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BY: Larry Jagan | Asia Sentinel
Although Burma's military rulers have released more than 7,000 prisoners in the last few days as part of their preparations for next year's planned polls, many critics believe it is really a political ploy to ease pressure on them at the UN General Assembly.
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BY: Lydia Polgreen and Souad Mekhennet | The New York Times
Ten months after the devastating attacks in Mumbai by Pakistan-based militants, the group behind the assault remains largely intact and determined to strike India again, according to current and former members of the group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and intelligence officials.
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BY: Nadia Abou Al Maqd | The National
Hamas has announced that it will accept an Egyptian proposal for ending its bitter power struggle with Fatah, renewing hopes for an end to political deadlock and intra-Palestinian violence and pave the way for presidential and parliamentary elections next year.
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BY: Anthony Shadid and Nada Bakri | The Washington Post
As elections set for January approach, that landscape looks much the same, save for one key difference. Bucking tremendous pressure from the country's clerical establishment and neighboring Iran, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his Dawa party, a longtime fixture of Shiite politics, have chosen to run on their own.
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BY: Colum Lynch | The Washington Post
.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday that Iran's construction of the Qom uranium-enrichment facility violates U.N. resolutions requiring it to halt all nuclear enrichment activities, adding that Tehran must prove to the world that it has no intention of developing nuclear weapons.
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BY: Adam Nossiter | The New York Times
Streets were deserted and shops were shut tight Tuesday in Conakry, Guinea, a day after government troops went on a brutal rampage at an opposition rally, shooting, stabbing, raping and assaulting dozens of men and women in a packed stadium.
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BY: Sarah Lyall | The New York Times
In the last two weeks, the prime minister has been compelled to publicly deny that he takes antidepressants, that he is on the verge of going blind and that President Obama is deliberately avoiding him.
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BY: Thomas Seibert | The National
Can a “w” be a threat to national unity? The Turkish government is preparing to submit to parliament a package of measures designed to end the Kurdish conflict, which has cost tens of thousands of lives, but nationalists have been up in arms since media reported that Ankara is planning to allow Kurds to use such letters as q, w and x in public – and maybe even reform the Turkish alphabet itself to embrace the Kurdish letters officially.
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BY: Jacob W. Kipp | Eurasia Daily Monitor
Litovkin described Zapad 2009 as an exercise to counter the threat faced by Russia and Belarus in their western strategic direction against "innovative armies employing the forms and means of non-contact warfare involving the latest forces and means." This unnamed opponent is clearly NATO.
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BY: Benjamin Bidder | Der Spiegel
It produces the most popular automatic rifles in the world but the company that makes the Kalashnikov, or AK-47, is in trouble. It has had to deal with a slump in arms exports and competition from the makers of copycat versions around the world. Now a shady businessman has filed bankruptcy proceedings against the company.
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BY: Taras Kuzio | Eurasia Daily Monitor
The Ukrainian media has started to debate who the United States might support in the upcoming January 17, 2010 presidential elections. This issue is closely related to the question of which "political technologists" the presidential candidates will employ: American or Russian.
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BY: Valentina Pop | EU Observer
Moldova's newly elected pro-Western government hopes to secure an aid package from the IMF and the EU in the coming weeks in order to bring the country back on the floating line, Prime Minister Vlad Filat told MEPs in Brussels on Tuesday (29 September).
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BY: Jason Miks | World Politics Review
The headline-grabbing promise on emissions is just the latest sign, according to veteran Japan commentator Karel van Wolferen, that the Democratic Party of Japan leader will offer a break with the foreign policy of the ousted Liberal Democratic Party, which held power virtually uninterrupted for more than 50 years.
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BY: Barbara Demick | Los Angeles Times
Apartments on the route are evacuated, businesses are forced to close early and transit lines are suspended as China prepares to celebrate its 60th anniversary. 'Are we having fun?' one critic asks.
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BY: Ben Arnoldy | The Christian Science Monitor
Along the disputed border near Ladakh, India has long neglected infrastructure to discourage a Chinese invasion. But the strategic landscape is shifting.
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BY: Jason Overdorf | Global Post
A top scientist's claim that India's 1998 nuclear test was a failure poses a big threat to Obama's nonproliferation plans.
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BY: Ginger Thompson | The New York Times
In another sign of improving relations between Cuba and the United States, a senior State Department official has talked with high-level Cuban officials in Havana about a variety of issues, including ways to improve cooperation on migration and the fight against drug trafficking.
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BY: Alex Renderos and Tracy Wilkinson | Los Angeles Times
Key backers of the coup that ousted President Zelaya have begun to temper their support for the de facto government. Some said they might even let Zelaya return to office under certain limitations.
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BY: Shaun Waterman | ISN Security Watch
The arrest last week of alleged terrorists in the US came as Congress began a review of some Patriot Act surveillance powers scheduled to expire this year; although it is still not clear how serious the situation is, the cases form an uncomfortable backdrop to efforts by Obama’s supporters to roll back Bush-era antiterror powers.
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BY: Tim Padgett and Andrew Downie | Time
Brazil is hardly an idle player in Latin America. In fact, its diplomatic corps (usually called Itamaraty, the name of the Foreign Ministry's Modernist building in Brasília) is widely considered one of the world's best, and it has played a key role in defusing South American crises like last year's chest-thumping row between Colombia and Venezuela.