It is imperative that the world's people throw their weight against these "solutions" and usher in a new era of world order, one of the People's World Order; with the solution lying in local governance and local economies, so that the people have greater roles in determining the future and structure of their own political-economy, and thus, their own society. With this alternative of localized political economies, in conjunction with an unprecedented global population and international democratization of communication through the internet, we have the means and possibility before us to forge the most diverse manifestation of cultures and societies that humanity has ever known.

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In Oslo last week, President Barack Obama ironically used his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize to deliver a lengthy defense of the "just war" theory and dismiss the idea that nonviolence is capable of addressing the world's most pressing problems. After quoting Martin Luther King Jr. and giving his respects to Gandhi - two figures that Obama has repeatedly called personal heroes -  the new peace laureate argued that he "cannot be guided by their examples alone" in his role as a head of state.

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In recent days we have all witnessed two vomitous eruptions of moral nullity that would tax the powers of a Voltaire or a Vidal to do them proper justice; they quite o'er-crow the meager gifts of a hack like me. But I will sketch a few observations here nonetheless, if only to add one more small voice to those few who bear witness to the evils perpetrated by our unaccountable leaders. We speak of course of Barack Obama's Nobel speech and Tony Blair's recent comments on the Iraq War.  Let's take the lesser figure first.

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We are reproducing 02 media reports below on the rampage shooting by a US army major at Fort Hood, US military base, who happens to be a Muslim of Palestinian origin.

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In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning - along with China, Russia, Japan and France - to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.

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The US under Obama is pushing for what they call "A Dual Track Strategy for Afghanistan". In arguing for their "dual track strategy" the US administration says, "To maintain support for US efforts in Afghanistan, progressives (?) must debunk the prevailing myths about Afghanistan policy: first, that foreign powers cannot succeed militarily in Afghanistan; and second, that a policy focused solely on providing development aid is a viable strategy." So, the argument is plain. Let's combine both, military offensives with 'development'. Or rather "development and diplomacy". This is how it is worded. "To succeed in Afghanistan, the United States must undertake a dual track strategy that focuses on restoring security while using diplomacy and development aid to create basic stability."

To internalize human power and destiny is to realize the gift of a human mind, which has the ability to engage in thought beyond the material, such as food and shelter, and venture into the realm of the conceptual. Each individual possesses - within themselves - the ability to think critically about themselves and their own life; now is the time to utilize this ability with the aim of internalizing the concepts and questions of human power and destiny: Why are we here? Where are we going? Where should we be going? How do we get there? The supposed answers to these questions are offered to us by a tiny global elite who fear the repercussions of what would take place if the people of the world were to begin to answer these questions themselves. I do not know the answers to these questions, but I do know that the answers lie in the human mind and spirit, that which has overcome and will continue to overcome the greatest of challenges to humanity, and will, without doubt, triumph over the New World Order. - Andrew Marshall

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"Today, I lend my voice of support and admiration to all those brave men and women of the press who labor to expose truth and enhance accountability around the world” President Obama said on May 1.

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Police in Uniform Join In as Victim Is Whipped, Beaten, Electrocuted, Run Over by SUV:

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International justice is a farce while those in the west who sided with Pol Pot's murders escape trial.

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With share prices plunging on both sides of the Atlantic last night, the prime minister flew to Washington in an attempt to piece together an international action plan for the London meeting of the G20 nations early next month.

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Three rival Pakistani Taliban groups have agreed to form a united front against international forces in Afghanistan in a move likely to intensify the insurgency just as thousands of extra US soldiers begin pouring into the country as part of Barack Obama's surge plan.

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US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton concluded her weeklong Asian tour Sunday with an explicit appeal to the Beijing government to keep up its purchases of US treasury notes or risk the onset of an even deeper economic crisis engulfing China and the US itself.

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Stimulating growth before the current slowdown deepens into a prolonged slump is the top priority. Referring to a raft of initiatives that the government has already announced, including a Rmb4,000bn (585bn US dollars, 460bn Euros, 400bn pounds) fiscal spending package aimed mainly at infrastructure spending, Mr Wen says that further efforts may be required.

The government intends to fight on several fronts. Most important is the infrastructure spending and this, he says, is already well under way. But also key is a long list of measures aimed at providing the softer context to a comprehensive stimulus effort - including initiatives to boost consumer spending and welfare.

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Far from being able to develop a common approach to counter and compete with US financial interests, European nations are increasingly reacting to the crisis by embracing economic nationalism in a manner that threatens the break-up of the European Union and the credibility of the European political elite. On the eve of the Berlin summit, a comment in the British Financial Times raised precisely these dangers:

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In testimony before the Senate Committee on Intelligence Thursday, Washington's new director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, warned that the deepening world capitalist crisis posed the paramount threat to US national security and warned that its continuation could trigger a return to the "violent extremism" of the 1920s and 1930s. This frank assessment, contained in the unclassified version of the "annual threat assessment" presented by Blair on behalf of 16 separate US intelligence agencies, represented a striking departure from earlier years, in which a supposedly ubiquitous threat from Al Qaeda terrorism and the two wars launched under the Bush administration topped the list of concerns.

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Spreading strikes, reduced workweeks and tens of thousands of job cuts are throwing British Prime Minister Gordon Brown back to the 1970s...."They've sold us down the river," said Charles Hilton, 61, an electrician from Hull in northern England who was out on strike yesterday with local oil-refinery workers. "We're going to see civil unrest in this country. It's already started. It will grow unless things are sorted."

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Israel's general election has inaugurated a round of political horse-trading after the ruling Kadima party unexpectedly defeated the even more right-wing Likud.

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On Wednesday President Barack Obama announced measures that purport to restrict executive compensation to $500,000 at financial institutions receiving billions in government assistance. The figure does not include stock options, which could be redeemed after financial firms pay back loans from the federal government. Nor does it apply to the original recipients of tens of billions in TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) money.

The measures are essentially a public relations exercise. Their aim is to provide political cover for a new and even larger Wall Street bailout, which Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will unveil next week.

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With his choice of Admiral Dennis Blair as director of national intelligence, President-elect Barack Obama has now named three recently retired four-star military officers to serve in his cabinet. This unprecedented representation of the senior officer corps within the incoming Democratic administration is indicative of a growth in the political power of the US military that poses a serious threat to basic democratic rights.

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The working class must prepare itself for major social and political confrontations and advance an international socialist programme that counters escalating economic nationalism and protectionism with a struggle to unify Europe on socialist foundations.

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Thursday's day of action throughout France in defence of jobs, the purchasing power of wages and social services, called by the eight major trade union federations, brought an estimated 2.5 million workers and youth onto the streets of some 200 cities and towns. Some small towns reported the largest demonstrations in many years. Workers went on strike in great numbers, as did high school and university students. Opinion polls indicate that up to three quarters of the French population support or sympathise with the strike.

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The Icelandic government fell on Monday, becoming the first regime to collapse as a direct result of the global economic crisis and resulting popular opposition. Months of street protests over the devastating social impact of the collapse of the country's currency and banking system reached a crescendo last week, when thousands of demonstrators rallying outside the parliament building pelted right-wing Independence Party Prime Minister Geir Haarde with eggs, paint and rolls of toilet paper, and police responded by firing tear gas, the first time tear gas was used against the public in Iceland since 1949.

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Barack Obama on Monday night granted an Arabic-language television channel his first formal interview as president - an unprecedented gesture that appeared aimed at offering the Muslim world a sharp contrast with his predecessor, George W. Bush. Mr Obama, who in his inaugural address last week promised the Muslim world a "new way forward based on mutual respect and mutual interest", told the Al Arabiya television channel that his administration wanted listen to the Muslim world and re-examine America’s "preconceptions" towards the region.

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Breaking forcefully with Bush anti-terror policies, President Barack Obama ordered major changes Thursday that he said would halt the torture of suspects, close down the Guantanamo detention center, ban secret CIA prisons overseas and fight terrorism "in a manner that is consistent with our values and our ideals."

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This perspective is of utmost importance today. The unification of the European and international working class in the struggle for a socialist programme is the only progressive alternative that can prevent Europe from once again being plunged into war and barbarism as was the case in both 1914 and 1939.

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On Day 2 of his administration, President Obama reverses key Bush "war on terror" policies, signing orders that end torture, close the CIA's black sites and phase out Guantanamo.

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In his first day at his new job, Barack Obama puts his stamp on the presidency.

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President Barack Obama has ordered a halt to the military commissions at Guantánamo Bay, marking the first step towards keeping his promise to shut the controversial detention camp.

Within hours of assuming the presidency on Tuesday, Mr Obama told military prosecutors at Guantánamo Bay to seek a 120-day pause in the trial of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and his four co-defendants.

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Lankaye editor's comment: Global parliament is a concept I've been arguing for quite a long time. In fact, my own proposals for a 'political model' to solve Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict stems from the same internationalist mind-set. In fact, the EU model, a precursor to the world-government, may also, I believe, provide the general framework for solving many nationalist conflicts in the world.

[Click below "Read More" to reach the FT article.]

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"The world has changed, and we must change with it," Mr Obama declared before an exuberant crowd of hundreds of thousands that gathered in Washington's National Mall to mark the inauguration of the country's first African-American president.

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With goodwill behind him - and crisis ahead - it's time for the incoming president to show us what he's got.

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I've read all three Taylor Branch books about King and David Garrow, too, and I still can't really grasp how King was able to be so kind to white people, given the era in which he lived. It seems it was mainly his spiritual and political commitment to nonviolence, a brand of engaged Christianity that drew from Gandhi, Niebuhr and the African-American church. He could also do the math; he knew he couldn't make change without white people. And he had a class consciousness; he saw early that the sufferings of poor whites in Uptown Chicago and Latinos in Cesar Chavez's California had a lot in common. He agreed with his friend Bayard Rustin that if blacks were free tomorrow far too many would still be poor, and the civil rights movement needed an economic component to be successful.

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Foreign secretary argues west cannot kill its way out of the threats it faces...

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A leading advocacy group called today for US President-elect Barack Obama to put human rights at the centre of US foreign, domestic and security policy.

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Brown must also halt Britain's arms exports to Israel, and persuade our EU counterparts to do the same. The government's own figures show Britain is selling more and more weapons to Israel, despite the questions about the country's use of force. In 2007, our government approved six million pounds of arms exports. In 2008, it licensed sales 12 times as fast: 12 million pounds of arms exports in the first three months alone. There is a strong case that, given the Gaza conflict, any military exports contravene EU licensing criteria. Reports, though denied, that Israel is using illegal cluster munitions and white phosphorus should heighten our caution. I want an immediate suspension of all arms exports from the EU, but if that cannot be secured, Brown must act unilaterally.

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The BoA rescue matches that given to Citigroup, another stricken US banking giant, which is today expected to report its deepest quarterly deficit yet.

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Zimbabwe will introduce a 100 trillion dollar note, in its latest attempt to keep pace with hyperinflation that has left its once-vibrant economy in tatters, state media said Friday. Skip related content

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The premeditated slaughter yesterday of innocent men, women and children sheltering in the UN-run al-Fakhora school in Gaza is a war crime for which the Israeli government and military general staff are directly responsible.

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The scenes of calamity just get worse. Yesterday Guardian readers awoke to an image that will haunt many for years to come: three young children, their eyes closed as if in sleep, laid out dead on a hospital floor. One was no bigger than a baby; next to him, a toddler wearing junior tracksuit trousers, the kind your own son might wear. Except these were dyed red with blood.

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Israel's assault on Gaza has exacted the bloodiest toll of civilian lives yet, when the bombing of UN schools being used as refugee centres and of housing killed more than 50 people, including an entire family of seven young children.

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Gazprom's executives are the 21st-century equivalent of Britain's 18th-century pioneers of unscrupulous national power and wealth. Suddenly, yesterday's proponents of the unbridled free market have discovered a distaste for the brute realities of supply and demand. Rather like poker players who have won all the chips on the table, western states recognise that the odds will turn sharply against them, so they insist on the economic equivalent of a whist drive. But will the hard young men running Gazprom take up this granny's game?

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The toll of Palestinians killed and wounded continues to rise rapidly as Israel intensifies its combined air and ground assault on the largely defenseless and starved Gaza Strip.

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PM sets out modern version of 1930s New Deal - Climate change industries at heart of strategy:

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Both sides see the conflict in moral terms. For supporters of the Palestinians, it could not be clearer. Israel is committing a war crime, killing people in their hundreds, hammering a besieged population from the sky (and soon perhaps on the ground too), claiming to aim only at Hamas but inevitably striking those civilians who get in the way.

Israel's cheerleaders are just as clear. Israel is the victim, hitting out now only belatedly and in self-defence. Its southern citizens have sat terrorised in bomb shelters, fearing the random rockets of Hamas, since 2005, longer than any society could tolerate without fighting back.

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As the Israelis continue to pound Gaza, killing Hamas cadre, traffic cops, and civilians alike, Americans shake their heads and wonder: why can't they all just get along? Why must we be involved? The answer to both questions lies in understanding the peculiar nature of the Israeli state and its "special relationship" to the West, specifically the U.S.

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For decades, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has presided over the most rapacious forms of capitalism. The overriding concern of CCP officials from top to bottom has been economic growth, the fostering of the market and the accumulation of wealth, including their own personal fortunes. Workers were barely referred to, and then usually in derogatory terms.

Now the CCP has suddenly rediscovered the proletariat. A prominent comment in the official Xinhua news agency on December 15 declared that the "Chinese working class will continue to maintain its position as the leading class". The CCP will "wholeheartedly depend on the working class," it added. This slogan was said to be the main emphasis of CCP leaders at the recent 15^th congress of state-run trade unions.

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Will the continuing carnage in Gaza ignite another Palestinian uprising, or Intifada?

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"I want to say first of all that I have been very deeply disappointed, saddened by the position that South Africa has taken at the United Nations security council in being an obstacle to the security council dealing with that matter," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "And I have to say that I am deeply, deeply distressed that we should be found not on the side of the ones who are suffering.

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The United States, which entered into over $23 billion in Foreign Military Sales (FMS) agreements in fiscal year (FY) 2007 and $32 billion in FY 2008 (see table 1), is the world's largest arms supplier. U.S. exports range from combat aircraft to Pakistan, Morocco, Greece, Romania, and Chile to small arms and light weapons to the Philippines, Egypt, and Georgia. In 2006 and 2007, the United States sold weapons to over 174 states and territories, a significant increase from the beginning of the Bush administration when the number of U.S. arms clients stood at 123.[1] While many of these sales were relatively small deals licensed commercially by the State Department, a number of important new states were added or restored to the U.S. client list, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, East Timor, Indonesia, Iraq, Afghanistan, India, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan.

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Gordon Brown has confirmed that UK troops are to be almost completely withdrawn from Iraq.

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He will inherit the kind of problems that few new presidents have had to face. Where should he start?

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After years of the Bush administration's attempts to control the images of the Iraq war, an Iraqi journalist turned the tables Sunday through an act of protest that drew broad popular support throughout the Arab world.

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Troops will begin pullout in March and hand over to US....

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Yesterday's one-day general strike paralysed much of Greece, while 10,000 marched in Athens against the right-wing government of Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis. Flights were halted by the walkout of air traffic controllers, and the country's public transport network was largely shut down. Railways, metro and bus lines, and coach services ground to a halt. Schools, banks and hospitals were also affected.

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A conversation with the remarkable David King.....

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The experts' report says: "Genocide is not the inevitable result of 'ancient hatreds' or irrational leaders. It requires planning and is carried out systematically. There are ways to recognize its signs and symptoms, and viable options to prevent it at every turn if we are committed and prepared."

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The Bush administration is exerting intense pressure on Pakistan to take action against Islamist groups allegedly responsible for last month's terrorist attacks on Mumbai. Rather than easing tensions between Pakistan and India, Washington's backing for New Delhi threatens to further destabilise Pakistan and trigger an escalating confrontation between the regional rivals.

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The strategic shift in the balance of U.S. military forces in the region, away from Iraq and eastward to Afghanistan and Pakistan, seems almost to have been conceived in order to confirm the complaints of the anti-American forces in the region that the U.S. and its allies have launched a crusade to eliminate Islam from the map. From this perspective the pattern is clear enough: having exhausted their efforts in Iraq, now the West strikes from a different direction, in alliance with India. At the geographic center of it all, you'll note, sits Iran, which can look forward to being surrounded on both sides.

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Australia will increase security co- operation with India and China and pursue an EU-style union in Asia, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said.

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Protesters to end airport demonstration after Somchai Wongsawat is banned from office for five years.

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Heads of State, Foreign Ministers and senior government representatives from over 100 countries are expected to gather in Oslo to sign a worldwide ban on the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster bombs. It will be the most significant humanitarian and disarmament treaty of the decade. The Convention on Cluster Munitions, which contains the strongest ever provisions for victim assistance in international law, will be signed on 3 December, the International Day of Persons with Disabilities and the anniversary of the signing of the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. The signing follows 18 months of intense negotiations known as the "Oslo Process" and marks the start of the treaty's implementation worldwide.

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Political tensions in Thailand are reaching breaking point as anti-government protesters from the Peoples Alliance for Democracy (PAD) continue to occupy Bangkok's two main airports - Suvarnabhumi international and Don Muang domestic.

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Panic gripped India after heavily-armed terrorists, targeting British and American citizens, killed 101 people, including six foreigners, and wounded 287.

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The standoff between the Thai government and the Peoples Alliance for Democracy (PAD) intensified sharply on Tuesday after PAD protestors seized control of Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International Airport, trapping thousands of travellers inside the terminal.

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Lord Bingham used the occasion of his first major speech since his retirement as a senior law lord to describe the 2003 invasion of Iraq as "serious violation of international law".

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The world cannot return to a gold standard overnight without provoking a brutal contraction of credit and a global depression. However, neither can we afford to pretend that nothing has changed and that the global economy can continue to function on the dollar standard. The time has come to convene a forum of the world’s leaders to hammer out and begin the transition to a new rule-based international monetary system predicated on sound money and balanced trade. Current Group of 20 efforts fall well short of what is required.

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Europe beware. Sometimes in life you get what you have asked for. The result is not always comfortable.

Since 2001, European politicians have bemoaned the lack of a Washington administration that believed in multilateralism. We Europeans have been able to define ourselves in opposition to President George W. Bush and his "my way or the highway" approach to international affairs. For Europe, the 43rd president was a sort of solution in the search for our own global vocation.

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"It was far from perfect, but yesterday confirmed Labour's escape from the grip of the rich - and a Tory reversion to type...." she says.

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A professor at the diplomatic academy of Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the U.S. will break into six parts because of the nation's financial crisis.

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Auto workers around the world confront layoffs, plant closures and new demands for wage and benefit cuts and speedup as transnational automakers attempt to make them pay for the global capitalist crisis.

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Rich governments and corporations are triggering alarm for the poor as they buy up the rights to millions of hectares of agricultural land in developing countries in an effort to secure their own long-term food supplies.

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During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama pledged to close the infamous prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba and try detainees charged with crimes in American courts rather than in military commissions. Obama reiterated his intention to close Guantánamo in an appearance on the "60 Minutes" television program last Sunday, but he and his spokespeople have been less than forthcoming about what will be done with the 250 prisoners still housed at the prison.

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Some 691,000 children went hungry in America in 2007, a rise of 50 percent over the previous year, while one in eight Americans overall struggled to feed themselves. The figures are reported in a study on food security conducted annually by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Of the 36.2 million people who struggled with hunger during the year, almost a third of these adults and children faced a substantial disruption to their food supply, meaning they went hungry at some point. The number of these most hungry Americans has grown by more than 40 percent since 2000, rising to 11.9 million individuals in 2007.

These statistics are all the more alarming since they do not reflect the impact of the current economic crisis. James Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center, predicted the 2008 numbers would show even more hunger.

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The entire membership list of the British National party has been posted on the internet, identifying thousands of people as secret supporters of the far right and exposing many to the risk of dismissal from work, disciplinary action or vilification.

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The route around southern Africa is a main thoroughfare for fully laden supertankers from the Gulf, the world's biggest oil exporting region....

Andrew Linington, from Nautilus UK, the seafarers union, said the British nationals on board were thought to be a master, and a chief engineer.

"This has come as a massive shock. It's the biggest ship that's ever been taken, and it's a long way away from the area, which up until now has been regarded as the dangerous region; where the previous attacks have been," he said. "Tankers of this size are usually safe from attacks. It's a worrying escalation." Pirates, often based in Somalia, have made shipping routes off east Africa among the most dangerous in the world.

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Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for a massive prayer service and a peaceful demonstration in Baghdad next week against the U.S.-led presence in Iraq.

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US President George W. Bush came to Wall Street Thursday to deliver a speech extolling the virtues of the "free enterprise" system even as multiple economic indicators made it clear that the so-called "magic of the market" is spelling misery for millions more working people in the US and around the globe.

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Government leaders from the G20 nations are meeting in Washington this weekend for a special summit on the global financial and economic crisis.

The Group of Twenty - from the 20 largest industrialised and so-called emerging-market countries - account for 85 percent of worldwide economic production and two thirds of global population. It is unlikely, however, that the summit beginning Friday will come to any concrete agreement; the dissension and tensions between those present are simply too large.

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Barack Obama has promised to "change the world" if he is elected US President.

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Head of equality watchdog says ethnic minority candidates in the UK would be prevented from reaching the highest level.

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World leaders have been responding to Barack Obama's historic victory with praise, pride and hope.

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The son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, the Democratic senator from Illinois sealed his historic triumph by defeating Republican Sen. John McCain in a string of wins in hard-fought battleground states - Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Iowa and more.

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Today's vote is likely to prove epochal. Bush's failure and the banks' collapse have exposed a deeply divided party.

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Some polling places looked deserted, while others looked as if they were handing out free money Tuesday, as voters across the nation - including Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama - hit the polls in a historic election Tuesday.

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The US bail-out amounts to a strings-free, public-funded windfall for big business. Welcome to no-risk capitalism.

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With official figures likely to show the US economy is entering a sharp slowdown, both US presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain have been campaigning hard on tax and spending.

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PM says enhanced fund is necessary to prevent 'financial contagion' spreading:

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The global financial meltdown, which is triggering sharp recessions across the world, has severely compromised the economic basis of the Scottish National Party's strategy for independence.

SNP aspirations for Scottish secession from the United Kingdom were based on the strength of the Scottish financial sector, oil revenue, and winning transnational investment through cutting taxes. The SNP claimed that additional wealth generated through such measures in an independent Scotland would be used to benefit all Scots. Now, however, the Scottish financial sector is in crisis. Both of the country's historic banks--the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS)--have been humiliated, their CEOs forced to resign.

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Two men have appeared in a US court accused of making threats to kill Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, federal agents say.

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After failing to obtain financial assistance from allies including the US and China, Pakistan's government has turned to the International Monetary Fund for the emergency loans it needs to stave off state bankruptcy. Pakistan's central bank governor and top finance ministry officials began discussions with IMF officials in Dubai last Tuesday, and which will continue until the middle of this week.

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Gordon Brown wants a rerun of the Bretton Woods summit. But what would we need the new financial institutions to do?

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Thousands of people marched in central Baghdad on Saturday to protest a proposed U.S.-Iraqi security agreement that would extend the presence of U.S. troops in the country after the end of the year.

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Gordon Brown has warned that the financial crisis had exposed the "weaknesses" of unfettered capitalism, insisting the markets had to be underpinned by society's values.

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EU leaders called for a global summit as soon as next month to rewrite the 1944 Bretton Woods accord that paved the way for Europe's post-World War II reconstruction and set up the institutions that oversee the world economy today.

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The government of President Hugo Chavez is planning to establish a 6-hour workday under forthcoming legislation. Labor Minister Roberto Hernandez announced Monday that he would present a proposed bill before the end of the year to reduce the workday from 8 to 6 hours, improve employee benefits and establish "more forceful" penalties for businesses that violate labor laws. The president's allies hold a majority within the National Assembly and most bills proposed by Chavez's administration are approved without considerable delay.

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John McCain promised to kick Barack Obama's "you know what" on Wednesday night. He hinted that he'd bring up former Weather Underground leader Bill Ayers and worse. Instead McCain bludgeoned Obama with Joe the Plumber, and the effect was more farce than fierce.

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Government guarantees on individuals' savings could be raised from 50,000 pounds, Gordon Brown said today as he unveiled plans for an upcoming summit of world leaders to tackle the global finance crisis.

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The breakdown of the US financial system and the government bailout of Wall Street have seriously discredited the ideological justifications of capitalism.

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The American Empire has become a vast extravagance. With U.S. markets crashing and wealth vanishing, what are we doing with 750 bases and troops in over 100 countries? With a recession of unknown depth and duration looming, why keep borrowing billions from rich Arabs to defend rich Europeans, or billions from China and Japan to hand out in Millennium Challenge Grants to Tanzania and Burkina Faso? America needs a bottom-up review of all strategic commitments dating to a Cold War now over for 20 years.

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Nicholas Watt on how Europe and the G7 countries will all copy the Brown bail-out:

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World leaders scramble for solutions to the deepening meltdown.

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Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Friday the global financial crisis required a global solution and urged other countries to adopt Britain's actions to save the banking system.....Brown proposed that after this week's G7 and IMF meetings there should be a "leaders' meeting in which we must lay down the principles and the new policies for restructuring our banking and financial system all around the globe." He called for governments to adopt cross-border rules on transparency and the highest standards of conduct to guard against irresponsible risk-taking.

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Iceland's failure to honour its obligations to overseas depositors is an extraordinary event. But, as long as the global financial crisis has further to run, there is no reason to think it will be unique.

FT Editorial...

A major new intelligence estimate by US defence establishment casts doubt on military strategy in Afghanistan.

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Without funding from the taxpayer, virtually no bank would be safe from the virus that has infected the global financial system...

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The Treasury worked on the plan all night, after Brown and Alistair Darling held emergency talks with the Bank of England governor last night.

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Knowing that greater international trade would help to prevent future wars, and determined to avoid another Great Depression, the delegates signed the Bretton Woods Agreements, creating the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. It was a big vision, driven by grand historical figures: Winston Churchill, Franklin D Roosevelt and the British economist John Maynard Keynes.

But a system that was designed 64 years ago has, not surprisingly, proved ill equipped to deal with the fiendishly complex practices of 21st-century banking that led to the current worldwide crisis.

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We will look back on the banking crisis of September 2008 as a defining moment for economic globalisation. It may have started in the US mortgage market and on Wall Street, but through an integrated global economy it has become an international problem. Whatever our response, we should be guided by two principles. First, we should not jettison our commitment to globalisation. Second, a global economy needs global governance.....

.....There is no institution with a mandate or real capacity to assess systemic risk in financial markets. There is no institution empowered to speak from the perspective of global economic interdependence and to counsel states on the global picture. Coordination mechanisms among central bankers and regulators exist, but they are weak.

They are also skewed towards an economic order that is increasingly outdated. The large emerging economies - especially China - are growing sources of capital and economic demand. They are tightly knit into the global economy. Bodies like the G8 simply do not reflect this changing economic architecture. Effective multilateral governance of the global economy will require institutions that do. It is 64 years since the Bretton Woods conference put in place the basic machinery of modern global economic coordination. It is time for a Bretton Woods for this century.

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Trafalgar square rally calls on government to end suffering of 3.9 million children in poverty around the world. Thousands of people marched in London today to call on the government to keep its promise to end child poverty by 2020.

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Joseph E Stiglitz is university professor at Columbia University and recipient of the Nobel prize in 2001. He was chief economist at the World Bank at the time of the last global financial crisis josephstiglitz.com. Stiglitz argues: "Now Congress must draw up a proposal in which costs are borne by those who created the problem."

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The financial crisis offers an opportunity to reassert Labour values and change an economic system that creates inequality.

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Let me cut to the chase. The biggest robbery in the history of this country is taking place as you read this. Though no guns are being used, 300 million hostages are being taken. Make no mistake about it: After stealing a half trillion dollars to line the pockets of their war-profiteering backers for the past five years, after lining the pockets of their fellow oilmen to the tune of over a hundred billion dollars in just the last two years, Bush and his cronies - who must soon vacate the White House - are looting the U.S. Treasury of every dollar they can grab. They are swiping as much of the silverware as they can on their way out the door.

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Bailing out banks seems unprecedented, but the US government's form in subsidising big business is well established.

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In relation to recent global events; wars, invasions of lands, conflicts between states, political scandals, recognitions of new states, there is one phrase that everybody likes to use, that phrase is called international law.

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She was outmatched by Katie Couric, but how will Sarah Palin fare against Joe Biden? The debate comes at a crucial time for the struggling McCain campaign.

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The global financial crisis will see the US falter in the same way the Soviet Union did when the Berlin Wall came down. The era of American dominance is over.

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From David Foster Wallace to Paul Begala, four authors trace the politician's journey from the liberal's conservative to flip-flopping hack.

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When Britain's Chancellor Alistair Darling was interviewed by Decca Aitkenhead in the August 30 edition of the Guardian, his comments created an international furore.

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The instant polls suggest Obama won the first debate. But the post-debate debate will be more crucial than ever.

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Gordon Brown appealed for world leaders to back the idea of an international supervisory body to bring order to the chaotic markets in a speech to the UN general assembly in New York yesterday.

He made his appeal, part of a long campaign to win support for more effective regulation of global capitalism, before heading to the political turmoil of Washington and a hastily arranged meeting with the US president, George Bush.

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Only rarely is there a palpable public mood swing in Britain; the Winter of Discontent in 1978-9 was one; this is another...

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Leading Republicans say that, short of total gridlock on the economic bailout, a McCain no-show on Friday would be "a huge political mistake."

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How Israeli Backdoor Technology Penetrated the US Government's Telecom System and Compromised National Security.

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No matter how you feel about George Bush's credibility, it is unnerving to watch the president of the United States stare his country in the eye and declare that "we are in the middle of a serious financial crisis" and "our economy is in serious danger."

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Presidential candidates Sen. John McCain - who said Wednesday that he was suspending his campaign because of the nation's economic crisis - and Sen. Barack Obama will meet Thursday with President Bush to discuss a proposed Wall Street bailout.

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In the wake of recent turmoil in the financial markets, church leaders attacked the values of City and Wall Street traders. Do they have a point: is capitalism as we know it immoral?

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In a blistering speech before the United Nations General Assembly, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed "a few bullying powers" for creating the world's problems and said the "American empire in the world is reaching the end of its road."

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Prime Minister Gordon Brown's keynote speech to the Labour Party conference was billed as a declaration of war on the "something-for-nothing" society. It served as a perfect reminder of why his government is so detested.

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I spent a morning in John McCain's Virginia campaign headquarters ghost-writing letters to the editor for McCain supporters to sign. I even pretended to have a son in Iraq.

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Gordon Brown won some political breathing space on Tuesday with an impassioned speech to the Labour conference, in effect telling his critics to keep faith with him during the financial crisis.

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The collapse of capitalism has been the salvation of Gordon Brown's lacklustre cabinet, not because it has revived belief in a socialist future, but because the cabinet's very absence of charisma can be recast as a strength. The prime minister wants us to see him as the Eric Daniels of politics: Lloyds TSB, rather than the flashy HBOS, which collapsed under the weight of its own intemperate lending. We should stick with prudent Gordon rather than spivvy David Cameron, the Andy Hornby of politics, offering subprime policies to British voters who can't afford them.

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World leaders are due to meet in New York for the opening of the annual United Nations General Assembly.

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Through the thrill of a love story between John Carpenter, American pilot, and Esther Kohlberg, holocaust survivor, Eagles Over Berlin presents the events of the Airlift breaking the Berlin Blockade at the beginning of the Cold War era in 1948-1949.

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Get ready for an interesting game of chicken coming up: How will Obama and McCain vote on the bailout package?

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For the first time in years John Harris finds activists at this year's Labour party conference talking about redistribution of wealth and class war.

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Stevie Wonder, Kanye West and Sheryl Crow will all contribute to Yes We Can, an ode to change and new tomorrows. What's the betting it won't feature on John McCain's iPod?

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In an extract from his book about the Blair years, Sky News political editor Adam Boulton reveals the dishonesty and bullying that characterised Alastair Campbell's reign as No 10's chief spin doctor.

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During an impromptu visit to Islamabad this week, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, reputedly gave Pakistan's government and military assurances that the US will respect Pakistan's sovereignty. But only hours later the US staged another predator-drone attack inside Pakistan, killing at least six people in a South Waziristan village.

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Both parties spend millions on TV messages - Addressing Wall St crisis displaces personal attacks.

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It was only a decade ago that Tzipi Livni decided to become a politician. She had served as a young agent in Israel's foreign secret service, the Mossad, and then gave up an agency career to become a commercial lawyer until one autumn holiday, not long after the signing of the Oslo peace accords with the Palestinians, she decided to step into politics. Now she is just weeks away from becoming Israel's next prime minister after winning a striking victory in her Kadima party's leadership election yesterday.

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Anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish feelings are rising in several major European countries, according to a worldwide survey released on Wednesday.

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As Andrew Bacevich tells us in the latest issue of the Atlantic, there's now a vigorous debate going on in the military about the nature of the "next" American wars and how to prepare for them. However, while military officers argue, that "next war" may already be creeping up on us.

Having, with much hoopla, launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, each disastrous in its own way, the Bush administration in its waning months seems intent on a slo-mo launching of a third war in the border regions of Pakistan. Almost every day now news trickles out of intensified American strikes by Hellfire-missile armed Predator drones, or even commando raids from helicopters - in the Pakistani tribal areas along the Afghan border; and there is a drumbeat of threats of more to come. All of this, in turn, is reportedly only "phase one" of a three-phase Bush administration plan in which the American military "gloves" would "come off." Think of this as the green-lighting of a new version of that old Vietnam-era tactic of "hot pursuit" across national borders, or think of it simply as the latest war.

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Those who claim, like the British Eurosceptics, that regional or global decision-making is unnecessary are living in a world of make-believe. No political issue now stops at the national border. All the most important forces - climate change, terrorism, state aggression, trade, flows of money, demographic pressures, the depletion of resources - can be addressed only at the global level. The question is not whether global decisions need to be made. The question is how to ensure that they are made democratically. Is there any valid answer other than direct representation?

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Bolivian troops have arrested the governor of a northern province wracked by deadly anti-government violence.

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Center-stage again, the Ohio contest between Obama and McCain may pivot on the impossible-to-handicap racial factor.

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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is expelling the US envoy to Caracas, amid an escalating regional diplomatic row.

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Russian ships will make a port of call in Venezuela later this year, and the two nations could hold joint naval exercises for the first time, both sides said.

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The propaganda used to justify the US-led occupation in Afghanistan typically leaves out any explanation of the origins of tendencies such as Al Qaeda, the Taliban movement and other Islamist groups resisting American and NATO troops. The spin merchants of the so-called "war on terror" would have people believe that the US and its allies are fighting religious fanatics who have no support in the country and are motivated by an inexplicable and irrational hatred of Western civilisation.

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In the aftermath of the Georgian conflict, the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has laid down five principles that he says will guide Russian foreign policy.

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Jude Law has visited Afghanistan to promote a campaign for a day of ceasefire around the world.

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Yasuo Fukuda, Japan’s prime minister, on Monday night shocked even his own party by abruptly resigning after less than a year in office, paving the way for possible snap elections in the world’s second-largest economy.

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Explaining his government's decision to recognise the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, said in an op-ed in the Financial Times newspaper: "Not all of the world's nations have their own statehood. Many exist happily within boundaries shared with other nations. The Russian Federation is an example of largely harmonious coexistence by many dozens of nations and nationalities. But some nations find it impossible to live under the tutelage of another. Relations between nations living 'under one roof' need to be handled with the utmost sensitivity."

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Relations with the west plummet as Kremlin recognises breakaway states.

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Russia's parliament voted unanimously Monday to urge the president to recognize the independence of Georgia's two breakaway regions, stoking further tensions between Moscow and the small Caucasus nation's Western allies.

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The events in Georgia this week demonstrates that the notions of 'sovereignty' and 'territorial integrity' are not cast-iron principles of international politics, but fragile covers for the pursuits of interests by powerful states.

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Russia's escalating war on Georgia reveals the consequences of the Bush administration's long assault on the international rule of law.

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So what happened? A number of experts have said that Georgia has nobody to blame for this but itself. In 1992 a strongly Russian-populated region called South Ossetia broke free from Georgian rule. Last week, as the Olympics opened, Georgia launched a military operation to recapture the region.

Needless to say Moscow, who has never been one to shy away from flexing its muscles, reacted strongly and deployed a huge counter-offensive. Not only did the Russians promptly drive Georgian troops out of South Ossetia but they continued to make their statement by attacking Georgia-proper, bombing both military and civilian areas.

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In a clear reference to China's tight control of religion, Bush emerged from a church service saying no country should "fear the influence" of freedom of worship. He received regular updates on the military standoff between Russia and Georgia, a former Soviet state. And switching from leader to Olympics fan, Bush watched as Michael Phelps won the gold in the 400-meter individual medley.

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The conflict in the Caucasus contains the seeds of a far wider conflagration, raising the spectre of a new global eruption of imperialist war. Alluding to the events that followed the June, 1914 assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and culminated in the outbreak of World War I two months later, Dmitri Trenin, senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and deputy director of its Moscow centre, issued the following warning in a piece published on the Washington Post web site on Sunday:

"So far, each step in the Caucasus drama has put the conflict on a yet higher plane. The next step will no longer be just about the Caucasus, or even Europe. Remember the Guns of August."

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In a statement issued as they departed today, the activists said they would lodge a legal protest against any attempt by the Israelis to arrest them.

"If Israel chooses to forcibly stop and search our ships, we will not forcibly resist," they said. "If we are arrested and brought to Israel, we will protest and prosecute our kidnapping in the appropriate forums ... It is our purpose to show the power that ordinary citizens of the world have when they organise together to stand against injustice."

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Every Olympics is a miniature world - and leaves you feeling more hopeful about the human race than you were before.

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For the man who has brought rock star charisma to electoral politics, yesterday saw the campaign rally as pop festival, a summer gathering of peace, love and loathing of George Bush.

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Gordon Brown suffered his most severe byelection setback in a summer of electoral routs early this morning as the Scottish National party won a dramatic victory in the Glasgow East contest, taking the once staunch Labour seat with a majority of 365 votes.

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Salon Editor's note: This article is part of a Salon investigative series on spying inside the United States by the Bush administration. Research support for the article was provided by the Nation Institute Investigative Fund.

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The International Court of Justice has ordered the United States to stay the imminent executions of five Mexican nationals on death row in Texas. In a 7-5 ruling on Wednesday, the World Court said the US should "take all measures necessary to ensure [they] are not executed pending judgment...unless and until these five Mexican nationals receive review and reconsideration [of their sentences]."

It is highly unlikely, however, that the court's ruling will have any effect on the functioning of the state-sanctioned killing machine in Texas.

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A new era in relations between Serbia and the west beckoned yesterday as Belgrade reaped rewards from the surprise arrest of Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian genocide suspect, and pledged to apprehend the other most wanted alleged war criminal, General Ratko Mladic.

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The Bush administration's announcement on Wednesday that a senior US diplomat will participate in international talks in Geneva tomorrow with Iran's top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili marks a shift, albeit tentative at this stage, in White House policy toward Tehran. Bush officials have previously insisted that Iran had to shut down its uranium enrichment and other nuclear facilities before the US would take part in any discussions with it on the nuclear issue.

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Iran test-fired a long-range missile, capable of reaching Israel, to demonstrate the regime's power, the country's Arabic state television Al-Alam reported.

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Vow comes on second day of ballistic missile tests - Leaders threaten to shut vital oil route if attacked....Read More

It not only demonstrates the depth of the economic crisis of American capitalism, it also provides an object lesson on the real relations of political power and influence behind the facade of American democracy......thousands of US banks, hedge funds, pension funds and other institutions hold securities guaranteed by the two companies, and central banks, governments and private banks around the world are heavily invested in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debt.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been at the center of the housing market speculation that generated billions for Wall Street investors and CEOs and has now come crashing down, precipitating the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s. The two companies are massively leveraged, holding a combined $81 billion in capital to back the mortgages they own or guarantee - a ratio of capital to debt of 1.6 percent.

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It's unconstitutional, un-American....and it might hurt, rather than help, the FBI's effort to stop real acts of terror.

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"Equality is not a good thing." Such a statement stands in diametrical opposition to a long and central tradition in American political thought that - however much it was violated in practice by chattel slavery and the workings of the capitalist system—held equality to indeed be a "good thing."

For Thomas Jefferson and the other founders of the American republic, inspired by the revolutionary spirit of the Enlightenment, the equality of man was not just a "good thing" but, as Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, a self-evident truth.

Abraham Lincoln went further, taking equality not only as a self-evident truth, but as a proposition that had to be proven in bloody struggle, a transcendental goal to be realized by American society in a "new birth of freedom."

In the depths of a Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered his "rendezvous with destiny" speech to the 1936 Democratic convention, again invoking these profound political traditions, while flaying the "economic royalists" of Wall Street as the reincarnation of King George III.

All experience makes clear that there is no point in pursuing the localist debate if three requirements are not met: that elected bodies run some substantial public services; that they own some institutions; and that they raise some discretionary taxes. The franchise must bite. Without such bite, all democracy is play-acting and all devolution empty paternalism...................Britain's local democratic deficit is the starkest variance between its politics and that of other western states. Under Margaret Thatcher, who began the march to centralisation, the path was deliberate. "I must take more power to the centre," she said, "to stop socialism." Under Tony Blair and Brown the march has been more sinister because denied.

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The leaders of the G8 made a breakthrough on climate change when they agreed to adopt a goal of at least halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, according to a draft communique.

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The rational use of remaining petroleum resources and the development of genuine alternatives require an unprecedented level of international cooperation and the marshalling of the world’s technological, material and human resources. This is not possible as long as capitalism divides the globe into competing nation states, each vying for advantage over the other.

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Nelson Mandela was joined last night by some of the biggest names in music for a concert to celebrate his 90th birthday in Hyde Park, central London

Looking frail but smiling, Mandela was helped on stage to deliver his birthday speech, telling the crowd: "Our work is for freedom for all.

"Even as we celebrate, let us remind ourselves that our work is far from complete. Where there is poverty and sickness, including Aids, where human beings are being oppressed, there's more work to be done. Our work is for freedom for all." He told the crowd: "It is in your hands now."

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US President George W Bush has signed a bill removing Nelson Mandela and South African leaders from the US terror watch list, officials say.

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He's facing nervous Jewish voters in Florida, attacks by Joe Lieberman and smear tactics in a political war that threatens his campaign.

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* Summit fails to criticise Mugabe election
* EU refuses to recognise legitimacy of poll result

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The visit by US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Admiral Mike Mullen to Israel yesterday is one more indication that the two countries are actively discussing a military strike on Iran. Mullen’s trip followed news that the Israeli air force carried out a major exercise earlier this month involving 100 fighter jets, backed by midair fuel tankers and rescue helicopters, flying some 1,500 kilometres westward over the Mediterranean Sea - roughly the same distance as eastward from Israel to Iran’s nuclear facilities.

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Sen. Hillary Clinton introduces her former Democratic rival at a rally in Unity, New Hampshire, Friday.

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"We may have started on separate paths ... today our hearts are set on the same destination for America ... to elect Barack Obama as the next president of the United States," Clinton said.

Gordon Brown suffered the humiliation on Friday of Labour crashing to fifth place in the Henley by-election on his first anniversary as prime minister.

The unprecedented result, which placed the government behind the Green party and the far-right British National Party, is likely to raise further questions about Mr Brown's leadership and increase calls for change from Labour MPs.

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Zimbabwe's neighbours increased diplomatic pressure on Robert Mugabe on Wednesday night as Nelson Mandela, the former South African president, broke years of silence to describe Zimbabwe's crisis as a "tragic failure of leadership".

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The idea that warfare helps the economy is a prime example of Bizarro logic, which has pervaded our collective consciousness since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, ideological fallout from the explosion of national hysteria that followed. In Bizarro World, as we all know, the laws of nature and logic are inverted, so that up is down, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength. In the post-9/11 era, as I have often pointed out, we have finally arrived in a world where two plus two can and indeed often does equal five - if it suits the purposes of the War Party to deem it so.

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The UN Security Council has unanimously condemned the violence and intimidation against Zimbabwe's opposition party.

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As I write, the House of Representatives is passing a "supplemental" war-funding bill – an event that one would think ought to be the occasion for a renewed debate on the war, whether to end it or, as John McCain would like, to escalate it. One, however, would be quite wrong. The halls of Congress are virtually silent, this election year, as a war the American people oppose continues and threatens to spread. As for the discussion in the media: check out this piece in The Politico – which is chock full of discussion about the bill's non-war related add-ons, and barely mentions the war as an issue, except as a bargaining chip.

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A US court has for the first time rejected the classification of a prisoner held in Guantanamo Bay as an "enemy combatant".

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UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said Zimbabwe's presidential elections should be postponed following the withdrawal of the opposition candidate.

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Until recently the idea of having a black president seemed unlikely.

Instead American popular culture was constantly bombarded with images of down-at-heel black men.

However, With Barack Obama being the presumptive Democratic nominee, is blackness being redefined in America?

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The gas-rich province of Tarija has become the fourth region in Bolivia to vote for greater autonomy from the central government.

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Yvonne Chipowera doesn't know the names of those who raped her, whipped her with sjamboks and urinated on her face while making her call Zimbabwe's opposition leader a dog. Her ordeal lasted 16 hours.

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An alarmist John McCain is using Iran as a political weapon against Barack Obama -- even as he misjudges our Middle East adversary.

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Zimbabwe's neighbours closed ranks against Robert Mugabe yesterday as pre-election violence against opposition supporters intensified and spread to new areas of the country.

Pro-government militias were reported to be hunting supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) through the densely populated townships around Harare, which had hitherto escaped the worst of the violence.

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Massive increase in wind power planned
One in four homes to have solar heating
Owners may be forced to insulate homes

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Does this mean those who backed him last year, and long before, got him wrong? Not wholly. They were right that he is a decent man, clever and phenomenally widely read; and that, even now, if he ditched the triangulation and crude stunts, pushed a programme of two or three large, bold policies, and told a convincing story about getting the country through economic turmoil - if he did all that, he could still turn things around.

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Israel and Hamas have agreed a truce that will begin on Thursday, the Palestinian Islamist group said today.

The Egyptian-brokered accord aims initially to end Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel and Israeli military attacks on Gaza but could lead to the termination of Israel's year-long economic blockade of Gaza and the return of an Israeli soldier.

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Cuban state television has broadcast the first video in five months of the country's former leader, Fidel Castro.

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Al Gore, the presidential nominee turned anti-climate change crusader, threw his support behind Barack Obama today and vowed "to do whatever I can to make sure he is elected".

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He would lose his claim to being the candidate of change -- and probably wouldn't get any swing states in return.

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The case for an Obama-Clinton ticket, also known as, you got any better ideas?

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In 1941, the editor Edward Dowling wrote: "The two greatest obstacles to democracy in the United States are, first, the widespread delusion among the poor that we have a democracy, and second, the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it." What has changed? The terror of the rich is greater than ever, and the poor have passed on their delusion to those who believe that when George W Bush finally steps down next January, his numerous threats to the rest of humanity will diminish.

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Xan Rice visits Barack Obama's ancestral home, where he meets his grandmother and discusses religion, race and childhood memories with his uncle and half-sister.

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"The statements of our Kenyan brother of American nationality Obama on Jerusalem ... show that he either ignores international politics and did not study the Middle East conflict or that it is a campaign lie," Gadafy said in a speech marking the evacuation of the last US airbase in Libya after he seized power in 1969.

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The US Supreme Court dealt the Bush administration a blow on Thursday by ruling that detainees at Guantánamo Bay could challenge their detention using US civilian courts.

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London, June 10: A 'mini-summit' of the Commonwealth on Tuesday asserted that urgent steps are needed to bring about a major reform of the IMF, World Bank and the UN as the institutions built in the 1940s do not have adequate capacity to meet current challenges.

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John McCain is a saber-rattler when it comes to Russia. On the campaign trail, the Republican presidential candidate warns of the "dangers posed by a revanchist Russia." A quick Google search produces video of McCain plodding through his oft-repeated joke that when he looks in Vladimir Putin's eyes, he sees three letters: KGB (and not, like George Bush, Putin's "soul").

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Hillary Clinton yesterday suspended her bid to become America's first woman president and vowed to help Barack Obama in his fight to win the White House for the Democratic party.

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Clint Eastwood talks to Jeff Dawson about race, euthanasia, politicians, capital punishment - and how he really feels about the 'fascist' role that made him famous.

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Israel "will attack" Iran if it continues to develop nuclear weapons, one of prime minister Ehud Olmert's deputies warned yesterday. Shaul Mofaz, a former defence minister and a contender to replace the scandal-battered Olmert, said military action would be "unavoidable" if Tehran proved able to acquire the technology to manufacture atomic bombs.

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·First direct encounter between rivals for months
·Formal endorsement of winner at rally today

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Barack Obama talks about his nomination as Democratic presidential candidate, potential running mates and his plans to visit Iraq.

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Normally, the guest of honor does not actually show up at the shiva. But the morning after Barack Obama secured enough delegates for the Democratic nomination, leaving Hillary Clinton's campaign all but officially deep-sixed, here was Clinton, giving the speech right after him at the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington. After being introduced as "a Democratic candidate for president," she proceeded to tout her record as a friend of Israel and lay out her foreign policy vision. And her words labored oddly at a number of turns.

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As the primaries end, a round table of experts -- Tom Schaller, Ruy Teixeira and Sean Wilentz -- weighs the influence of white racism on the Clinton vs. Obama contest.

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After playing a little bit of voicemail tag, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton talked by phone early Wednesday morning. There isn't a lot of detail about what exactly the two said to each other, but Obama communications director Robert Gibbs told Time's Mark Halperin that "about 12:16 am ET Obama and Clinton chatted by phone where Obama congratulated her [for her win in South Dakota] and reiterated his offer to 'sit down when it makes sense for you." While Clinton agreed to a meeting, no specific plans were made for the two to get together on Wednesday.

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From Eurovision and the Olympics to the UN and the World Bank, a deficit of accountability drains all true legitimacy.

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"A global shock on this scale requires global solutions," Brown wrote in The Guardian. He pledged to put global action on oil price rises at the top of the agenda at the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Japan in July and promised to propose more international work on "a better dialogue on supply possibilities and trends in demand."

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Vasantha Raja's comment: The British people, just like their counterparts in America, are desperately looking for 'change' - I mean Big Change. Obama seems to have grasped this - or at least in the process of grasping this. Many thought Gordon Brown too would launch the campaign for a big change from the day one since he replaced Tony Blair - the man who epitomized the past, the New Labour. Many expected Brown to unambiguously represent a clean break from Blair-Bush policies. But did he have the vision or the guts to do so? Clearly he did not. He meekly picked patchwork gimmicks to resurrect past politics. He failed to capture the imagination of the masses with a socialist vision at a time when ordinary people, in Britain and elsewhere, instinctively realize there's something fundamentally wrong with the way politicians understood the world and the time has come for change. They sense the New Labour philosophy is just the zenith of old politics. What is needed for both Britain & the US is a radical alternative to the disastrous economic and foreign policies of the past that Bush-Blair duo stood for.

The world is eagerly looking for US-British leadership to guide the world out of the worsening mess. Brown has miserably failed to take the initiative and the British electorate rightly perceived him as another Tony Blair minus the smile. And the message Labour government got from the people is crystal clear: "We don't want Brown"

Tories are cleverly using the Labour leaders' betrayal and the resultant confusion for their advantage. The Labour movement should see the dangers and change Brown's leadership as soon as possible and elect a new socialist leadership that is capable of leading the British people and the world in the right direction.

Read the FT article here..

The present ruler, says Baje, is a god who has been thrown out of his own temple. "We consider the king a divine figure. He is the incarnation of Lord Vishnu. But if we put a picture of him up it will be ripped down. The people don't love him."

Today, Nepal's new constitutional assembly will hold its first meeting and end the monarchy, a key part of a 2006 peace deal with Maoist guerrillas who gave up the bullet for the ballot box on the condition that the country becomes a secular republic. The civil war lasted a decade and cost more than 13,000 lives.

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Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak has called on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to take a leave of absence or resign as he battles allegations of corruption. Mr Barak said he would take his Labor Party out of Mr Olmert's governing coalition if he did not step down.

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Summit in Rome follows record spikes in cost of rice, wheat and dairy products amidst calls for urgent action to tackle serious threat to international stability.

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Russian President Dmitry Medvedev arrived yesterday for a two-day visit in Beijing after a one-day stopover in Kazakhstan, on his first trip abroad since being elected president in March. Upon his arrival, he issued a joint statement with Chinese President Hu Jintao, denouncing plans for a US nuclear missile shield. However, this unity enforced by fear of the US military did not immediately lead to more substantive cooperation on economic matters.

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Bush's comments before the Knesset reflected the destructive nature of his foreign policies for the Middle East.

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Back in the state where his remarkable run began -- also a critical battleground this fall -- Barack Obama focused on a showdown with John McCain.

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Foreign policy has already entered the arena in the US presidential election - and it is getting nasty.

It is the shape of things to come.

The McCain camp is trying to portray the likely Democratic candidate Barack Obama as soft on terrorism, as "Hamas's favourite" and as a man who would not defend America's security. The Hamas tag followed a comment by a Hamas spokesman Ahmed Yousef who told WABC Radio: "We like Mr Obama. We hope he will [win] the election and I do believe he is like John Kennedy, great man with great principle."

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The prospect of a Tory in No 10 does worry me - but no more so than another term for this cabinet of war criminals.

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And amazing it was. It made it possible for him to stand today on the verge of being the first black person ever nominated for president by a major party. One could guess the thoughts of the blacks and whites in that crowd: Can you believe that our state - South Carolina, first to secede and first to open fire in the Civil War - is now catapulting a black man to the front of the presidential contest in a year that bodes well for Democrats? "Race doesn't matter," some began to chant. "Race doesn't matter!" The cry soon gave way to more familiar chants of "Yes we can," and everyone in the auditorium surely knew that race does still matter in so many ways. But in a pinch-me moment, they seemed to realize that a barrier had been broken with a swiftness and certainty that even they had not foreseen.

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John McCain's supporters are reeling after a humbling defeat in a Mississippi by-election. Paul Harris in New York finds the Democrats daring to dream of a return to the White House.

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Barack Obama took a rare day off to spend time with his family at home in Chicago after Tuesday's primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. But he fitted in one trip to his campaign headquarters, to call the most-courted group in the US today, the 250-plus undeclared superdelegates who could settle the Democratic race.

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Burma is still exporting rice even as it tries to curb the influx of international donations of food bound for the starving survivors of the cyclone that killed up to 116,000 people. Sacks of rice destined for Bangladesh were being loaded on to a ship at the Thilawa container port at the mouth of the Yangon River at the end of last week, even though Burma's 'rice bowl' region was devastated by the deadly storm a week ago.

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1.9m at risk of disease and hunger as official damns 'unprecedented' response....

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May 9 (Bloomberg) -- The government of Myanmar is preventing the World Food Program from distributing the food it's flown into the stricken country, leading the United Nations agency to consider whether to cease sending in supplies.

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The US and France yesterday called for international aid to be delivered to cyclone victims without the permission of the Burmese military government if the regime continues to block the arrival of foreign aid workers and material assistance. An airplane loaded with UN aid was allowed to land yesterday, but it represented a tiny trickle compared with the humanitarian needs in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, which is feared to have killed 100,000 people and made up to a million homeless.

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With the pastor's latest invective clouding Obama's campaign, Salon turns to a panel of political and cultural experts for answers.

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A pivotal point came when Obama, in an unguarded moment at a private fundraiser, spoke of the "bitterness" of working class voters in small-town and rural Pennsylvania over wage-cutting, layoffs and deepening economic insecurity, and the indifference of both Republican and Democratic administrations to their plight. Obama made the cardinal sin of broaching the reality of class relations in America, and compounded it by suggesting that economic deprivation found a distorted expression in working people "clinging" to religion and guns and blaming immigrants and foreign workers.

For this, the media, the Republicans and Clinton pilloried Obama as an "elitist", making it clear that the ruling circles would not tolerate any open appeal to class antagonisms in the presidential campaign. Obama got the message, apologized, and remained on the defensive for the remainder of the Pennsylvania campaign.

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Obama's still struggling with white working-class voters. There's still time for him to deal with it -- but Clinton just bought herself some time, too.

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He's flush with cash. He oversees a high-tech political movement. His "change" message fits these anxious times. And, until recently, he had momentum. So why didn't he win Tuesday?

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In an interview on ABC's Good Morning America today, Hillary Clinton pledged that if Iran launches a nuclear attack against Israel, the United States would retaliate against Iran. "I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," Clinton said. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

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Hillary Clinton's victory over Barack Obama in Pennsylvania's primary propels the campaign into the next elections in Indiana and North Carolina. It doesn't alter the basic dynamics of the contest.

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Having covered everything from the IRA to al-Qaeda in four decades of journalism, few people in Britain have spent as much time as the BBC's Peter Taylor with the people behind political violence. Here he reflects on some of his experiences.

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Intrigue. Power. Corruption. Death. Sex. The history of oil has nothing on that of the yellow fruit.

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Protesters felt burned when the city of San Francisco changed the relay route. But one Burmese activist scored against China anyway.

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BEIJING (Reuters) - China's conflict with the Dalai Lama was purely a question of national unity and nothing to do with ethnicity, religion or human rights, Chinese President Hu Jintao said on Saturday.

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US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has asked for "embarrassing" travel restrictions on Nelson Mandela and South African leaders to be lifted. A bill has been introduced in the US Congress to remove from databases any reference to South Africa's governing party and its leaders as terrorists.

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Among the several hundred spectators who joined hundreds of members of the media and the Democratic and Republican Senators on the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees was a fairly small, but particularly skeptical audience—a group of veterans returned from Iraq. "I would have rather not heard from General Petraeus at all," said Geoff Millard, who served with the Army’s 42nd Infantry in Tikrit in 2004 and 2005. "I think we are at capacity of hearing from politicians, pundits and generals."

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The top U.S. general gave Congress an upbeat assessment of the war Tuesday. Here's the reality behind the rhetoric:

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"...in Tibet, China is a colonial power and doesn't belong there. Okay. But in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. military forces are not a colonial power imposing their will from the outside, but +do belong there+, quite unlike the people who are resisting the U.S. forces, who clearly lack this right." (Email, March 22, 2008)

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With recession looming, Clinton banks on '90s nostalgia, reminding Pennsylvania voters of the good old days of her husband's administration.

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The former POW's Senate career has been marked by his outspoken determination never to repeat Vietnam mistakes. So why does he support the Iraq war?

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On March 17, New York Senator and Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton gave a speech at George Washington University outlining her plans to de-escalate U.S. military involvement in Iraq. Though she called for the gradual withdrawal of U.S. combat brigades over the next several years, she continued to refuse to apologize for her 2002 vote authorizing the invasion, to acknowledge the illegality of the war, or to fully explain her false claims made at that time regarding Iraq's military capabilities and alleged ties to al-Qaeda. Nor was she able to offer an explanation as to what led to her dramatic shift from a supporter of the ongoing war and occupation as recently as a year and a half ago to her current more critical perspective.

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TEHRAN, March 29 (Reuters) - Iran called on Saturday for an end to fighting between Iraqi government forces and Shi'ite Muslim militants to remove any "pretext" for U.S. troops to stay in Iraq.

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In an alarming case, U.S. attorneys exploited post-9/11 counterterrorism laws to pursue and prosecute an environmental activist.

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China suffered a propaganda own goal today when a state-organised media trip to Lhasa was interrupted by protesting monks who accused the government of lying to the outside world. More than 30 monks at Jokhang Temple - the most sacred in Tibetan Buddhism - burst in on a briefing during the first foreign journalists tour since riots erupted in the Tibetan capital on March 14.

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The four days of vets’ testimony revealed the struggle these young Americans are waging to regain their humanity and morality after having been transformed into callous war-fighters.

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March 25 (Bloomberg) -- The bomb's blast threw Army Specialist Matthew Stanley from his gunner's turret, leaving his body lifeless on a dusty road in Iraq's Sunni Triangle. When his commander arrived minutes later, the slumping soldier looked asleep, resting in his full body armor.

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5 years after the war on Iraq, Americans are failing to ask the question: What were we doing there in the first place?

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March 22 (Bloomberg) -- China's government said it has international support for its actions in Tibet and rejected a call by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a probe into its claim the Dalai Lama has been behind unrest in the capital Lhasa.

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The revelation that Britain is to collaborate with France - which generates 79% of its electricity from nuclear stations - on future projects reinforces the sense that Britain is about to enter a new nuclear age.

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The speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, has become the first high-profile western official to meet the Dalai Lama since protests in Tibet turned violent last week. Pelosi used her meeting with the exiled spiritual leader in India to call for an international investigation into the situation in his homeland.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than 200 people were arrested across the United States on Wednesday as protesters marking the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq obstructed downtown traffic and tried to block access to government offices.

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BEIJING (Reuters) - Tibet authorities have arrested 24 suspects for "grave crimes" after troops cracked down on anti-Chinese riots that swept the mountain region, with fallout from the turmoil clouding diplomacy and Olympic preparations.

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March 19, 2008 | Each year of George W. Bush's war in Iraq has been represented by a thematic falsehood. That Iraq is now calm or more stable is only the latest in a series of such whoppers, which the mainstream press eagerly repeats. The fifth anniversary of Bush's invasion of Iraq will be the last he presides over. Sen. John McCain, in turn, has now taken to dangling the bait of total victory before the American public, and some opinion polls suggest that Americans are swallowing it, hook, line and sinker.

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COLOMBO, March 19 (Reuters) - Pioneering science fiction writer and visionary Arthur C. Clarke, best known for his work on the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey", has died in his adopted home of Sri Lanka at the age of 90. He died of respiratory complications and heart failure doctors linked to the post-polio syndrome that had kept him wheelchair-bound for years.

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Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has accused the Dalai Lama of masterminding recent violence in Tibet's main city, Lhasa.

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The Iraq War has essentially been the equivalent of an open-ended prison sentence with little hope of parole.

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UN police in Kosovo have been forced to withdraw from the Serb stronghold in northern Mitrovica after riots in which several policemen were injured.

Full Report...

The Dalai Lama yesterday accused China of a "rule of terror" as the violent unrest - which has reportedly claimed dozens of lives - spread to at least two neighbouring provinces. In Aba county, Sichuan province, protesters attacked a police station with petrol bombs and fought street battles with riot police. There were unconfirmed reports of fatal shootings. "It's chaos out there. I am too afraid to leave my home," a resident told the Guardian. "They have been burning, smashing, looting and beating."

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Earth, that is. Our energy expert cracks open the Democratic candidates' proposals on global warming -- and is impressed.

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With the Beijing Olympics just months away, China's top leaders do not want the monks' protests to become the country's defining image. Many members of the Tibet Autonomous Region government are currently in Beijing for the annual National People's Congress.

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Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has denounced remarks made by his pastor that the 9/11 attacks were like "chickens coming home to roost". The Illinois senator said the 2001 comments, which have resurfaced on the web, were "completely inexcusable".

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Ten people have been confirmed killed in riots in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, China's official Xinhua news agency has said.

Witnesses said tanks were on the streets of Lhasa on Saturday as part of a heavy security clampdown after protests against China's controversial rule in the region triggered violence a day earlier.

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Tensions between Germany and France, the two largest economies of the European Union, whose common European policy was once called the “engine of Europe,” have intensified strongly over the past several months. These tensions have become much more visible since the taking of power by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

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The smear campaign against Barack Obama is clearly bigoted and offensive, to Muslims and others.

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Fallon has long been a thorn in the administration's side: while in Egypt, on a tour of his Centcom command, he assured President Hosni Mubarak that there would be no attack on Iran, which leaked to the Egyptian media. Washington was livid. "I'm in hot water, again," he confided to Thomas P.M. Barnett, the Esquire journalist who accompanied him on his trip.

He's been in hot water with administration hawks – including the president, wildest hawk of them all – before. Last fall, he was quoted by Pentagon insiders as calling Gen. David Petraeus an "ass-kissing little chickensh*t" for telling the president what he wanted to hear on Iraq and the "surge."

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US elections 2008: Mississippi was another big win for Obama, as arguments over race and gender continue to overshadow the contest

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Contrary to common perception, women in the Arab world have achieved significant advancement in recent years.

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Mississippi voters go to the polls this morning after confirmation from the Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama that he would not accept any prospective down-ticket offer from his rival, Hillary Clinton.

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Both Clinton, Obama's rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, and her husband, former President Clinton, have suggested a joint Clinton-Obama ticket -- with Obama in the second slot.

"Senator Clinton is fighting hard. She's tenacious. I respect her for that. She is working hard to win the nomination. But I want everybody to be absolutely clear. I'm not running for vice president. I'm running for president of the United States of America," Obama told supporters during a rally in Columbus, Mississippi.

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Israeli and Hamas officials are discussing a possible ceasefire through Egyptian mediators after Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, ordered a halt to raids on the Gaza Strip.

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Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's ruling Socialist Party has won Spain's general election.

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Two senators are asking congressional investigators to look at Iraq's oil revenues and see if the war-ravaged nation can pay for its own reconstruction, an effort that has been bankrolled to this point mostly by U.S. taxpayers.

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March 8 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama won Wyoming's Democratic caucuses today, defeating Hillary Clinton in the first contest since she revived her candidacy with victories on March 4. With 96 percent of the precincts reporting, Obama, an Illinois senator, had 59 percent compared with 41 percent for Senator Clinton of New York. Clinton yesterday told reporters that Wyoming represented a ``steep uphill climb'' for her campaign.

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Serbia is in political turmoil after the country's nationalist prime minister announced that he was dissolving his cabinet and calling for new elections.

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Barack Obama on Saturday night comfortably won caucuses in the western US state of Wyoming, as the Illinois senator sought to regain momentum in the race for the Democratic nomination after defeats to rival Hillary Clinton in Texas and Ohio last week.

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The US has announced the loss of 63,000 jobs in February, the biggest monthly decline for five years, amid fears that the US economy is about to slip into recession.

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Editor's comment: The "see-saw battle" between Clinton & Obama, above all, seems to reflect a fast changing mindset of American masses. A longer battle with full media attention will only help Americans gain more clarification on vital issues such as Iraq war & the economy; and also to transcend racial/gender prejudices even more. Clearly both Obama & Clinton lag behind the fast changing people; Obama in particular is increasingly being pushed to the left due to mass pressure. Disintegration of the economy - the backbone of post-war global market economy - may turn out to be the central issue with Iraq & health-care becoming part of it. Thus, whoever wins the nomination, the future battles with McCain may well become a conflict between socialist & capitalist values whether one likes it or not.

Click Here for a (BBC) summary of the Obama/Clinton battle...

Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's president, has appealed on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) to free French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt.

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Malaysia's ruling coalition has suffered its biggest electoral defeat ever, losing its two-thirds majority, several states and a number of senior leaders.

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"This summit was a gift from God," he was quoted by Reuters as saying after shaking hands with his Colombian and Ecuadorean counterparts at a summit.

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The week-long crisis that threatened to plunge Latin America into turmoil began when Colombian troops killed a leading leftist rebel on a raid into Ecuador on Saturday 1 March.

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Iraqi police said on Friday 68 people were killed in coordinated bombings blamed on al Qaeda in a packed shopping area in central Baghdad on Thursday, making it the deadliest attack in the Iraqi capital for nine months. Another 120 were wounded when two bombs exploded within minutes of each other on Thursday in Baghdad's mainly Shi'ite Karrada district, police said.

Full Report...

At least seven people have been killed by gunmen who are reported to have infiltrated and attacked a Jewish seminary in West Jerusalem.

Full Report...

Gaza's humanitarian situation is at its worst since Israel occupied the territory in 1967, say UK-based human rights and development groups.

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At least 54 people have been killed by two bomb attacks in the Karada shopping area in the centre of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, security officials say.

Full Report...

Kenya is on the verge of a new political era, as the country's parliament prepares to usher in its first ever power-sharing coalition.

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South America is living through one of its worst diplomatic and political crises for many years. Troops have been mobilised and ambassadors withdrawn, while frantic negotiations are going on in Washington and several Latin American capitals to try to deflate the tension.

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On February 22, the Pakistani Telecommunications Authority (PTA) ordered the country’s Internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to YouTube, the world’s most popular video web site. Access was completely restored in Pakistan only after four days, amid popular opposition and allegations of electoral fraud.

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MI5 closely monitored the activities of Joan Littlewood, the theatre director who was later to produce Oh! What a Lovely War, among other hits, and her husband Jimmy Miller, better known as the folk singer Ewan MacColl, and urged the BBC to blacklist them, classified files released yesterday show.

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Hamas has many times proposed a cease-fire with Israel. This would mean a stop to all hostilities.

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US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has held talks with Egyptian officials, the first stage of a trip aimed at saving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

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Timid calls for a ceasefire between Israel and Palestine mask the root cause of the conflict: the problem is the occupation, not the resistance:

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Venezuela and Colombia were locked in a tense stand-off yesterday, with explosive accusations levelled against Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez a day after he ordered tanks and troops to the border.

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Venezuela has ordered the "immediate expulsion" of Colombia's ambassador and embassy officials from its capital, Caracas, the foreign ministry has said:

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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said the presence of foreign forces in Iraq is a humiliation and an insult to the region.

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If Barack Obama defeats Hillary Clinton in Texas or Ohio tomorrow, he will take control of a unified Democratic Party and enter the race against John McCain with an already-established reputation as a political giant- killer:

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The results of a survey of one billion Muslims show that Muslims embrace the same values as Americans:

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Dmitry Medvedev's landslide victory in Russia's presidential election was confirmed today as western observers are expected to deliver a "tough" assessment of the poll. With more than 99% of votes counted, Medvedev, President Vladimir Putin's chosen successor, secured more than 70%.

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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, has arrived in Iraq. He is the first Iranian president to visit Iraq since the two neighbours fought a war in the 1980s that killed more than a million people.

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If Abbas tried to rethink his relations with Hamas, he would be abandoned by Israel and the U.S. If he continues the futile talks with Israel, the patience of his people would run out.

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The Israeli lobby in the United States is adamantly opposed to Obama, preferring Clinton because “they own her.”

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The attacks on Barack Obama's middle name have begun, but the likely Democratic nominee joins a long line of famous Americans with Semitic names, from Benjamin Franklin to Omar Bradley.

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``They have wrapped up the operation quickly,'' Zebari said in a telephone interview from Iraq. He said he hopes such an incursion ``won't be repeated in the future.'' The pullout began at 4 a.m. local time today, he said.

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This is going to be a very interesting presidential election year. For the first time, a presidential candidate is going to campaign on a platform of open, out-of-the-closet imperialism. A war-weary nation will be hectored endlessly by McCain, and exhorted to "sacrifice" – when their homes are being foreclosed. The Republicans' only hope, it seems to me, is copying the Clintons' smear campaign against Barack Obama and hoping that America will never elect a black man with a middle name like "Hussein" and a last name that rhymes with "Osama." That photo of Obama in what one Clintonite referred to as "his native garb" will come in handy, I'm sure.

Full Article...

Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia has dramatically worsened tensions in Spanish domestic politics, fuelling an already volatile situation ahead of next month’s general election. The declaration of independence has encouraged the drive towards separatism within many of Spain’s constituent regions, increasing the possibility of the balkanisation of larger parts of Europe.

Full Article...

The two main Democratic presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have accused each other of negative campaigning in a TV debate.

Full Report...

One of five British hostages being held in Iraq has been shown in a video appealing to the UK government to release members of the armed group holding them.

In a short tape aired by the Dubai-based al-Arabiya TV channel last night, the bearded man said: "My name is Peter Moore, I have been held here for nearly eight months now." He called on Gordon Brown to release nine Iraqis in the custody of coalition forces.

Full Report...

Beijing's gigantic new airport terminal is due to open on Friday. The BBC's James Reynolds has been to see it. It's more like a small country than an airport terminal.

Full Report...

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has hailed Iran's "great victory" over its nuclear programme.

Full Report...

One of the most eminent US cultural institutions, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, has performed a landmark concert in North Korea.

Full Report...

When a population decides that it is a nation, behaves like a nation and fights like a nation - well, then it is a nation and has the right to its own nation-state.

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The man tipped to become the next Russian president has vowed his country will "stick to" its support for Serbia in opposing Kosovo's independence.

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Having "pacified" Iraqis in to the grave, from Abu Ghraib to Fallujah, from Ramadi to Tel Afar, with numerous other murderous stop offs across the land of Abraham, the crusading Christian soldiers are moving onwards to "cleanse" Mosul. That it was the puppet "Prime Minister", Nuri Al Maliki who used the expression is as inconsequential as he is - his orders come from the pacifiers and their masters in Washington.

Full Article...

One week since the declaration of independence, Serb authorities in north-western Kosovo are pushing hard to eradicate all institutions with any connection to the new state.

Full Report...

The spectacular rout of his Pakistan Muslim League (Q) party at the polls has shorn the retired commando of his political base, leaving him isolated and exposed. "He's been sulking," said a senior party official. "He's retreated into a mental bunker, which is not healthy. He thinks everyone is out to get him and only listens to a small circle. It's a dangerous mindset to be in at this point in time. He could decide to hit back."

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WASHINGTON (AP) - The Democratic superdelegates are starting to follow the voters - straight to Barack Obama.

In just the past two weeks, more than two dozen of them have climbed aboard his presidential campaign, according to a survey by The Associated Press. At the same time, Hillary Rodham Clinton's are beginning to jump ship, abandoning her for Obama or deciding they now are undecided.

Full Report...

UN police today fired tear gas at about 5,000 Serb demonstrators trying to cross a bridge in the divided city of Kosovoska Mitrovica, as protests at Kosovo's declaration of independence continued.

Full Story...

Germany on Friday warned Serbia of negative consequences for the country's relations with the European Union if protests against embassies in Belgrade continued.

Full Report...

Protesters angry at western countries' acceptance of Kosovan independence target embassies, including those of Britain and the US, in Belgrade

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Thousands of Turkish troops, backed by warplanes, have entered northern Iraq to attack Kurdish rebels in the largest ground offensive since the US-led invasion. Up to 10,000 soldiers were reported to have crossed the border after fighter jets and heavy artillery bombed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) forces.

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Thousands of Serbs are gathering for a rally in Belgrade to protest against Kosovo's declaration of independence over the weekend.

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The full extent of government anxiety about the state of British-Israel relations can be exposed for the first time today in a secret document seen by the Guardian.

The document reveals how the Foreign Office successfully fought to keep secret any mention of Israel contained on the first draft of the controversial, now discredited Iraq weapons dossier. At the heart of it was nervousness at the top of government about any mention of Israel's nuclear arsenal in an official paper accusing Iraq of flouting the UN's authority on weapons of mass destruction.

Full Story...

Barack Obama takes Wisconsin, his ninth successive Democratic primary win. Suzanne Goldenberg says he is eating into Hillary Clinton's coalition of support, taking votes of white women and the working class.

Full Article...

President Pervez Musharraf today pledged to complete his five-year term in defiance of opposition demands that he step down, setting the stage for a confrontation with the incoming government.

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Fidel Castro is stepping down as president and commander in chief of Cuba after almost 50 years in power. How will he be remembered?

Full Report...

LONDON (Reuters) - Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has said he is not ready to resign despite suffering big losses in a parliamentary election this week.

Full Report...

Russia has warned the US that Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia endangers international stability.

Full Report...

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush recognized on Tuesday the independence of Kosovo from Serbia and said it would bring peace to the Balkans.

Full Report...

The main party backing President Pervez Musharraf has admitted defeat in Pakistan's elections. The two main opposition parties, the PPP of late PM Benazir Bhutto and the PML-N, led by another former PM, Nawaz Sharif, have a clear majority.

Full Report...

HAVANA (Reuters) - Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro said on Tuesday that he will not return to lead the country as president or commander-in-chief, retiring as head of state 49 years after he seized power in an armed revolution.

Full Report...

A number of European countries are expected to recognise Kosovo as an independent state after EU foreign ministers meet in Brussels on Monday.

Full Report...

Shares in stricken mortgage lender Northern Rock were suspended from stock market dealings this morning following the government's controversial decision on Sunday to nationalise the bank.

Full Report...

Angela Balakrishnan profiles the men most likely to fill the power vacuum in Cuba following the resignation of Fidel Castro:

Full Analysis...

Sympathy vote for assassinated Benazir Bhutto's party expected to give it the edge in election beset by worries of militant attacks.

Full Report...

Kosovo's parliament has unanimously endorsed a declaration of independence from Serbia, in an historic session.

Full Report...

At least 80 people have been killed in a suicide bombing outside the Afghan city of Kandahar - in what appears to be the deadliest attack since 2001.

Full Report...

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani opposition politicians warned against vote rigging on Sunday, the eve of a general election that could usher in a parliament intent on forcing U.S. ally President Pervez Musharraf from power.

Full Report...

MITROVICA, Serbia (Reuters) - Serbs held a day of prayer and protest on Saturday on the eve of the independence of Kosovo, their cherished southern province that is home to 2 million Albanians.

Full Report...

The United Nations has condemned Eritrea, accusing it of preventing hundreds of peacekeepers from crossing from Eritrea into Ethiopia.

Full Report...

At least 27 people have been killed in a blast in Pakistan's tribal region after a meeting of murdered ex-PM Benazir Bhutto's party, reports say.

Full Report...

US President George W Bush has backed calls for a power-sharing agreement to end weeks of strife in Kenya following disputed presidential elections.

Full Report...

The independence of Kosovo will bring an old Balkan story full circle.

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This is just the beginning, activist warns, as China tries to limit damage.

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PRISTINA, Serbia (Reuters) - After a decade struggling to prove it deserves independence, Kosovo's hardest task is still ahead: proving it can afford it.

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A few days ago, the Associated Press reported that the small Israeli town of Kiryat Yam is suing Google for slander, after a Google Earth user "inserted a note on the map" saying that the town was built "on the location of Ghawarina", a Palestinian village destroyed in 1948.

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DEKALB, Illinois (Reuters) - A man who killed five students and himself during a shooting spree at an Illinois college had stopped taking medication and become erratic in the last two weeks, buying two guns used in the bloodbath just six days ago, officials said on Friday.

Full Report...

Maybe, sooner or later, American journalists in Iraq will register those ‘precision’ bombs and missiles landing on a farming district on the edge of Baghdad.

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A gunman dressed in black stepped from behind a curtain at the front of a large lecture hall at Northern Illinois University on Thursday and shot 21 people, five of them fatally, then shot and killed himself, said university president John Peters.

CNN Video...

Serbia defiantly told the United Nations on Thursday that it will never allow Kosovo to become independent -- despite U.S. and European Union support for the province to make the move.

See CNN Video Report...

China has expressed regret over film director Steven Spielberg's decision to pull out as artistic adviser to the Beijing Olympics over the Darfur issue.

Full Report...

Thousands of people from rival camps are taking part in key memorials amid heightened tension in Beirut.

Full Report...

Remember the common scene from old spy movies, in which the hero is trapped in a small room or an elevator and suddenly the walls start closing in on him?

That's where Hillary Clinton is today. She's not yet gasping for air as the walls begin to press against her rib cage. But she's noticed that they're moving, and she needs to think fast.

Full Article...

China today expressed regret over Steven Spielberg's resignation as artistic consultant to the Beijing Olympics over Darfur, and accused critics of its policy in Sudan of having "ulterior motives".

Full Article...

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Darfur's splintered rebel groups on Wednesday united in praising U.S. film director Steven Spielberg for quitting as artistic adviser to the Beijing Olympics, with one calling for athletes to follow his lead.

Full Report...

Instead of admitting failure in Iraq, U.S. and Iraqi authorities resort to violence to confuse the world from the real issues.

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Obama victories reflect, above all, a historic change in America's white mindset. If America's white majority join with the black community to elect a black man as their president that will mark a leap, not just in American consciousness but in the "white west" as a whole.

Read BBC's Justin Webb's page for an update of Obama's seemingly unstoppable march towards the final goal in November:

US film director Steven Spielberg has withdrawn as an artistic adviser to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. In a statement, he accused China of not doing enough to pressure its ally Sudan to end the "continuing human suffering" in the troubled western Darfur region.

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BEIRUT -- Three simultaneous developments related to the Gaza Strip earlier provide a historic and dramatic opportunity for Egypt and the palestinians -- especially palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas -- that should not be missed.

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Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko is in Moscow to try to persuade Russia not to cut gas supplies to his country in a dispute over an unpaid bill.

Full Report... 

In a speech to the general synod, Rowan Williams clarifies his comments on Islamic law in Britain, saying that there does not have to be an 'all or nothing' introduction of sharia law:

See the video...

The foreign secretary, David Miliband, will today set out the clearest exposition yet of Labour's recast foreign policy when he will argue that mistakes made in Iraq and Afghanistan must not cloud the moral imperative to intervene - sometimes militarily - to help spread democracy throughout the world.

Full Report...

Illinois Senator Barack Obama won the Louisiana primary, state caucuses in Washington state, Nebraska and Maine and a caucus in the US Virgin Islands last weekend, putting him in a virtual tie with Senator Hillary Clinton in terms of delegate support, with the likelihood that Tuesday’s three primaries in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, DC would give him a significant lead for the first time in the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Full Article...

Barack Obama slashed Hillary Clinton's once-commanding lead in the battle for the Democratic party's presidential nomination when he won five contests at the weekend by huge margins. In one of his best performances since he won the opening race in Iowa on January 3, he emerged on top in contests in places as diverse as Washington state, Nebraska, Louisiana, Maine and the US Virgin Islands.

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A bitter conflict is developing within the Iraqi parliament over the attempts of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to push through laws that are opposed by the Kurdish and Shiite parties that make up the core of his governing coalition:

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EU officials furious as Washington says it wants extra data on all air passengers:

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Bush has admitted that the invasion of Iraq was aimed primarily at seizing predominant influence over its oil by establishing permanent military bases.

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Barack Obama inflicted shattering defeats on Hillary Clinton tonight in Washington state and Nebraska, beating her by a margin of two to one. He was also won Louisiana, though by a narrower margin.

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Arab governments can learn a lesson from the U.S. invasion of Iraq: identify the U.S. danger to their sovereignty and address it while serving their own national interest:

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The title of this series of lectures signals the existence of what is very widely felt to be a growing challenge in our society - that is, the presence of communities which, while no less 'law-abiding' than the rest of the population, relate to something other than the British legal system alone.

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In a speech last night, the Archbishop of Canterbury supported a discussion about whether introducing Muslim sharia law to Britain would help social cohesion:

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Vladimir Putin on Friday called on Russia to develop new types of high-tech weapons as the country was forced to respond to new global challenges while the west failed to react to its security concerns.

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The issue on which Sen. Obama scored the most points in the January 31st debate with Sen. Clinton was the Iraq occupation.

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John McCain has forged ahead in his bid to win the US Republican presidential nomination with primary wins in several big states, according to projections.

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Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Senator Hillary Clinton won the biggest of the Super Tuesday primaries while Senator Barack Obama won more states, extending their struggle for the Democratic presidential nomination into next month and beyond.

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So: it ain't over. Bill Clinton, regarded as a political analyst with almost supernatural abilities, was saying a fortnight ago that the Democratic nomination would be wrapped up on February 5 - but my calendar says today is February 6 and this contest is as unresolved as ever. The delegate count is pretty even and, the numbers apart, the night did not even yield a clear, psychological victor. Yes, Hillary Clinton won the big prizes of California, Massachusetts and New Jersey, but Barack Obama won more states, including the always-cherished Missouri. Narrowly, it was a better night for Clinton, which will mean that Obama's phenomenal week of momentum will have been slowed. But otherwise, it's stalemate. Which means the next period is fraught with risks for the Democrats, even if last night offered some reasons for good cheer too.

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The crisis of the Afghan occupation is a reminder of its fraudulent claims, growing cost in blood, and certainty of failure.

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The Democratic and Republican presidential candidates make their final pitches to voters: 

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With Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama locked in a Super Tuesday dead heat, the two ageing lions of the Democratic party, Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy, make their final pleas in Albuquerque, New Mexico

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Hillary Clinton tried yesterday to bring Barack Obama's aspirational candidacy back to earth, repeatedly accusing him of misleading voters in an attempt to halt his poll momentum ahead of tomorrow's Super Tuesday contest.

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Armies can be defeated but human spirit cannot be subdued. Gaza’s act of collective courage is one of the greatest acts of civil disobedience of our time. 

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• The state of Bush’s union circles the drain

"The State of the Union is strong!" bellowed Bill Clinton in his Last Hurrah before the joint session of the U.S. congress some eight years ago. It is customary at these photo-op spectacles to engage in inflated rhetoric. Hence George Bush's proud announcement that "we showed the world the power and resilience of American self-government." Did we ever! Otherwise Bush has dutifully followed suit, trying to fit the bill that Reagan and then Clinton established as the norm: there were the usual heroic guests, like the Virginia Tech student who stemmed the bleeding of his own femoral artery during the shooting at the Blacksburg campus last Spring. There were the usual partisan rhetorical flourishes, a sort of pageantry where one half of the chamber applauds vociferously and the other sits on its hands. Of course, if any of them had any integrity, they wouldn’t show up at all.

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DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged European and other countries to open up more to trade and investment to help offset the risk of a downturn in the global economy.

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Did his victory in Iowa and strong showing in New Hampshire really "put to rest the notion that a black candidate can't win in America"?

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