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BY: Loretta Solon Greene | Diplomatic Courier
In an age of rampant Chinese consumerism and skyrocketing levels of manufacturing and trade, is China really communist?
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BY: Mark Landler and Steven Erlanger | The New York Times
As the United States and Iran prepared for critical talks over Tehran’s nuclear program, the Iranian foreign minister arrived quietly in Washington on Wednesday to visit the unofficial embassy here, the first visit to the capital by an Iranian of that rank in a decade.
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BY: C. M. Sennott | Global Post
Al Qaeda is very much on the run and wounded, albeit not yet dead. Its decline has come as Muslims around the world and the governments that represent them increasingly see the movement for what it is, a cult of hatred and death that will just as easily target a Muslim as an American.
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BY: Richard Boudreaux | Los Angeles Times
They are to exchange 20 female Palestinian prisoners for a recent videotape of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier seized in 2006 near Gaza. Any accord on his release would involve a much larger swap.
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BY: Steven Lee Myers | The New York Times
Iraqi politics has a new catchphrase, the “yes, we can” of the country’s coming parliamentary elections. It is “national unity,” and while skepticism abounds, it could well signal the decline of the religious and sectarian parties that have fractured Iraq since 2003.
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BY: John Feffer | Mother Jones
The painful truth is that NATO may be suffering from a terminal illness. Its current mission in Afghanistan, the alliance's most significant and far-flung muscle-flexing to date, might be its last. Afghanistan has been the graveyard of many an imperial power from the ancient Macedonians to the Soviets. It now seems to be eyeing its next victim.
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BY: Mark Magnier | Los Angeles Times
Though some welcome the presence of American and NATO troops, they say the war can not be won without a change in strategy. Among their suggestions: Negotiate with the Taliban.
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BY: Michael Slackman | The New York Times
As the West raises the pressure on Iran over its nuclear program, Arab governments, especially the small, oil-rich nations in the Persian Gulf, are growing increasingly anxious. But they are concerned not only with the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran but also with the more immediate threat that Iran will destabilize the region if the West presses too hard, according to diplomats, regional analysts and former government officials.
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BY: David Wood | Politics Daily
All of a sudden, strengthening missile defenses against Iran doesn't seem like such a bad idea, after all.
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BY: Stephen Castle | The New York Times
In Bosnia and Herzegovina - scene of Europe's bloodiest recent war, and an alternately wild, entrancing, and deeply divided place - the need for sharper, more focused European foreign policy could hardly be clearer.
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BY: Saban Kardas | Eurasia Daily Monitor
International diplomatic pressure on Turkey and Armenia to boost their efforts toward the normalization of their bilateral relations has continued on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.
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BY: Valentina Pop | EU Observer
Washington continues to support the EU-backed Nabucco gas pipeline, but this project is "only a piece of the puzzle" when it comes to reducing Europe's reliance on Russian gas, US special envoy for Eurasian energy Richard Morningstar has said.
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BY: Charles Bremner | The London Times
The plan to put Paris and Berlin back at the heart of the stalled European Union covers defence, immigration, a new industrial policy and a drive to loosen what the pair see as Britain’s grip on the European Commission.
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BY: Marco Evers | Der Spiegel
Europeans are spellbound as they look to Dublin in the run-up to a second referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon and the future of the European Union on Friday. Many believe a "yes" vote will come, but the "no" camp is still formidable and many voters remain undecided.
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BY: Philip P. Pan | The Washington Post
In a report released Wednesday that could redefine public views of the five-day war, the European mission also found that Russia's invasion of Georgia after the attack was illegal and unjustified and that Russian-backed Ossetian militias conducted ethnic cleansing of Georgian villages.
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BY: Luke Hunt | World Politics Review
The killing of Southeast Asia's most wanted terrorist came as neighborly relations were sliding rapidly into a political abyss amid declarations of a "cultural war." Opportunists on the fringe were even calling for the real thing as the foreign ministers from both countries tried to mend a few broken fences torn apart over the historic origins of a traditional dance.
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BY: Feizal Samath | The National
With Sri Lanka heading for a prolonged bout of elections in the next six to eight months, a new political dynasty is in the making with more members of President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s extended family taking to politics.
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BY: Jo Baker | Asia Sentinel
Last month Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari observed the country's National Minority Day by calling minority groups "a sacred trust for Pakistan" and lamenting the 'extremist elements' responsible for their insecurity in the country. But his words fell flat for Pakistan's Ahmadis, for whom a fresh surge of hostile incidents, some linked to the state itself, is capping decades of persecution.
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BY: Matthew Hulbert | ISN Security Watch
Pakistan's inability to make substantive gains against the Taliban illustrates not only military recalcitrance but political impotence. Without a fundamental realignment of strategic priorities reinforced by targeted western aid, this lynchpin nuclear state will remain an incubator for terrorism.
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BY: Oliver Harvey | ISN Security Watch
Relations between Colombia and Venezuela have often been corrosive, but mutual distrust has recently developed into a military and economic crisis that threatens stability across South America.