the villagers remember, it took only moments to obliterate their houses, possessions and livestock.

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Activists fight to stop dam across Mekong

A plan for the first dam across the Mekong River anywhere in its meandering path through Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam has set off a major environmental battle in Southeast Asia.

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Japan disaster complicates moves to clean energy

Worldwide calls to curb nuclear power amid Japan's plant crisis could be bad news for the fight against global warming — unless nations finally go all-out to tap wind, solar and other clean, renewable energy, climate change negotiators and activists say.

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World stumbles toward climate summit

Nineteen years after the world started to take climate change seriously, delegates from around the globe spent five days talking about what they will talk about at a year-end conference in South Africa. They agreed to talk about their opposing viewpoints.

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Last stand of the Asian elephant

Every night when the rice is ripening in their fields, the young men climb into watchtowers to peer anxiously toward the Himalayan foothills from which the gray giants emerge.

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Rabbits under threat as 'their' year begins

Many Asians believe the Year of the Rabbit means good luck for those born under that zodiac sign, but conservationists warn that the furry creatures themselves are being loved to death in Asia and some species are dying away altogether.

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Wildlife group targets Myanmar-China tiger trade

Wildlife trafficking officials say they have reached a preliminary agreement with an ethnic minority group in Myanmar to close down markets where hundreds of poached tigers from across Asia are sold for use in purported medicines and aphrodisiacs in China.

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1,000 tiger parts seized in past decade: report

More than 1,000 parts of tigers slain by poachers across Asia have been seized over the past decade, raising fears that the big cats are headed for extinction, says a new study by a key wildlife trade monitoring group.

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Agency: Myanmar ethnic groups align against regime

Six armed ethnic groups in Myanmar have forged an agreement to join forces, fearing they will be attacked by the regime after Sunday's election, an exile news agency said Thursday.

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Birthplace of the Taliban: the next battleground

As some 400 U.S. and Afghan soldiers gather to honor their first fallen comrade, mournful Muslim prayers mingle with the stutter of machine gun fire and the thud of exploding grenades just beyond their heavily fortified camp.

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Analysis: Will battle for Kandahar win the war?

Since the war began, this southern city and surrounding countryside have been marked as the heartland of the Taliban, the insurgents' springboard to retake all of Afghanistan. It has witnessed some of the bloodiest fighting.

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Next US target: The birthplace of the Taliban

As Lt. Col. Peter N. Benchoff prepares for an assault next month into the birthplace of the Taliban, he doesn't sugarcoat the hurdles his troops face in this crucial swath of southern Afghanistan.

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