As peace negotiators continue to insist that a nationwide ceasefire is within reach, clashes reportedly broke out again this week in Shan and Kachin states ahead of a planned meeting between a handful of ethnic armed groups, President Thein Sein and Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing.

The Ta’ang (Palaung) National Liberation Army (TNLA) said fighting with the Burma Army took placein an area of the ethnic armed group’s control in Namhsan Township, Shan State, with the TNLA claiming to have killed two government soldiers after coming under attack at the village of Nang Kay.

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The Saudi-led coalition conducted a series of airstrikes targeting Iranian-backed Houthi positions in the coastal city of al- Hudeida, Al Arabiya News channel reported Thursday.

The air strikes also hit security forces camps in Yemen’s central province of al-Bayda that were seized by the Houthis earlier this year.

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Taliban fighters have seized control of a district in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province after days of fighting. Earlier, two NATO soldiers were shot dead by men wearing Afghan security forces uniforms.

The fall of Helmand’s Musa Qala was confirmed by the district’s governor, Mohammad Sharif on Wednesday.

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Seven Ukrainian servicemen have been killed and another 13 have been injured in the conflict area in the country’s eastern regions over the past 24 hours.

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Kurdish Peshmerga forces attacked Islamic State insurgents in a cluster of villages in Iraq’s northern province of Kirkuk on Wednesday, bent on securing territory they have gained in the course of rolling back the jihadists since last summer.

The assault began overnight south of Daquq, a town about 175 km (108 miles) north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. The front line between the regional Kurdish peshmerga forces and Islamic State in northern Iraq has hardly budged for months.

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