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BY: Justin McCurry | Global Post
The next few days will tell us which North Korea emerges from the fallout from the Cheonan tragedy, in which 46 sailors died: a chastened state ready to talk; or a more belligerent version that repeats recent threats to drown its enemies in a “sea of fire.”
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BY: Ethan Bronner | The New York Times
A Libyan ship seeking to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza seemed to have shifted course late Tuesday, with the intention of docking at an Egyptian port after Israel warned it and Egypt gave it permission to land there instead, apparently defusing a potential confrontation at sea, Egyptian and Israeli officials said.
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BY: Timothy Williams and Tim Arango | The New York Times
Gen. Ray Odierno, the commander of United States forces in Iraq, said Tuesday that Iranian-backed Shiite militias might increase attacks on American military bases this summer as thousands of American soldiers begin leaving Iraq.
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BY: Paul Rogers | Open Democracy
The ability of Iran’s military to learn from experience and become adept in irregular warfare echoes that of insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also presents the US with hard choices.
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BY: James M. Dorsey | World Politics Review
Tension between Iran and the United Arab Emirates is rising after the UAE became the first Gulf state to publicly signal endorsement of military force to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power, should peaceful efforts to resolve the standoff over Tehran's nuclear program fail.
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BY: Kim Sengupta | The Independent
Yesterday's murderous assault on the three men of the Royal Gurkha Rifles regiment at the Nahr-e-Saraj district of Helmand Province sent shockwaves through the military. It was the second such attack by a trusted Afghan soldier in under a year.
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BY: Sudarsan Raghavan | The Washington Post
Police have made several arrests in connection with the twin bombings Sunday that killed 76 people watching the World Cup final, Ugandan officials said Tuesday. Investigators also unearthed an unexploded suicide vest in a disco, suggesting that the Somali militants believed to be responsible for Sunday's deadly attacks had planned to bomb a third venue.
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BY: Benjamin Birnbaum | The Washington Times
The U.S. special envoy to Sudan spoke Tuesday about the challenges facing the war-torn country as it prepares for a referendum that likely will result in the secession of South Sudan from the Arab-dominated north.
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BY: John F. Burns | The New York Times
The confrontation was a throwback to the violence that erupted regularly during the Orange Day parades in the years before the 1998 Good Friday agreement, which set a blueprint for peaceful settlement of the enmities between the mainly Protestant unionists, who seek to keep the province a permanent part of Britain, and the mainly Catholic republicans, who want a united Ireland.
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BY: Edward Cody | The Washington Post
The French Parliament's lower house passed sweeping but constitutionally vulnerable legislation Tuesday that would bar women from wearing full-face Islamic veils in public.
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BY: Benjamin Bidder | Der Spiegel
Romania's president wants to increase his country's population and is using an odd means to do so. The country is generously bestowing hundreds of thousands of Romanian passports on impoverished Moldovans. They are gratefully accepting the offer from the EU member state and are streaming into Western Europe to work as cheap laborers.
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BY: Matej Hruska | EU Observer
The newly-minted Slovak Prime Minister, Iveta Radicova, left the EU capital without agreeing to sign-up to the eurozone bail-out fund or a separate loan for Greece.
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BY: Thomas Seibert | The National
Having become a major destination for dissidents fleeing the regime in Iran, Turkey has been warned by a top human rights court in Europe not to send the refugees back to their country. But Ankara is determined to keep the issue from turning into a problem for recently improved ties with Tehran, refugee activists and observers say.
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BY: David Marples | Eurasia Daily Monitor
Belarus, Russia, and Kazakhstan agreed to form a Customs Union that came into effect immediately.Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan may join at some point in the future. The Union between Russia and Kazakhstan was formalized on July 1, but Belarus delayed signing the documents.
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BY: Nino Pasturia | Eurasianet
An effort to remove Georgia’s North-South gas pipeline from a list of strategic state-owned properties is stirring controversy. Officials in Tbilisi maintain that full privatization of the pipeline is not an option, but some economic analysts contend that even the projected sale of a minority stake in the route could threaten Georgia’s energy security.
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BY: Shada Islam | Asia Sentinel
The continuing drive for European integration is proof that building stronger ties between nations is vital for regional and global peace and security. However, as they search for closer intra-regional links, Asia and Europe must also engage more actively with each other – or run the risk of drifting apart.
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BY: Ben Arnoldy | The Christian Science Monitor
Street violence gripping Kashmir is becoming known as the Kashmir intifada, in a nod to the earlier uprisings of Palestinian stone-throwing youths against Israeli forces.
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BY: Martin Arostegui | The Washington Times
The capture of a key member of the Islamic militant group Hezbollah in Paraguay last month and intensified leftist activity in the Triborder zone of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina highlight renewed threats in a region long considered a hub for terrorists.
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BY: Ioan Grillo | Global Post
If Dante had ever been to Juarez he would have placed it squarely in the seventh circle of hell, the one housing "violence" and "ringed by a river of boiling blood."
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BY: Peter A. Buxbaum | ISN Security Watch
The US needs to adjust its defense capabilities to 21st century, population centric conflicts, according to a new think tank report.