Associated Press
Hundreds of thousands of camels, horses and cattle were brought to the huge annual cattle fair last week in Pushkar, in the western Indian state of Rajasthan. The fair and camel races draw foreign tourists as well as many Hindus to take a dip in Pushkar Lake, which they believe washes away their sins.
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Pro-democracy protests stretched into a fourth week in Hong Kong, where activists spread a yellow banner with the words reading: “I want genuine universal suffrage” at a rally. Student leaders pushing for a greater say in choosing the territory’s chief executive met with government officials but agreed on little.
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North Korea announced it halted tourist visits and said it will quarantine foreigners from entering the country for 21 days over fears of the spread of the Ebola virus, even though no cases of the disease have been reported anywhere within Asia. The isolated country has virtually no contact with any of the countries that have been most affected in west Africa. The draconian steps send a message to the North Korean people to be very afraid of the outside world and of outside influences.
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Indonesia inaugurated President Joko Widodo’s new Cabinet, made up of technocrats in key finance roles who will need to push painful reforms to fix the country’s slowing economy and politicians who supported his spectacular rise to power.
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In Australia’s capital, three men wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood, a niqab and a motorcycle helmet were blocked from entering Parliament House until they removed their headwear. The men, who want Muslim veils that cover the face banned from the nation’s seat of government, said the stunt was meant to expose inequality in the security system that allows women with face veils into public areas of the House.
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