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Xinhua Asia-Pacific news summary at 0600 GMT, March 12

Xinhua, March 12, 2015 Adjust font size:

Australia has offered to pay the costs of life sentences in jail for two of its citizens currently on death row for drug smuggling in Indonesia, if they are granted clemency.

Australian pair Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran are set to face the firing squad imminently after being arrested in 2005 for a plot to smuggle 8.3 km heroin from Bali to Australia.(Australia- Indonesia-Death row)

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SINGAPORE -- Singapore's Changi Airport has been ranked as the world's best airport for the third consecutive year, the airport said on Thursday.

It is the 5th time that Changi Airport has been given the title at the World Airport Awards. The award polled 13.02 million air travelers from 112 countries and regions, and covers a total of 550 airports.(Singapore-Changi Airport)

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NEW DELHI -- India's Congress party president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday led a solidarity march from the party headquarter to former prime minister Manmohan Singh's residence a day after the latter was named an accused in a coal block allocation case, said party officials.

A special court here on Wednesday summoned Singh, industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla and former coal secretary P.C. Parakh in a coal block allocation case, terming it a "criminal conspiracy" with the objective to "do an illegal act".(India-Sonia Gandhi)

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SYDNEY -- The former partner of the gunman who staged a siege in a central Sydney cafe has dropped an appeal against her conviction for "sadistic" letters written to the families of Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan.

Amirah Droudis, who was in a relationship with gunman Man Haron Monis before he staged December's deadly siege, told a Sydney court via a video link that she was dropping her appeal.(Australia- Sydney siege) Endi