Sunday,  March 3, 2013 • Vol. 14--No. 227 • 22 of 25 •  Other Editions

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• The remaining clan members have refused to budge, while concerns have grown that other groups from the Philippines' restive southern provinces might enter Sabah, which shares a long and porous sea border with the Philippines that's difficult to patrol.
• A police team was attacked late Saturday while inspecting a settlement in Semporna town, more than 150 kilometers (90 miles) from Lahad Datu, said national police chief Ismail Omar. Authorities were searching the area for more of the assailants.
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China's Xi rides high hopes ahead of presidency, but will he be able to deliver?

• LUOTUOWAN VILLAGE, China (AP) -- China's fawning state media, jaded social media commentators and even poor corn and cabbage farmers agree: New Communist Party chief Xi Jinping is off to a good start.
• "General Secretary Xi doesn't put on any airs. He talks like an ordinary person," said 69-year-old farmer Tang Rongbin. The new leader visited Tang's sparse, dimly lit farmhouse in Luotuowan village in December, bearing gifts of cooking oil, flour and a blanket.
• Xi has styled himself as an economic reformer, an iron-fisted graft-buster, a staunch nationalist and a no-frills man-of-the-people -- spurring expectations for change. But as he prepares to be appointed to the largely ceremonial role of president, pressure will be growing on him to deliver.
• China faces rising public anger over endemic corruption, a burgeoning rich-poor gap and the degradation of the country's air, soil and waterways. Slower economic growth and territorial disputes, especially with Japan, add to the tension.
• Mounting protests over environmental issues, land seizures and high-handed officialdom point to the underlying social discontent. Days before the party conclave that brought Xi to power last year, thousands of protesters in the eastern city of Ningbo faced off against riot police outside government offices, calling on officials to halt a chemical plant expansion.
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At CITES, UN environment chief calls for hard clampdown on illegal wildlife trade

• BANGKOK (AP) -- The head of the United Nations environment agency is call

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