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BY: Tara Bahrampour | The Washington Post
For decades, hard-line members of Iran's cleric-led government controlled the judiciary, military, intelligence and state media. But reformists also had wide public support and room to push for more moderate social and political policies.
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BY: Richard A. Oppel, Jr. | The New York Times
Almost 4,000 United States Marines, backed by helicopter gunships, pushed into the volatile Helmand River valley in southwestern Afghanistan early Thursday morning to try to take back the region from Taliban fighters whose control of poppy harvests and opium smuggling in Helmand provides major financing for the Afghan insurgency.
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The London Times
Hundreds of Palestinian civilians were killed by high precision artillery, while others were shot at close range, the report said. It also described rocket fire attacks by Gaza's militant Hamas rulers against Israeli towns as war crimes.
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BY: Heba Saleh, Abeer Allam, and Simeon Kerr | Financial Times
Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook played an important role in the organisation of the protests in Iran following last month’s disputed presidential election. Like their Iranian peers, young Arab activists have discovered the ease with which such sites allow them to reach others and mount challenges to authority in myriad ways.
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BY: Michael Wahid Hanna | World Politics Review
The United States took an important step yesterday toward leaving Iraq by moving combat troops out of Iraqi population centers in anticipation of the June 30 deadline specified in the U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA).
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BY: Campbell Robertson | The New York Times
A day after Iraqis celebrated the formal withdrawal of American combat troops from towns and cities, leaders of some of the most high-profile insurgent and opposition groups had their say on Wednesday.
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The Economist
This year Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has already seen national elections in South Africa and Malawi, and presidential polls are still scheduled for Angola, Botswana, Congo-Brazzaville, Côte d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Mozambique and Namibia.
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BY: Alan Cowell and Stephen Castle | The New York Times
Iran risked diplomatic isolation from the European Union, as European officials discussed whether to withdraw the ambassadors of all 27 member nations in a dispute over the detention of the British Embassy’s Iranian personnel.
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BY: Elizabeth Nash | The Independent
He oversaw the modernisation of Spain and secured its entry into the EU; he ruled for 13 years before falling from view in a 1996 political scandal. But now Felipe Gonzalez, the charismatic former Socialist prime minister is once more stalking the land and being spoken of as a challenger to Tony Blair in the race to become the first "President of Europe".
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BY: Robert Tait | The Guardian
Turkey today announced plans to resume a controversial £1bn dam project in the face of environmental protests that it would displace thousands of people, destroy habitats and drown priceless archaeological treasures.
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BY: Elitsa Vucheva | EU Observer
In a surprise move, Croatian prime minister Ivo Sanader, whose government started accession negotiations with the EU in 2005 and who led the country into Nato earlier this year, presented his resignation on Wednesday (1 July).
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BY: Seth McLaughlin | The Washington Diplomat
When President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev meet July 6 to 8 in Moscow to discuss a new nuclear pact, Americans will get another glimpse at the third post-Soviet leader — a man who largely remains a mystery following his meteoric rise to power last year.
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BY: Nadia Popova | The Moscow Times
Rusnano, the state nanotechnology giant, hopes to press President Barack Obama for tax breaks for Russian technology as it wraps up plans to create a $1 billion venture fund with U.S. companies to invest in Russia.
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BY: Joshua Kucera | Eurasianet
The countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia experienced a decline in their democratic development in 2008, according to a report issued June 30 by the American watchdog group Freedom House.
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Eurasia Daily Monitor
The latest violence came just a few days after the Riyadus Salikhin Martyrs' Battalion claimed responsibility for the June 22 suicide car bomb attack on the motorcade of Ingushetia's president, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov.
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BY: Sara A. Carter | The Washington Times
Pakistan's top Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, is buying children as young as 7 to serve as suicide bombers in the growing spate of attacks against Pakistani, Afghan and U.S. targets, U.S. Defense Department and Pakistani officials say.
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BY: Claire Duffett | Global Post
Comedians attack NGO workers as gold chain-wearing, Mercedes-Benz-driving swindlers. Funny, maybe. But is it true?
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BY: Simon Montlake | The Christian Science Monitor
The prime minister, his ruling coalition under pressure, vows to end policies that favor ethnic Malays and to boost foreign investment.
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BY: Marc Lacey and Ginger Thompson | The New York Times
As the public standoff between Honduras and the rest of the world hardened, quiet negotiations got under way on Wednesday to lay the groundwork for a possible return of the nation’s ousted president, Manuel Zelaya.
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BY: Juan Forero | The Washington Post
The ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya could not have been better scripted for another Latin American leader who has taken center stage: Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. The populist firebrand has been Zelaya's most forceful advocate and could win international accolades if the Honduran eventually succeeds in regaining power.