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Xinhua world news summary at 1530 GMT, Dec. 22

Xinhua, December 22, 2015 Adjust font size:

At least 11 refugees were drowned and seven others rescued on Tuesday when their boat capsized off Turkey's Aegean coast, private Dogan news agency reported.

The boat was carrying foreign refugees when it sank off Turkey's Aegean Kusadasi Gulf of Kusadasi town in Aydin province, according to the report.(Turkey-Refugees)

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ISLAMABAD -- At least one man was killed and six others were injured when some unknown militants opened fire at a passenger van in Pakistan's southwest Loralai district on Tuesday, local media reported.

Urdu TV channel Dawn News reported that the van was passing by Dukki town of Loralai, a district located in the country's southwest Balochistan province, when it came under attack.(Pakistan-Attack)

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DAMASCUS -- Nine schoolgirls were killed and 15 others wounded on Tuesday, when a mortar shell fired by rebels slammed into a secondary school in Syria's eastern province of Deir al-Zour, state-run SANA news agency reported.

The mortar slammed the school in the al-Harabish neighborhood in that oil-rich province, SANA said, spelling no further details.(Syria-School Attack)

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KABUL -- About 34 Taliban militants have been killed and 10 others wounded as Afghan security forces carried out cleanup operations in different provinces within the last 24 hours, the country's Defense Ministry said Tuesday.

"The raids were conducted by Afghan army, police and intelligence agency personnel in Helmand, Logar, Kunar, Nangarhar and Kunduz provinces. The joint forces also seized weapons and defused several landmines," the ministry said in a statement.(Afghanistan-Taliban)

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TEHRAN -- Air pollution in the Iranian capital Tehran claims lives of up to 180 people every day, a senior municipal official was quoted by state IRNA news agency as saying.

Recent days have seen high level of air pollution in Tehran, and that has, according to reports and statistics, claimed the lives of 150 to 180 people each day, Mehdi Chamran, chairman of Tehran City Council, said in a meeting.(Iran-Air Pollution) Endi