16,000 prisoners freed early
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Ministry reveals releases under government scheme to cut jail overcrowding
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Cuba releases four political prisoners in what diplomats call a positive move by acting leader, Raul Castro.
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Burma YANGON -- Burma's military government will release almost 4,000 prisoners whose detentions were ruled irrelevant or improper, state-run media reported yesterday. There were no indications the releases include political prisoners, particularly Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who is held under house arrest. The announcement said 3,937 prisoners had been wrongly charged by the National Intelligence Bureau, an organization ...
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The UN welcomes plans by the military government to free some 4,000 prisoners, including political detainees.
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More than 150 prisoners escaped from a state penitentiary in Cancun early Friday after hundreds of inmates overpowered guards with knives and bats. Police quickly recaptured about half the men.
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Burma&#39;s military dictators have freed a top dissident - second only to democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi - after 16 years in jail.
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RAMALLAH, West Bank  - Israel freed more than 250 Palestinian prisoners on Friday as part of a U.S.-backed deal to bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after Hamas Islamists took over the Gaza Strip last month.
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Russian special services on Monday freed   all 15 hostages who were being held by inmates at a Moscow   pre-trial detention center, Russia's prison service said.
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Extra armed police patrolled the streets of the Bangladeshi capital and traffic was light on Sunday, a working day, as shocked Bangladeshis woke up to the aftermath of grenade blasts that killed at least 16 people.
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Myanmar's military government said it was releasing 5,588 prisoners ahead of the 57th anniversary of independence on January 4, the fourth mass release in six weeks.
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BUENOS AIRES -- Rioting inmates at an Argentine prison freed all their hostages yesterday, ending a daylong siege that left eight people dead.
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Yangon - Three truckloads of inmates rolled out of Myanmar&#39;s main jail on Friday, a day after the military regime announced it was expanding its prisoner release programme to more than 9 000 people, a correspondent saw.
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The number of prisoners in England and Wales has risen to a record high of almost 81,000, the Prison Service said today.
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JERUSALEM Israel began releasing more than 130 Palestinian prisoners on Tuesday in a move aimed at easing overcrowding in its jails, security officials said.
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Burma announced Thursday that it would release more than 5,000 prisoners, and a senior official said a top dissident who was democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi&#39;s closest aide would also be freed before long.
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Israel initiated the release of 159 Palestinian convicts today as a gesture toward the new Palestinian administration that has formed sinced the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
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Israel began freeing 161 Palestinian  prisoners from its jails Tuesday in the largest mass release in  more than seven months, Israeli security sources said.