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BY: Michael Moran | Global Post
The label “War on Terror” may be out of style as a description of American counterterrorism strategy, but Wednesday in Rome an Italian court served notice that some of its more controversial practices — including the abduction of alleged terrorists known as “extraordinary rendition” — would not be forgotten as quickly as some Americans might prefer.
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BY: Charles McDermid | Los Angeles Times
Diplomats meet privately with the Nobel Peace Prize laureate in Yangon, according to local media reports. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell also talks with top generals in the government.
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BY: Mark Landler and Alan Cowell | The New York Times
Winding up a Middle East tour, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton repeated on Wednesday that while the Obama administration rejects the legitimacy of Israeli settlement expansion, it nonetheless believes that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations should precede a permanent freeze on such construction.
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BY: Howard Schneider | The Washington Post
The Israeli navy said Wednesday that commandos had seized a container ship carrying a huge cache of weapons that originated in Iran and was ultimately destined for the militia of the Islamist Hezbollah movement.
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BY: Caryle Murphy | The National
A Saudi border guard was killed and 11 others injured on Tuesday when their patrol was attacked by armed infiltrators in a mountainous area of the Saudi-Yemeni border, the Saudi government said yesterday.
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BY: Kim Sengupta | The Independent
The British troops at Blue 25 had no chance to defend themselves, and a terrible price was paid. Four men lay dead, and seven others were injured, one of them to die later. Their attacker, an Afghan policeman, was also wounded, but managed to escape on a motorcycle under covering fire from his accomplices.
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BY: Robert F. Worth | The New York Times
Iran’s beleaguered opposition movement struggled to reassert itself on Wednesday, as tens of thousands of protesters braved police beatings and clouds of tear gas on the sidelines of a major, government-sponsored anti-American rally.
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BY: Des Carney | ISN Security Watch
While recent spate of violence and political unrest threatened to derail the nascent democracy in Somaliland, local initiatives managed to mitigate the crisis, but for now, the ‘non-state’ remains stranded in an international wilderness.
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BY: Carli Lourens and Brian Latham | Bloomberg News
New Reclamation Group Ltd. plans to form a venture with Zimbabwe to mine diamonds from a deposit that human rights groups have said has been the site of military atrocities, a copy of the agreement shows.
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BY: Rachel Donadio | The New York Times
In a landmark ruling, an Italian judge on Wednesday convicted a base chief for the Central Intelligence Agency and 22 other Americans, almost all C.I.A. operatives, of kidnapping a Muslim cleric from the streets of Milan in 2003.
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BY: Richard Tomkins | The Washington Times
The Estonians' numbers in the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) are few, with just 289 men and women in Afghanistan. Yet in proportion to the size of Estonia's National Defense Force, the Afghan deployment represents nearly 10 percent of the nation's full-time military.
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BY: Robert Marquand | The Christian Science Monitor
The European Union is tossing around names for who could be the 'George Washington of Europe,' with Belgian Prime Minister Herman van Rompuy a top name. The EU is expected to decide by mid-November.
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BY: Yigal Schleifer | Eurasianet
Autumn has been a busy -- if not dizzying -- period for Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. Turkey is attempting a drastic diplomatic make-over, one that would transform Ankara into a regional power broker.
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BY: Pavel Korduban | Eurasia Daily Monitor
Recent steps in the economy aimed to “buy” voters ahead of the January 17, 2010 presidential election, taken by all the branches of power without exception, have jeopardized the implementation of the IMF assistance program worth $16.4 billion. Ukraine has already received over $10 billion from the IMF, but it hardly qualifies for the next $3.8 billion tranche expected in November, as it has reneged on its promises to the IMF to increase domestic gas prices and abstain from hiking pensions and wages.
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BY: Jason Miks | World Politics Review
Those seeking political symbolism for Asia's faultlines need look no further than the Dalai Lama's press conference in Tokyo on Saturday -- complete with criticism of China, and delivered before he heads off for an extended stay in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.
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BY: Norimitsu Onishi | The New York Times
All boat people seeking asylum in Australia are first brought here to Christmas Island, just 220 miles south of Indonesia but nearly 1,000 miles from the Australian mainland, and most are now held at enormous cost within the center’s electrified, 13-foot-high razor-wire fences.
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BY: Sebastian Rotella | Los Angeles Times
The Pakistani government has lost control of rogue military and intelligence officers who aid Al Qaeda and its allies and play a double game with the West, a renowned French judge asserts in an upcoming book.
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The London Times
Thailand's ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has thanked Cambodia for appointing him as an economic adviser, despite the move likely to further damage relations between to the two countries.
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BY: Paul Tighe and Jay Shankar | Bloomberg News
Sri Lanka said its army chief left the U.S. without undergoing questioning about alleged human rights abuses during the civil war, after the government protested plans to interview him.
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BY: Tyler Bridges | McClatchy
A U.S.-mediated pact reached last week that aims to return deposed Honduran President Manuel Zelaya to office and end the country's destabilizing political crisis is in danger of unraveling as Honduras' Congress takes its time to consider the deal.