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its members militarily but has held back from formally designating the al-Qaida-linked network a terrorist group amid concerns about hampering peace efforts in Afghanistan and U.S. relations with Pakistan.
• Clinton, who is winding up a six-nation tour of the Asia-Pacific, was expected to send her report on the Haqqanis to Congress on Friday and announce her decision.
• The U.S. long has branded the Haqqanis among the biggest threats to American and allied forces in Afghanistan, and to Afghanistan's long-term stability. A subsidiary of the Taliban, it is based in northern Pakistan but crosses the border to launch attacks, including a rocket-propelled grenade assault on the U.S. Embassy and NATO compound in Kabul in September.
• ___

• PARIS (AP) -- France's decision to send direct aid to Syria's opposition represents a break for the rebels after months of Western hesitation over fears that costly equipment intended for Syria's opposition could get lost or fall into the wrong hands. But even the French action, rebels and activists say, amounts to so little that it's all but useless.
• France, Syria's one-time colonial ruler, began sending the aid without intermediaries last week to three regions of Syria where the regime of President Bashar Assad has lost control, in the first such move by a Western power, a diplomat said Wednesday. But it remains limited, primarily repairing bakeries, water systems and schools. And while apparently more than the indirect assistance extended by other Western countries, it's still far from the magnitude needed to make a difference, Syrian opposition activists said.
• In the province of Aleppo, which includes Syria's largest city, and in the southern province of Daraa, activists said even the new French aid hadn't helped. When something is broken, it's locals who must fix it or just make do, said Mohammed Saeed, an activist in the Aleppo area.
• "Instead of fixing water systems," Saeed said, "they should go and give food to 5,000 refugees stuck on the border with Turkey."
• France has pushed to secure "liberated zones" in Syria amid mounting calls for

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