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Xinhua Asia-Pacific news summary at 1000 GMT, April 7

Xinhua, April 7, 2015 Adjust font size:

Some 20 people were killed when police shot at a group of sandalwood smugglers in a forestry area of Chittoor in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday, said police.

A gunfight occurred between police and smugglers in Seshachalam forest at around 05:00 a.m. in Chittoor about 500 km from Hyderabad, the state capital. (India-Smuggling-Gunfight)

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NEW DELHI -- India's central bank, the Reserve Bank of India ( RBI), decided on Tuesday to keep its key policy rates and the reserve ratios unchanged, RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan said.

Rajan conducted the first bi-monthly review of the monetary policy for the current fiscal year and decided to retain the repurchase rate, the reverse repurchase rate, the cash reserve ratio and the statutory ratio at existing levels. (India-Policy Rate)

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SEOUL -- South Korea on Tuesday denounced Japan's yearly diplomatic paper as "history-regressive," as the Japanese government repeated its territorial claims to Dokdo islets, called Takeshima in Japan.

"Today, it (the Japanese government) repeated its history- regressive action by presenting to the Cabinet, the Diplomatic Blue Paper, including an unjustifiable claim over Dokdo and the victims of wartime sex slavery," the South Korean Foreign Ministry said. (South Korea-Japan-Diplomatic Paper)

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ISLAMABAD -- Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif told the parliament on Tuesday that Pakistan will respond to a request for military assistance by Saudi Arabia after the parliament concludes debate on the crisis in Yemen.

Shariif's remarks came a day after Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said the kingdom has sought fighter jets, warships and ground troops from Pakistan as the Saudi-led Arab allies continued airstrikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen. (Pakistan-Saudi Arabia-Aid) Endi