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BY: Ravi Somayia | Newsweek
Al-Shabab, a militant Islamist group from Somalia, claimed its first act of terrorism on foreign soil Sunday, killing scores of people in a spate of bombings across the Ugandan capital, Kampala. But who is this group? And does it have influence in the U.S.?
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BY: Yaroslav Trofimov | The Wall Street Journal
The U.S. has poured more than $100 million into upgrading the Kajaki hydropower plant, the biggest source of electricity in south Afghanistan in an effort to woo local sympathies away from the Taliban insurgency. Yet, one of the biggest beneficiaries of this American-taxpayer-financed project are the Taliban themselves.
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BY: Anuj Chopra | The National
The killing of a Maoist leader and a key proponent of dialogue with the government has greatly diminished hopes of a truce with the rebels, a government negotiator said.
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BY: Ethan Bronner | The New York Times
An Israeli military investigation into its naval takeover of a Gaza-bound flotilla six weeks ago found that it was plagued by errors of planning, intelligence and coordination but that the killings of nine Turks on board were justified, according to an official summary of the findings released Monday.
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BY: Benjamin Birnbaum | The Washington Times
A senior figure in Israel's Labor Party said Monday evening that his party would leave Benjamin Netanyahu's government in a matter of months if there is not serious progress toward a final-status agreement with the Palestinians.
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BY: Andrew J. Tabler | Foreign Policy
Hezbollah's new "Tourist Landmark of the Resistance," is designed to celebrate the party's long war against Israel. As it pulls in the masses, Mleeta also provides another sign that Israeli deterrence in Lebanon is disintegrating.
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BY: Adam Gonn | The Media Line
With Iran just across the waters, Sunni states in the southern Gulf are set to increase their defense expenditure drastically.
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BY: Tim Arango | The New York Times
Iraq’s Parliament has met once, for 18 minutes on June 14, since the close outcome of national elections more than four months ago created a political stalemate. On Monday — another day of staggering heat here — parliamentary leaders delayed a session scheduled for this week, raising questions about whether their inaction is now breaking the law.
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BY: Mark Landler | The New York Times
The deadly bombings in Uganda during the World Cup final have deepened worries among American authorities about another once localized Islamic group that is spreading its terrorism across borders, using a playbook written by Al Qaeda.
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BY: Colum Lynch and Rebecca Hamilton | The Washington Post
The International Criminal Court's judges on Monday charged Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir with orchestrating a bloody campaign of genocide against Darfur's three main ethnic groups, the first time the Hague-based court has accused a sitting head of state of committing the most egregious international crime.
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BY: Sarah A. Topol | The Christian Science Monitor
Libya, a one-time global pariah whose leader's son is sponsoring an aid boat to Gaza this week, has seen dramatic economic progress since the lifting of sanctions for funding terrorism, nuclear proliferation. Is this a model for Iran and North Korea?
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BY: Leigh Phillips | EU Observer
British National Party leader Nick Griffin may regularly pretend he is taking up the mantle of Winston Churchill, but one has to wonder whether the wartime prime minister would really approve of the upcoming meeting of the BNP and other EU far-right parties in Tokyo organised with Nippon Issuikai, a Japanese extreme right group that denies Empire of Japan atrocities.
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BY: Christian Reiermann | Der Spiegel
ring a lasting burden on taxpayers, the German government is preparing a set of insolvency rules for countries in the euro zone. It would require private investors to bear some of the financial burden and force the affected countries to give up some sovereignty. The plan is guaranteed to meet with resistance.
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BY: Gregory Feifer | Geopolitical Monitor
Dismissing the story as an indication Moscow is ineffectually still fighting the Cold War misses the big picture. Russia is skillfully advancing its interests in the West - through business.
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BY: Dierdre Tynan | Eurasianet
For more than six years, the Pentagon paid fees to the Turkmen government for the use of the Central Asian nation’s airports. However, officials in Washington either won’t or can’t say just how much was paid to Ashgabat from 2002-2008. All that they will say is that such payments made to Turkmenistan were inadvertent.
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BY: Shihoko Goto | World Politics Review
The biggest surprise in yesterday's voting was the strong showing of the start-up Your Party, indicating that while much of the Japanese electorate is yearning for change and strong leadership, their faith in the two major political parties is fast dwindling.
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BY: Choe Sang-Hun | The New York Times
North Korea abruptly postponed a meeting with the American-led United Nations Command scheduled to take place on Tuesday to discuss the March sinking of a South Korean warship.
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BY: William Booth | The Washington Post
Fidel Castro returned to Cuban television Monday night, his first major appearance in years, as the aging, ailing revolutionary leader held forth on the dangers of possible nuclear confrontations in Iran and the Korean Peninsula.
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BY: Ken Ellingwood | Los Angeles Times
A shift from military to police control is part of a broadened strategy aimed at curbing violence that has killed more than 5,000 people in Ciudad Juarez since 2008. So far, the results are mixed.
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BY: Daniel Tencer | The Raw Story
Opposition leaders in Costa Rica are up in arms over an agreement between the country and the United States that reportedly allows 46 US warships and 7,000 US Marines to enter the country as part of an anti-drug effort.