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BY: Jeffrey Fleishman and Rahmin Mostaghim | Los Angeles Times
Saying Iran appeared to be moving away from confrontation with the West, the head of the United Nations nuclear enforcement agency announced Sunday that Tehran had agreed to a date this month for international inspectors to visit what until recently had been a covert underground uranium-enrichment plant.
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BY: John Pomfret | The Washington Post
In an attempt to gain favor with China, the United States pressured Tibetan representatives to postpone a meeting between the Dalai Lama and President Obama until after Obama's summit with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, scheduled for next month, according to diplomats, government officials and other sources familiar with the talks.
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BY: Suha Philip Ma'ayeh | The National
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, is scheduled to hold talks tonight with Omar Suleiman, the Egyptian intelligence chief, that would focus on the latest reconciliation efforts led by Cairo to end the bitter struggle between Hamas and Fatah, Mr Abbas’s party.
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BY: Ranj Alaaldin | The Guardian
After electing a new prime minister last month, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Iraq's Kurds are preparing themselves for a new era of politics. The success of the opposition party, Change, and its penetration of the two-party dominance of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party means that accountability could be arriving in Iraqi Kurdistan.
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BY: Hannah Allam | McClatchy Newspapers
That's meant overcoming bitter feelings and suspicions — on both sides. Iraqis haven't forgotten the devastating air strikes, the open-ended detentions or the tens of thousands of civilian casualties. And U.S. forces remember the sniper fire, roadside bombs and rocket attacks that have killed at least 3,745 service members.
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BY: Sabrina Tavenise and Sangar Rahimi | The New York Times
Insurgents attacked a pair of remote American military bases in Afghanistan over the weekend in a deadly battle that underscored the vulnerability of the kind of isolated bases that the top American commander there wants to scale back.
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BY: Russell Sticklor | Diplomatic Courier
There is a growing consensus in Washington that after eight years Afghans need to be doing more. A functional Afghan security force would also pave the way for a potential drawdown of U.S. troops.
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BY: Walter Shapiro | Politics Daily
For three hours Wednesday, Barack Obama and his national security team looked bleakly in the Afghan abyss and debated whether to send as many as 40,000 additional troops to a land that was once synonymous with obscurity.
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BY: Mary Beth Sheridan | The Washington Post
The president of war-torn Somalia said Friday that he urgently needs help to beat back an insurgency linked to al-Qaeda, adding that he has received only a fraction of the $200 million pledged at a U.N.-sponsored donors conference last spring to support his fragile government's security forces.
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BY: Nicolas Brulliard | Global Post
Six months after the president of this impoverished island nation was forced to resign, Madagascar continues to struggle with political strife and economic uncertainty.
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BY: Rachel Donadio and Anthee Carassava | The New York Times
Socialists won national elections in Greece on Sunday, trouncing a center-right government crippled by corruption scandals and a growing economic crisis.
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BY: Carsten Volkery | Der Spiegel
For months, Europe had been holding its breath as it looked toward Ireland's Lisbon Treaty referendum on Friday. On Saturday, the result became clear. The country has approved the treaty and cleared the way for European reform.
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BY: Anna Dunin | ISN Security Watch
Violent clashes between anti-Islamic demonstrators and groups of Muslim counter-protesters in English cities in recent weeks indicate that violent right extremism is on the rise in the UK.
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Eurasia Daily Monitor
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has issued a new report highlighting the deteriorating human rights and security situation in the North Caucasus.
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BY: Neeta Lal | World Politics Review
The recent U.S.-sponsored United Nations Security Council resolution calling on all nations to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) has not been well-received in India.
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BY: David Pierson | Los Angeles Times
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang on Sunday, kicking off a three-day visit that could indicate whether reclusive North Korea will return to the negotiating table over its nuclear weapons program.
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BY: Salman Masood | The National
Pakistan army troops are ready and waiting to launch a full ground offensive into South Waziristan, the restive tribal region that is a stronghold of the Taliban, according to military and intelligence officials.
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BY: Willy Lam | Asia Sentinel
As the Chinese sayings go, a sky cannot hold two suns, nor can a mountain contain two tigers. Throughout last week's lavish celebrations of the PRC's 60th birthday, however, President Hu Jintao was forced to share the limelight with his predecessor, 83-year-old Jiang Zemin, who does not have even a single official position.
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BY: Marc Lacey | The New York Times
Haiti is used to well-meaning foreigners, most of them relief workers, peacekeepers and missionaries. But this was a new group: profit-minded people assessing Haiti based on its bottom line — and in the midst of an economic crisis, no less.
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BY: Sara Miller Llana | The Christian Science Monitor
This year's Day of the Soldier celebrations in Honduras got a mixed response. The military is now seen as tarnished by its role in the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya.