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BY: David E. Sanger | The New York Times
With the White House’s reluctant embrace on Sunday of Hamid Karzai as the winner of Afghanistan’s suddenly moot presidential runoff, President Obama now faces a new complication: enabling a badly tarnished partner to regain enough legitimacy to help the United States find the way out of an eight-year-old war.
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BY: thomas Mucha | Global Post
According to the United Nations the number of hungry people this year reached 1.02 billion. That's one in six human beings. Moreover, that figure has been growing each year for more than a decade, while the ravages of the global economic crisis are making matters worse in nearly every corner of the world.
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BY: Simon Montlake | The Christian Science Monitor
Next year's elections push ruling generals to contain dissidents and quell insurgencies – without annoying China.
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BY: Howard Schneider | The Washington Post
Palestinian officials on Sunday criticized the United States for what one called "backpedaling" on demands that Israel stop settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, saying the Obama administration's change of approach on the issue damaged the likelihood of a peace agreement.
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BY: Ethan Bronner | The New York Times
The Israeli police said Sunday that they had arrested a 37-year-old American immigrant, a West Bank settler, and charged him in an array of killings and terrorist attacks over the last 12 years, including the murders of two Palestinians, the bombing of a leftist Israeli professor’s home and the maiming of a 15-year-old boy who belongs to a community of Jews who believe in Jesus.
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BY: Kristen Chick | The Christian Science Monitor
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad , a day after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that the West is 'not going to wait forever' for Iran to accept a UN-backed nuclear deal.
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BY: Tom Engelhardt | Mother Jones
"A good gambler cuts his losses." That no-nonsense piece of advice still seems reasonable to me, but it doesn't apply to American war policy. Our leaders evidently never saw a war to which the word "more" didn't apply. Hence the Afghan War, where impending disaster is just an invitation to fuel the flames of an already roaring fire.
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BY: Alan Boswell | World Politics Review
As the highly publicized rollout of the new U.S. policy on Sudan made clear, Sudan has become an unlikely foreign policy priority for the Obama administration. For this, the Sudanese can thank the Darfur advocacy movement, which effectively put the nation on the map for the American public over the past six years.
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BY: Mohamed Osman | Associated Press
The leader of southern Sudan called on his people to vote for secession in an upcoming referendum if they do not want to end up as second-class citizens, as voter registration began Sunday for elections across the country.
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BY: Simon Taylor | European Voice
Formal discussions about first EU president are still pending, but Schüssel and Balkenende emerge from EU summit with higher profiles.
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BY: Luke Harding | The Guardian
The foreign secretary, David Miliband, arrived in Russia today amid strong indications that the Kremlin was willing to improve relations with the UK for the first time since the murder of the former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko.
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BY: Richard Owen | The London Times
Gianfranco Fini, a former neofascist and now deputy leader of the ruling party, has decided to appeal directly to voters in the same month that Mr Berlusconi faces new trials for corruption.
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BY: Jacob W. Kipp | Eurasia Daily Monitor
Under the new financial conditions, Kokoshin now envisions the modernized TAKR’s as “strike cruisers” with super-structures of new materials, modern anti-ship missiles, and “Aegis-quality” anti-aircraft and missile defense systems as well as incorporating the latest Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) and electronic warfare capabilities.
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BY: Ben Judah | ISN Security Watch
In December 2008 the Russian opposition launched a new common front, 'Solidarity,' to combat accelerating authoritarianism. The group is now attempting to gather support from below and beyond Moscow as ripples of discontent disturb the political calm.
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BY: Choe Sang-Hun | The New York Times
North Korea has again pressed the United States for a decision about starting bilateral talks, with a diplomat warning Monday that the North was “ready to go our own way” with its nuclear weapons program.
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BY: Alex Rodriguez | Los Angeles Times
The discontent is not just from radicals, even college students and respected journalists question Washington's intentions in Pakistan. Some liken U.S. drone missile strikes to terrorism.
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BY: Fiezel Samath | The National
The Sri Lankan president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, flush from a stunning military victory over Tamil separatist rebels who had resisted government forces for nearly 30 years, wants Sri Lankan expatriates to keep their faith in the motherland and support its post-conflict development.
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Asia Sentinel
The confrontation between Indonesia's notoriously corrupt police and its beleaguered Corruption Eradication Commission has erupted into a major test for the reform credentials of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who may be risking his popularity and even his political agenda by refusing to take action.
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BY: Naveed Ahmad and Dera Ismail Khan | ISN Security Watch
As bomb blasts rock areas of Pakistan, sending locals fleeing for safety, the country's military says that its ready to push through its offensive in Waziristan to root out insurgents.
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BY: Jacqueline Charles | The Miami Herald
Senate President Kely Bastien, who is not allowed to cast a vote under Senate rules, said a letter will be sent to President Rene Preval notifying him of the Senate's 18-0 decision.