Cites Saudi peace
plan as positive step
Haaretz (Israel) Apr 2, 07 1:06 PM CDT
(Newser)
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Ehud Olmert says he's keen for multilateral talks with Arab leaders, after a Saudi summit last week produced the outlines of a peace plan, Haaretz reports. "The readiness to accept Israel as a fact and to debate the terms of a future solution is a step that I cannot help but appreciate," the PM told a press conference yesterday.
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Claims he's the only real conservative
in the GOP field
CNN Apr 2, 07 6:18 AM CDT
(Newser)
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Former governor and Bush cabinet member Tommy Thompson announced for president yesterday, staking a claim to the territory to the right of the other GOP contenders. "I am the reliable conservative, my record shows that," said the one-time secretary of Health and Human Services and four-term governor of Wisconsin.
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Latest evidence of breach with ally
New York Times Mar 29, 07 8:53 AM CDT
(Newser)
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King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia fired a warning shot at the Bush administration yesterday, calling Iraq “an illegal foreign occupation” and urging Arab leaders to unite to prevent U.S. domination of the region. The Saudis "are telling the U.S. they need to listen to their allies rather than imposing decisions on them,” Middle East expert Mustapha Hamarneh tells the New York Times.
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Middle East Can Learn From Northern Ireland
Philadelphia Inquirer Mar 28, 07 7:01 PM CDT
(Newser)
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"Watching this stooped white-haired man reverse a lifetime's course made one feel that change might be possible in other intractable situations," writes Trudy Rubin of Ian Paisley's meeting with Gerry Adams to agree on power sharing in Northern Ireland. The "other situation" Rubin has in mind is for the Middle East.
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Britain steps up pressure by freezing business activity
New York Times Mar 28, 07 6:08 PM CDT
(Newser)
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Iran promised to release by Friday the female sailor captured along with 15 men in a British patrol boat last week. England stepped up pressure to free the soldiers by cutting off "bilateral business" and publicizing secret documents which mark its boat nearly two miles from Iranian waters at the time of its capture.
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Hawks in the Bush administration were pro-Israel, but the results weren't
Time Mar 26, 07 12:33 PM CDT
(Newser)
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"As a Jew, I am embarrassed by the role that so many prominent Jews have had in empowering the enemy," Joe Klein writes in a blog from Jerusalem, noting the number of neoconservatives in the Bush war machine who had close ties to the Israeli government. Klein says the War on Terror they helped craft has made Israel less secure.
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Insurgents target efforts to provide food, fuel, services
New York Times Mar 26, 07 12:05 PM CDT
(Newser)
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Baghdad's Sunni neighborhoods are in collapse, lacking food, fuel, electricity and health care even as their Shiite neighbors have regained basic services, Alissa Rubin reports. In Shiite areas, the Mahdi Army fills in for the government by keeping order and organizing resources, but Sunnis now find themselves under attack both from Shiite forces and Sunni insurgents.
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Iraqis are fleeing to their neighbors by the millions, while the U.S. sits pretty
BBC Mar 21, 07 12:38 PM CDT
(Newser)
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The Iraq war has created nearly two million refugees, and they're going largely ignored by world governments, the UN warns. "There has been an abject denial of the impact, the humanitarian impact, of the war," says a UN refugee agency spokesperson. Most of the refugees stream into neighboring Syria and Jordan, threatening to further destabilize the region.
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New York Times Mar 21, 07 9:00 AM CDT
(Newser)
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Insurgents in Baghdad used two children in the backseat of a car to lower suspicion at an American security checkpoint, then blew up the car, with the children in it. Once they cleared the checkpoint, the bombers parked near a school, ran from the car, and detonated the bomb, killing the children and three other civilians, and wounding seven.
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Los Angeles Times Mar 19, 07 3:40 PM CDT
(Newser)
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While the president has been busy assuring Americans that Iraq is a "noble" war, among those who haven't been listening are his wife, his children and his nieces and nephews, observes Kitty Kelley, who chronicled the Bush clan in 2004. The first family is AWOL on the war effort, she points out.
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British coroner calls soldier's 2003 death "criminal"
CNN Mar 18, 07 11:08 PM CDT
(Newser)
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The British government is taking aim at the U.S. military for its role in covering up the 2003 friendly-fire death of a British solider in Iraq. A coroner’s report Friday ruled Lance Cpl. Matty Hull’s death at the hands of American pilots avoidable—and criminal—but the U.S. refuses to release the full military report on the incident.
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Target was key figure in U.S. efforts to disarm militia, create jobs
New York Times Mar 16, 07 12:07 PM CDT
(Newser)
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The mayor of Sadr City was wounded and his police chief killed in an ambush yesterday, creating new challenges for the U.S. military effort to bring security to the Shiite stronghold and rein in the Mahdi Army. The mayor, Rahim al-Daraji, has been a key figure in negotiating with American officials to disarm the militia.
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Palestinians coming of age have no jobs, no hopes, no agenda but resistance
New York Times Mar 12, 07 2:19 PM CDT
(Newser)
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The generation of Palestinians now coming of age—and 56.4 percent of the population is under 19—have no hopes for peace, only of a lifetime of “resistance.” Growing up through two intifadas, they are isolated from the world, divided amongst themselves, and surrounded by violence, reports Steven Erlanger. The struggling West Bank economy offers few jobs and the only non-Palestinians they see are gun-toting Israeli soldiers. Resistance groups Fatah and Hamas are recruiting--and competing--aggressively. "We’re pushed all the time to be more political, more militant, more religious, more extreme,” says a 20-year-old student . "Now, there is no politics, no talks," says a 46-year-old ambulance driver, "so the sacrifices of the youth are wasted and empty."
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