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February 09, 2010
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February 09, 2010

Media Roundup

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  • Analysis: Iranian Plan Will Put Nation a Step Closer to Having Material for Bomb

    BY: Glenn Kessler | The Washington Post

    Iran's formal notification Monday to a United Nations nuclear watchdog that it will begin producing higher-grade enriched uranium marks a new and potentially dangerous turn in Tehran's confrontation with the West over its nuclear ambitions.

  • Preparing for a Nuclear Iran

    BY: Arash Aramesh | Diplomatic Courier

    After four years of nuclear diplomacy, the Iranian government has so far missed deadlines to respond while stalling the talks yet again. However, whether there is or isn’t a nuclear deal, the international community must prepare to face the eventuality of a nuclear Iran.

  • Pakistani Military Retakes Key Town in Tribal Belt From Taliban

    BY: Jane Perlez and Pir Zubair Shah | The New York Times

    The Pakistani military has retaken the key town of Damadola, in the Bajaur area of the tribal belt, where the army has been fighting Taliban militants for more than a year, military and local officials said Monday.

  • In Northern Iraq, a Vote Seems Likely to Split

    BY: Steven Lee Myers | The New York Times

    There was a hope, not long ago, that democracy would mean peace and stability for Nineveh, a place where cultures and armies have clashed since biblical times. Instead, democracy is hardening divisions — of people, of resources, of land — in ways that threaten the future of Iraq itself.

  • Bad to Worse in Iraq

    BY: Robert Dreyfuss | The Nation

    The election in Iraq is less than a month away -- that is, if indeed it is held as scheduled on March 7 -- and things are going from bad to worse.

  • Ayatollah: Iran's Military Will 'Punch' West

    BY: Eli Lake | The Washington Times

    Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in Tehran that his country would stun the Western world on Thursday, the 31st anniversary of Iran's Islamic revolution. Iran's defense minister announced on Monday that its forces had conducted successful tests on new armed unmanned aircraft and advanced air defenses.

  • In Southern Afghanistan, Even the Small Gains Get Noticed

    BY: Joshua Partlow | The Washington Post

    For the Fifth Stryker Brigade Combat Team, deployed around the southern city of Kandahar, the mission is to preserve freedom of movement on the highways through southern Afghanistan. By doing so, they hope to fan to life the economic and political embers smoldering in roadside villages around Kandahar and restore credibility to the local government.

  • Shabaab Calls for Jihad Against Kenya

    BY: Bill Gertz | The Long War Journal

    The declaration of jihad against Kenya came from Sheikh Hussein Abdi Gedi, the deputy leader of Shabaab in the strategic southern port city of Kismayo. During an interview on Al Andalus Radio, Shabaab's radio station, Gedi accused Kenya of arming and training Somali's disorganized military.

  • Bosnian Forces Conduct Massive Wahhabi Raid

    BY: Anes Alic | ISN Security Watch

    The real reason behind a recent large-scale operation to shut down a radical Wahhabi village in Bosnia has more to do with an ongoing terrorism investigation than official statements about ethnic intolerance and territorial integrity.

  • How Brussels Is Trying to Prevent a Collapse of the Euro

    BY: Armin Mahler, Christian Reiermann, Wolfgang Reuter and Hans-Jürgen Schlamp | Der Spiegel

    The problems facing Greece are just the beginning. The countries belonging to Europe's common currency zone are drifting further and further apart with national bankruptcies a distinct possibility. Brussels is faced with a number of choices, none of them good.

  • Turkish Army Surrenders Right to rule the Street

    BY: Thomas Seibert | The National

    The so-called Emasya Protocol, much criticised by the EU, had given the generals the right to intervene domestically without the permission of civilian authorities if they thought it necessary to do so. Now the protocol has been cancelled with the army’s agreement.

  • Russia In Stand-By Mode Over U.S. Missile Plans in Romania

    BY: Valentina Pop | EU Observer

    Moscow is "concerned" and expects "proper explanations" on US plans to deploy anti-ballistic missile defence systems in Romania, but it is still interested in contributing to a "common assessment" of threats with Europe and the US.

  • For Kremlin, an Election in Ukraine Cuts Two Ways

    BY: Clifford J. Levy | The New York Times

    The apparent victory of Russia’s preferred candidate in the Ukrainian presidential race may be a relief to Vladimir V. Putin, who has long sought to discredit his neighbor’s raucous democracy and its drift to the West.

  • Viktor Yanukovych Completes His Metamorphosis

    BY: David L. Stern | Global Post

    Viktor Yanukovych, the ursine eastern Ukrainian party boss who suffered a humiliating defeat five years ago, has triumphed in a presidential election on Sunday that was surprising not so much for its outcome as for its cleanliness.

  • Japanese Split on Exposing Secret Pacts With U.S.

    BY: Martin Fackler | The New York Times

    They were Tokyo’s worst-kept diplomatic secrets: clandestine cold war era agreements with Washington that obligated Japan to shoulder the costs of United States bases and allow nuclear-armed American ships to sail into Japanese ports.

  • China Says It Shut Down Online Academy for Hackers

    BY: Barbara Demick | Los Angeles Times

    Black Hawk Safety Net was shut down in November and its founders later arrested, state media report. The school took tuition from tens of thousands who wanted to learn 'successful attack tools.'

  • Destabilizing Pakistan

    BY: Pratap Chatterjee | Mother Jones

    Forty years ago, the White House ordered a drone attack in Cambodia. Could the same thing happen in Pakistan today?

  • Sri Lanka Opposition Leader Held for 'Plotting Coup'

    BY: Jeremy Page | The London Times

    The former Sri Lankan army chief hailed last year as a national hero for defeating the Tamil Tigers was in jail last night facing possible execution.

  • Internal and External Challenges Ahead for Honduras

    BY: Eliot Brockner | World Politics Review

    A significant amount of work lays ahead for Lobo's government, which is under pressure from many governments in the region -- as well as the Organization of American States -- to carry out a full-scale investigation into the events of last year, in order to make sure that a repeat scenario is avoided.

  • Costa Rica Election Win for Chinchilla Shows Women's Rise in Latin America

    BY: Sara Miller Llana | The Christian Science Monitor

    Laura Chinchilla won the Costa Rica election Sunday. She'll be the country's first woman president, echoing a trend across Latin America where women are being voted into high-level political office in record numbers.

  • Ukraine's Democratic Evolution, On Hold For Now

    BY: Anne Applebaum | The Washington Post

    Every revolution sparks a counterrevolution. The French revolution in 1789 was followed by Napoleon and the restoration of the monarchy. After the Russian revolution, the czar's forces regrouped and fought a bloody civil war.

  • Yanukovych Won. Get Over It.

    BY: Christian Caryl | Foreign Policy

    Ukraine has cast its vote for the guy who was on the wrong side of the barricades in the Orange Revolution five years ago. The end of civilization as we know it? Not likely.

  • Is the West Losing Georgia?

    BY: Michael Cecire | World Politics Review

    Since August 2008, when Russian tanks rolled into Georgian territory, Georgia has been let down by the very Western countries it considered to be its closest friends.

  • Can Greece Outrun the Lion of Default?

    BY: Kenneth Rogoff | The Japan Times

    Debate is swirling as to whether Greece -- which some view as Argentina revisited -- can avoid sovereign default.

  • Angola Errs in Ending Presidential Elections

    BY: Stephanie Hanson | Global Post

    Angola errs in ending presidential elections Africa's biggest oil producer should strengthen, not weaken, its democracy.

  • The Arab Community … The International Community

    BY: Bouthaina Shaaban | Asharq Alawsat

    Every time an Arab country faces a crisis of any kind, Western powers take immediate steps to hold a conference which ends up with ready made solutions, with the necessary funding for these solutions.

  • The Hamas Conundrum

    BY: Michael Herzog | Foreign Affairs

    Since winning elections in 2006, Hamas has demonstrated that it cannot be part of an Israeli-Palestinian peace process, nor part of a Palestinian body politic based on democracy and free elections. But can policymakers deny the group the ability to play the spoiler?

  • Facing Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb Threat

    BY: James Badcock | The Daily Star

    They know it in Paris, Rome and Madrid. There is a big security hole to the south of Europe, the existence of which is confirmed by ongoing hostage crises involving citizens from France, Italy and Spain.

  • Iran’s Two-Edged Bomb

    BY: Adam B. Lowther | The New York Times

    Believe it or not, there are some potential benefits to the United States should Iran build a bomb.

  • The World's Watchmaker

    BY: Roger Cohen | The New York Times

    China has America about where it wants it. You can make your own calculation of President Obama’s leverage over Beijing -- and it’s heading south.

  • India Supports a Toothless IPCC

    BY: BARUN MITRA | The Wall Street Journal

    Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed support for the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its leader, Rajendra Pachauri, at a local energy conference in New Delhi Friday. The move has surprised many observers, but it may prove to be politically astute.

  • Elephants Fight, Refugees Suffer

    BY: Recep Korkut | Today's Zaman

    The world in which we live, where millions of people are on the move, seems like it has been cursed with conflicts caused by identity battles and differences.

  • Bush Was Right, Says Obama

    BY: William McGurn | The Wall Street Journal

    This weekend, Americans were treated to something new: Barack Obama defending his war policies by suggesting they merely continue his predecessor's practices. The defense is illuminating, not least for its implicit recognition that George W. Bush has more credibility on fighting terrorists than does the sitting president.

  • Dead Terrorists Tell No Tales

    BY: MARC A. THIESSEN | Foreign Policy

    Is Barack Obama killing too many bad guys before the U.S. can interrogate them?