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BY: Andrew E. Kramer | The New York Times
With an ambitious new pipeline planned to run along the bed of the Baltic Sea, the Russian natural gas giant Gazprom is driving a political wedge between Eastern and Western Europe.
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BY: Eli Lake | The Washington Times
Israel is seriously considering restricting travel to Europe by its senior officials and military officers, fearing they might be arrested in the wake of a disputed U.N. report that accuses the Jewish state of targeting civilians in its Gaza war earlier this year.
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BY: Jeffrey Fleishman | Los Angeles Times
Egypt President Hosni Mubarak and Saudi Arabia King Abdullah, both in their 80s, have long played leading Mideast roles. Some worry that successors will complicate relationships.
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BY: Mitchell Prothero | The National
The meeting between the prime minister-designate, Saad Hariri, and the leader of the opposition’s Christian bloc, Michel Aoun, lasted more than two hours, but failed to resolve a disagreement over control of two key ministries despite optimism after last week’s successful summit between Syria and Saudi Arabia in Damascus.
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BY: David Schenker | The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
In recent decades, the Egyptian professional boycott against Israel—led by Islamist-controlled syndicates—has been an effective tool in preventing a normalization of bilateral relations between the states. While the government of Egypt has made little effort to reverse the trend, it has not seemingly endorsed the boycott—until recently.
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BY: Timothy Williams | The New York Times
The semiautonomous Kurdish region has reopened a rift with the central government after announcing that it had halted all petroleum exports from Kurdistan until Baghdad pays the international companies that are pumping oil in the region.
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BY: Huma Yusuf | The Christian Science Monitor
At least 25 people were killed and dozens wounded in a triple bombing in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, on Sunday. The bombings occurred during a reconciliation meeting, sparking fears of a resurgence of violence in an area that was the epicenter of the insurgency until local tribal leaders allied with the US to drive out insurgents in late 2007.
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BY: Sahar Issa | McClatchy Newspapers
Iraqi security forces seized a top aide to the most wanted man in Iraq, capturing him Sunday in a helicopter raid in Diyala province, an Iraqi security official who participated in the raid said Monday.
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BY: Ann Scott Tyson | The Washington Post
President Obama announced in March that he would be sending 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. But in an unannounced move, the White House has also authorized -- and the Pentagon is deploying -- at least 13,000 troops beyond that number, according to defense officials.
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The Economist
UN officials must rue the day they tried to force Peter Galbraith, number two at the UN mission in Kabul, to go quietly. Mr Galbraith, a former American diplomat, has been anything but quiet since the UN tried to gloss over the manner of his exit: he was sacked after a big row with his boss, Kai Eide, about how to deal with the massive fraud in August’s election.
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BY: Jonathan Clayton | The London Times
While the rest of the world recoiled in horror at recent events in Guinea, where at least 150 pro-democracy supporters were killed and dozens of women publicly raped by government soldiers, China has sensed an opportunity to steal another march on Western competitors in Africa.
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BY: Adam Welz | Mother Jones
Mozambique has survived colonialism and civil war. But can it survive the ethanol industry?
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BY: Yigal Schliefer | World Politics Review
Yesterday's signing of protocols by Turkey and Armenia that pave the way for restoring relations between the two countries was, without a doubt, a historic moment. But it's still too early to break out the champagne.
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BY: Risto Krajakov | World Press
A year and half after the Macedonian lustration law was passed, and 18 years since the beginning of transition, lustration has finally commenced.
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BY: Vladimir Socor | Eurasia Daily Monitor
Tiraspol is in a position to argue irrefutably that negotiations can only resume after Moldova resolves its internal crisis and elects a head of state. Possible failure of the presidential election would trigger new parliamentary elections in Moldova, which would in turn deepen and prolong the negotiating freeze on the Transnistria conflict even further.
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BY: Choe Sang-Hun | The New York Times
North Korea agreed to hold talks with South Korea later this week, officials in Seoul said Tuesday, even as the North was reportedly preparing to test more missiles following a barrage of five short-range missiles that it launched on Monday.
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Asia Sentinel
Malaysia's Barisan Nasional coasted to a convincing by-election win Sunday in a state assembly constituency about 60 km south of Kuala Lumpur, dealing a blow to the hopes of the opposition Pakatan Rakyat, which had won seven of eight previous by-elections since national elections in March of 2008.
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BY: Sumit Sharma | Bloomberg News
India’s ruling Congress Party faces its first electoral test today since victory at national polls in May, with voters in three states delivering their verdict on rising food prices and job security for indigenous groups.
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BY: Babak Farrahi | Diplomatic Courier
Brazil is gaining greater international recognition. The South American nation has secured a position in the G20, frequent participation in G8 summits, and—most recently—the 2016 Olympics. Many observers contribute Brazil’s current ascent to its economic success under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
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BY: Rory Carroll | The Guardian
Critics say the president has become authoritarian and is using courts to neutralise foes. "Given the way Chávez and his supporters have undermined the independence of the judiciary it is difficult to have confidence in the fairness of the trials," said Daniel Wilkinson, of Human Rights Watch.