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BY: Alex Rodriguez | Los Angeles Times
A suicide bomber disguised as a Pakistani security officer attacked the lobby of a heavily guarded and fortified U.N. office Monday, killing five people and heightening fears of renewed violence in Pakistan's capital after a long lull in suicide attacks.
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BY: Philip P. Pan | The Washington Post
On maps, Crimea is Ukrainian territory, and this naval citadel on its southern coast is a Ukrainian city. But when court bailiffs tried to serve papers at a lighthouse here in August, they suddenly found themselves surrounded by armed troops from Russia's Black Sea Fleet who delivered them to police as if they were trespassing teenagers.
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BY: Chinua Akukwe | World Press
The summit brought together leaders from industrialized and emerging market economies that account for 80 percent of the global economic output. In the statement issued at the end of the meeting, the G-20 leaders formalized what is already known: that the G-20 will become a mainstay in international diplomacy and global economic leadership.
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BY: Mitchell Prothero | The National
This week’s visit to Syria by Saudi King Abdullah marks a potential reconciliation between the two rivals after years of bitter relations that have hurt efforts by Lebanon’s political elites to find consensus on a national unity government.
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BY: Sahar Issa | McClatchy Newspapers
Iraqi security officials beat and forcibly transferred 36 members of an Iranian dissident group to a remote southern prison despite an Iraqi judge's orders to free them, the judge and the group's leaders said Monday.
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BY: Peter Baker | The New York Times
A string of successful operations recently killing or capturing high-level figures from Al Qaeda, particularly in the tribal areas of Pakistan, has fueled the argument inside the Obama administration about the necessity of a substantial troop buildup in Afghanistan, officials said.
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BY: Bill Roggio | The Long War Journal
The attack was led by Taliban commander Dost Mohammed and was aided by al Qaeda's Shadow Army. Eight US troops, seven Afghan troops, and an unspecified number of enemy fighters were killed during the fighting, which ended after US air and artillery pounded the fighters in a counterattack.
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BY: Adam Nossiter | The New York Times
The attacks were part of a violent outburst on Sept. 28 in which soldiers shot and killed dozens of unarmed demonstrators at the main stadium here, where perhaps 50,000 had assembled.
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BY: Anes Alic | ISN Security Watch
Critics say there is indeed something fishy going on in the Adriatic, as a sudden and unexpected deal between Croatia and Slovenia hopes to solve an ongoing territorial dispute and unblock Croatia’s EU accession talks. The positive atmosphere is not likely to last.
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BY: Joann M. Weiner | Politics Daily
The OECD achieved in six months something the mighty United States had been unable to do in 70 years: It convinced Switzerland to share information with the U.S. on its secret bank accounts. Or did it?
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BY: Nick Squires | The Telegraph
Italy's embattled prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, could face a raft of new prosecutions when the country's highest court rules on Tuesday whether a law which shields him from criminal prosecution should be repealed.
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BY: Charles Bremner and Marie Tourres | The London Times
Travellers in Europe could face intrusive airport security measures in response to the latest ploy by al-Qaeda — suicide bombers who carry high explosives inside their bodies, it emerged today.
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BY: Simon Tisdall | The Guardian
Greek voters bucked a trend by not favouring the political right but, like other Europeans, they were driven by financial fears.
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BY: C.W. Blandy | UK Defence Academy
The bandit underground is still alive in Chechnya and active throughout the North Caucasus, gathering momentum as a result of an increasing cycle of violence.
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BY: Ben Judah | ISN Security Watch
A creeping authoritarianism has overcome Kyrgyzstan. Repressive laws on peaceful gatherings have strictly curbed freedom of assembly, legislation has stifled freedom of the press and the recent presidential elections were widely condemned as neither free nor fair.
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BY: Marianna Grigoryan | Eurasianet
With less than a week to go before Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian signs protocols to normalize Yerevan’s relations with longtime foe Turkey, attention is focusing on what an open Turkish border will mean for Armenian businesses. Many entrepreneurs worry that the prognosis is unsettling.
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BY: Pavel Baev | Eurasianet
President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had a rare face-to-face meeting on the evening of September 30, about which no official information was provided apart from stating that they discussed the “social-political situation in the country.”
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BY: Jane Perlez | The New York Times
Steps by the United States to vastly expand its aid to Pakistan, as well as the footprint of its embassy and private security contractors here, are aggravating an already volatile anti-American mood as Washington pushes for greater action by the government against the Taliban.
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BY: Choe Sang-Hun | The New York Times
The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, told the visiting prime minister of China that his government was ready to return to six-nation talks on its nuclear weapons program if it sees progress in bilateral talks with the United States, state-run media in North Korea and China said Tuesday.
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BY: Blaine Harden | The Washington Post
North Korea's infamous penal system, which for decades has silenced political dissent with slave labor camps, has evolved into a mechanism for extorting money from citizens trading in private markets, according to surveys of more than 1,600 North Korean refugees.