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A plainclothes policeman catches a woman during a police crackdown on prostitution in Quanzhou, Fujian province, October 29, 2011. China should remove criminal and administrative penalties against sex workers which often lead to serious police abuses, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on May 14, 2013. The abuses include torture, beatings, physical assaults, fines and arbitrary detentions of up to two years, as well as a failure to investigate crimes against sex workers by clients, bosses and state agents, according to the report. Prostitution is not permitted under Chinese law, although the industry has boomed since the country launched economic reforms in 1978. REUTERS/Stringer

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France to host next Friends of Syria meet on July 6

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PARIS | Thu Jun 7, 2012 7:57am EDT

PARIS (Reuters) - France will host the third "Friends of Syria" meeting in Paris on July 6, its foreign ministry said on Thursday, as pressure mounts on world powers to act to stem the escalating bloodshed in an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

Such meetings bring together a coalition of countries, which include France, the United States, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, that want Assad's rule to end. Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius set the date for the latest talks during a meeting in Istanbul on Thursday.

"In the face of a worrying aggravation of the situation in Syria ... France has decided to organize on July 6 in Paris the third ministerial meeting of the Friends of Syria group, which follows those in Tunis and Istanbul," his ministry said in a statement.

(Reporting by Alexandria Sage; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
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justinolcb wrote:
15 months and 10,000 corpses later still all they can do is talk, talk, talk and plan more talking

Jun 07, 2012 9:19am EDT  --  Report as abuse
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