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BY: Shaikh Azizur Rahman | The National
A leading Indian nuclear scientist who contradicted offical claims last month when he said one of the nuclear devices India tested in 1998 had actually “fizzled”, urged officials this week to conduct a “series of thermonuclear bomb tests to protect the nation’s security” from China.
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BY: Mark Landler and Nazila Fathi | The New York Times
With thousands of demonstrators protesting outside that he had stolen Iran’s election, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stoutly defended his legitimacy here on Wednesday, declaring in a speech that the Iranian “people entrusted me once more with a large majority” in a ballot he described as “glorious and fully democratic.”
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BY: Howard Schneider | The Washington Post
President Obama's personal push to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks will face a tough early hurdle in simply getting the two sides to agree on a starting point for negotiations, according to Israeli and Palestinian analysts.
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BY: Hassan Barari | The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
In early September, three senior leaders of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood (MB) resigned from the organization's executive bureau after it voted to dissolve the MB political department -- one of the few remaining components of the organization controlled by moderates.
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BY: Raheem Salman | Los Angeles Times
Vast lakes have shriveled. River beds have run dry. The animals are sick, the birds have flown elsewhere and an ancient way of life is facing a new threat to its existence. The fabled marshes of southern Iraq are dying again -- only this time the forces of nature, not the hand of man, are to blame.
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BY: Eric Schmitt and Mark Mazetti | The New York Times
Senior Taliban leaders, showing a surprising level of sophistication and organization, are using their sanctuary in Pakistan to stoke a widening campaign of violence in northern and western Afghanistan, senior American military and intelligence officials say.
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BY: Aunohita Mojumdar | Eurasianet
When Afghan President Hamid Karzai appointed General Atta Mohammad Noor as governor of the northern province of Balkh in 2004, the move seemed motivated by a presidential desire to curb the influence of Abdul Rashid Dostum, then the most powerful warlord in Northern Afghanistan. Now, the situation in the North is reversed.
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BY: Bill Roggio | The Long War Journal
US military and intelligence officials are concerned that a proposed alternative plan to ramp up cross-border attacks in Pakistan and rapidly build the Afghan security forces in lieu of a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy may take hold and lead to a catastrophic failure in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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BY: Dana Moss and Max Mealey | The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
This week, in a striking symbol of improved U.S.-Libyan relations and Tripoli's reengagement with the international community, Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi is set to address the UN General Assembly.
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BY: Dan Bilefsky | The New York Times
The Bulgarian diplomat who defeated the Egyptian culture minister in a close vote on Tuesday night to become the first woman to lead Unesco is a 57-year-old mother with two grown children, an expert in arms control and the daughter of an influential family who came of age during the cold war.
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BY: Andrew Porter | The Telegraph
Gordon Brown has been snubbed repeatedly by Barack Obama during his trip to the United States, as the fall-out from the release of the Lockerbie bomber appeared to have left "the special relationship" at its lowest ebb for nearly 20 years.
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BY: Ellen Barry | The New York Times
European Union monitors are stepping up their patrols in Georgia ahead of the release of a much anticipated report on the origins of last year’s war in South Ossetia, in case the report’s conclusions reignite tensions around the breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
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BY: Jon Ward | The Washington Times
The White House claimed a key victory Wednesday in its effort to create momentum toward sanctions against Iran for its pursuit of nuclear weapons, saying that comments by Russian President
Dmitry Medvedev after a meeting with President Obama represented a shift toward favoring punitive action.
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BY: Emil Danielyan | Eurasia Daily Monitor
Yerevan's fence-mending agreements with Ankara, which are expected to be signed by October 14, have generated lively and bitter debates among Armenia's leading political groups. Although many of them have voiced misgivings about key parts of the deal, President Serzh Sargsyan should have no trouble in securing its mandatory ratification by the Armenian parliament.
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BY: Miriam Elder | Global Post
As the Arctic Sea remains off the coast of the Canary Islands, questions about its cargo deepen.
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BY: Lee Byong-Chul | Asia Sentinel
The Obama administration, after making what appeared to be overtures to North Korea, has run into predictable criticism from the right-wing establishment at home, which contends that United Nations-based sanctions against North Korea be placed at the center of the administration's North Korea policy.
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BY: Jeremy Martin | World Politics Review
Brazil celebrated Independence Day twice this year: once on Sept. 7, the anniversary of its independence from Portuguese rule, but also a week before, on Aug. 31, when President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva declared the country "free" from poverty's dominion, delivered by oil.
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BY: Sara Miller Llana | The Christian Science Monitor
Many countries in the region – most recently Mexico – have decriminalized small amounts of drugs for personal use. The moves have followed decisions by left-leaning governments to limit cooperation with the US in recent years.
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BY: Rory Carroll | The Guardian
Troops established a three-mile perimeter around the embassy and occupied neighbouring rooftops a day after using batons, water cannons and teargas to clear thousands of Zelaya supporters, leaving around 30 injured, 170 detained and streets deserted.
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BY: Peter A. Buxbaum | ISN Security Watch
A new think tank report details what happened when George W Bush decided to rely on headlines and blurbs to make US policy.