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BY: Mark Mazetti, Jane Perlez, Eric Schmitt, and Andrew W. Lehren | The New York Times
Americans fighting the war in Afghanistan have long harbored strong suspicions that Pakistan’s military spy service has guided the Afghan insurgency with a hidden hand, even as Pakistan receives more than $1 billion a year from Washington for its help combating the militants, according to a trove of secret military field reports made public Sunday.
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BY: John Pomfret | The Washington Post
The investments in Brazil reflect China's "going out" strategy, which seeks to guarantee natural resources for development purposes and to shield the country's state-owned enterprises from slower growth at home. Flush with more than $2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, China has directed its state firms to scour the globe for opportunities.
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BY: Robert M. Cutler | ISN Security Watch
Political friction over economic issues between the US and China has faded for the time being, but its sources remain and may reappear at any time.
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BY: Borzou Daragahi | Los Angeles Times
A U.N. tribunal is expected to blame Hezbollah for the 2005 killing of the Sunni politician, stirring fears of sectarian clashes. The Shiite militia's leader says the group was not involved.
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BY: Mohammed al Qadhi | The National
Army-backed tribes and Houthi rebels resumed fighting yesterday afternoon in north Yemen less than 24 hours after agreeing to a ceasefire, according to a tribal source.
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BY: David Wood | Politics Daily
This is the supposedly peaceful north of Afghanistan, largely bypassed as Gen. David Petraeus, the top allied commander, concentrates his forces against the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, 400 miles to the south. But there is a hot war going here nonetheless, and a modest contingent of U.S. forces and Afghan police are fully engaged.
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BY: Dion Nissenbaum | McClatchy Newspapers
When the U.S. and Afghan militaries launch their long-awaited Kandahar operation as early as this weekend, the key to its success may lie in some obscure mountain roads that connect the dusty heartland of the Taliban insurgency with a fertile valley nearby.
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BY: Michael Wilkerson | World Politics Review
The first and most obvious challenge Uganda faces is preventing another attack on its soil. More police, soldiers and private security guards have been deployed to guard public places, and precautionary measures have been taken surrounding the African Union summit Uganda began hosting this week.
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BY: Edward Cody | The Washington Post
Mauritanian commandos backed by the French military carried out the raid in the dead of night, guns blazing as they pounced on a small terrorist campsite in a desolate stretch of the Sahara Desert.
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BY: Leigh Phillips | EU Observer
Officials from the EU, IMF and European Central Bank arrive in Athens to investigate the implementation of the governing centre-left Pasok's austerity measures before a second, €9 billion tranche of eurozone-IMF bail-out agreed in May can be disbursed.
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Eurasianet
Criminal networks have long maintained a strong presence in southern Kyrgyzstan, given the region’s status as a trade hub. In the weeks since inter-ethnic violence in the region left hundreds dead, observers have been wondering about what role, if any, criminal groups played in stoking the violence?
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BY: Rama Lakshmi | The Washington Post
The government announced a policy in June that seeks to reduce the caseload by requiring higher standards of proof and by imposing fines on the petitioner if a project was held up by a public interest litigation that is later dismissed. In announcing the rules, India's law and justice minister, M. Veerappa Moily, said "bogus" cases must be exposed.
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BY: Richard S. Ehrlich | The Washington Times
Two corruption cases threaten to unseat Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, dissolve his political party and hobble the bickering coalition that administers Thailand's military-backed government.
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BY: John M. Glionna and Ju-Min Park | Los Angeles Times
North Korea bristles over exercises off the Korean peninsula that include the aircraft carrier George Washington. The exercises had been in the works since the March sinking of a South Korean ship.
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BY: Yajun Zhang and Victoria Ruan | The Wall Street Journal
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi rebutted remarks by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a recent forum on the competing claims for territory in the South China Sea, saying the U.S. shouldn't internationalize the disputes.
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BY: Rachel McCarthy | World Press
On April 9, Minister of Immigration Chris Evans announced changes to Australian immigration processing, whereby the processing of asylum applications for both Sri Lankan and Afghan asylum seekers was stopped temporarily.
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BY: Ben Arnoldy | The Christian Science Monitor
India has imposed a curfew on Kashmir and squashed nonviolent rallies. Now a cycle of retaliation between rock-throwing boys and gun-wielding security forces has set in.
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BY: Alexei Barrionuevo | The New York Times
With less than three months until the presidential election, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is trying to make enough of his magic dust stick to his chosen successor, Dilma Rousseff, to persuade voters to elect her as the first female president of Brazil, Latin America’s largest country.
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BY: Ian James | Associated Press
President Hugo Chavez threatened on Sunday to halt oil sales to the United States if Venezuela faces any military attack by its U.S.-allied neighbor Colombia.
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BY: Rory Carroll | The Guardian
Cuba has signalled that it will free all its political prisoners and let them stay on the island in a bold attempt to repair Havana's ties with the international community.