About 40 Burma Army soldiers were killed in one day, Tuesday, by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) as the momentum increases in the civil war in Burma’s northern Kachin State, people in the war zone said.

People in the battle field said government soldiers died during fighting against the People’s Army under the KIA around Ja Ing Yang Village, near Sinbo, in central Kachin State.

There were no KIA casualties, a KIA officer in the frontline said.

Fighting is happening daily between the two sides in different areas in the Shadan Pa Valley, close to Ja Ing Yang, according to local people.

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Revolutionary fighters on Friday assaulted a convention centre in the middle of Sirte that forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi turned into their main base, in what commanders said was a final offensive to crush resistance in the holdout city after weeks of siege.

The forces of Libya’s new rulers were pushing into the Mediterranean coastal city from the west, east and south in heavy fighting, trying to squeeze Gaddafi loyalists into a smaller and smaller perimeter.

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Some 25,000 people have arrived in Ethiopia over the last three weeks to escape fighting between the Sudanese army and rebels in Blue Nile state, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Tuesday.

“Since 3 September, when the influx into Ethiopia started, an estimated 25,000 refugees have found refuge in Ethiopia,” said Adrian Edwards, UNHCR spokesperson.

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A new group calling itself “The National Democratic Front” has been launched in South Sudan calling for the overthrow the current government of the Republic of South Sudan accusing it of corruption, tribalism and sliding into the abyss.

It pledged to unite all the fighting groups in South Sudan in order to fight for the change of the regime. The Front is led by Jack Deng of whom little has been heard of before.

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Radio Xoriyo frontline war correspondent has reported that Ogaden National Liberation Army [ONLA] is continuing heavy attacks on Ethiopian forces in Ogaden. Our correspondent said over 60 Ethiopian troops were killed and many more wounded in the latest battles, details of which are as follows:

On 18 September, well-trained ONLA units carried out a heavy attack on Chinese oil firm PetroTrans and Ethiopian troops guarding them at a place called Iley near Obale in the district of Degeh Bur, Jerar Province, where they were conducting oil exploration activity.

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Islamist militants detonated a truck bomb Tuesday in front of the Ministry of Education in Mogadishu, killing at least 70 people, wounding dozens and shattering a relative calm that had prevailed in the Somali capital for weeks.

The bomb blew up after coming to a halt at a security checkpoint. It left blackened corpses on the debris-strewn street and set other vehicles alight. Uniformed soldiers were seen dragging the wounded away.

Ali Muse, the chief of Mogadishu’s ambulance service, told The Associated Press that at least 70 people died and at least 42 others were wounded.

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At least 15 people have been killed in tribal fighting in the mountains of Papua New Guinea, reports say.

The clashes erupted in Kainantu town in Eastern Highlands province between the Agarabi and Kamano tribes.

Police said guns and knives were used in the fighting, and that a settlement was burned to the ground.

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