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BY: Ellesse Sorbonne | Diplomatic Courier
Thursday’s meeting at the UN Security Council marked the fifth time that all five permanent Security Council heads have convened at summit level since the UN’s birth in 1945. What’s more, the assembly marked the first ever Security Council chaired by an American President.
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BY: Walter Pincus and Karen DeYoung | The Washington Post
Amid growing international pressure in advance of highly anticipated talks this week, Iran displayed its defiance of Western threats against its nuclear program by announcing Sunday that it had test-fired at least two short-range missiles. Senior Obama administration officials, meanwhile, said they had the international support necessary to impose crippling sanctions if Tehran does not stop construction on a new uranium-enrichment plant and allow immediate inspections.
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BY: Richard Boudreaux | Los Angeles Times
Israeli riot police entered the grounds of Islam's third-holiest shrine Sunday and fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse rock-throwing Palestinians who had gathered to prevent Jews from praying at the contested site in Jerusalem's Old City.
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BY: Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers
Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, hand-delivered his request for as many as 45,000 more troops to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Germany Friday and made his case for why he needs more forces to fight an increasingly unpopular war.
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BY: Mark Landler | The New York Times
The Obama administration is scrambling to assemble a package of harsher economic sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program that could include a cutoff of investments to the country’s oil-and-gas industry and restrictions on many more Iranian banks than those currently blacklisted, senior administration officials said Sunday.
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BY: Katherine Butler | The Independent
Hans Blix, the former chief UN weapons inspector, last night warned Western leaders they risked strengthening the hand of hardliners in Iran if they rush to "corner" President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the crisis over the country 's nuclear programme.
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BY: Hannah Strange | The London Times
At the South America-Africa summit on Isla Margarita in Venezuela, the Libyan leader joined the host, President Chávez, in calling for an "anti-imperialist" front across Africa and Latin America.
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BY: Rachelle Kliger | The Media Line
A recent crackdown on a drug cell in Morocco, in which a former member of parliament was arrested for drug dealing, has highlighted corruption and the widespread use of drug money in the North African country.
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BY: David Francis | World Politics Review
Just days ahead of Sunday's general election that will decide the next German chancellor, there is a noticeable lack of interest among the public, the media, and even the candidates themselves,. The widespread indifference comes at a time when Germany nevertheless faces a number of difficult issues, including an unpopular war in Afghanistan and the country's tenuous economic recovery.
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BY: Yigal Schliefer | Eurasianet
Speculation is building in Turkey over whether Ankara will play a part in a revamped US missile-defense network, one designed mainly to contain Iran. Conjecture is being fueled by two recent developments: the Obama administration’s decision to scrap the construction of an anti-missile shield in Central Europe, and Turkey’s own announcement that it intends to purchase its first missile-defense system.
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BY: Clifford J. Levy | The New York Times
The relatively conciliatory statements by Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, present an opening to the administration that could turn out to yield little. Russia, a neighbor of Iran, is far more intertwined with it geopolitically than any other world power, and has more concerns about upsetting relations.
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Eurasia Daily Monitor
Kadyrov said that the security bodies in Ingushetia and Dagestan have not been operating effectively. He also said that rebels in the region are "given narcotics tablets," turned into zombies, after which they go "to blow themselves up," and that "the hand of the West" is behind all of this.
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BY: Alex Rodriguez | Los Angeles Times
Two suicide car bomb attacks Saturday killed at least 20 people and injured more than 150 in northwest Pakistan, sending an ominous signal that the death of Taliban leader Baitullah Mahsud during the summer will not curb the Islamic militants' agenda for violence in this nuclear-armed state.
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BY: Sunny Lee | The National
When the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, announced his “grand bargain” to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue during his trip to New York last week, it was met with a cold response from the United States that threatened to sour diplomatic ties between the long-time allies.
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BY: Philip Bowring | Asia Sentinel
Asia's economic headline news is good, but the Asian Development Bank's latest Economic Outlook has not shied away from the need for real change in the region if the recovery is to be sustained.
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BY: Bill Roggio | The Long War Journal
Ten new terror training camps have been opened inside Pakistan since the November 2008 terror assault in Mumbai, India, which was launched from Pakistani soil.
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BY: Bomi Lim | Bloomberg News
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will visit North Korea next month amid growing calls for Kim Jong Il’s regime to return to international talks aimed at dismantling its nuclear weapons programs.
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BY: Paul Tighe and Chris Dolmetsch | Bloomberg News
India and Pakistan failed to set a date for resuming a peace process stalled after last year’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai when their foreign ministers met for talks in New York.
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BY: Elisabeth Malkin | The New York Times
The de facto government of Honduras expelled four diplomats from the Organization of American States on Sunday and threatened to shut down the Brazilian Embassy, where the ousted president, Manuel Zelaya, has been holed up for a week.
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BY: William Booth | The Washington Post
If Cuba is searching for its New New Man, then Fuentes might be him. The Cuban government, in its most dramatic reform since Castro took over for his ailing older brother Fidel three years ago, is offering private farmers such as Fuentes the use of fallow state lands to grow crops -- for a profit.