Jonathan Steele
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/ 10 December 2007

Insurgents ‘regroup’

Iraq’s main Sunni-led resistance groups have scaled back their attacks on United States forces in Baghdad and parts of Anbar province in a deliberate strategy aimed at regrouping, retraining, and waiting out George W Bush’s “surge”, a key insurgent leader has said. US officials recently reported a 55% drop in attacks across Iraq. One explanation they give is the presence of 30 000 extra US troops deployed earlier this year.

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/ 25 September 2007

Post-Putin won’t have to curry favour with West

Among the neon and the glitz of Moscow’s car-choked streets, a new hoarding stands out for its stark simplicity. Apart from the colours of the Russian flag, there is no image and its wording is short: ”Putin’s plan, Russia’s victory”. For Russians over the age of 30, the echo is unmistakable. They are bound to remember a favoured Soviet slogan from Communist days: ”The party’s plans are the people’s plans.”

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/ 3 September 2007

Drawing borders fuels conflict

The death toll from the recent brutal attacks by suicide bombers on two small-town communities in northern Iraq crept up above 500, making it by far the worst atrocity since the 2003 invasion. Why did four truck bombers make these people their target? The mind struggles for an answer. Yet there is a potential explanation for their killing.

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/ 19 February 2007

Sri Lanka resorts to brutal tactics

The roadblock was unexpected. Driving to Colombo along Sri Lanka’s south-west coast, we were forced on to a side street by police in Hikkaduwa, one of the island’s main tourist centres. There must have been a multiple crash, we assumed, as the detour along narrow village lanes took us past rice paddies shimmering in the afternoon sun, writes Jonathan Steele.

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/ 10 November 2006

A profound pessimism has taken hold of Israel

The Israeli artillery fire that claimed 18 civilian lives in Beit Hanoun this week is the worst single attack in Gaza for six years. Whether it will prompt an end to Hamas’s moratorium on suicide bombings hangs in the balance, but the attack — said by Israeli officials to be an error — has clearly put Israel on the moral defensive.

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/ 19 September 2006

The last thing Darfur needs is Western troops

An air of unreality, if not cant, surrounds the latest upsurge of calls for United Nations troops to go into Sudan’s western region of Darfur. The actor George Clooney takes to the stage at the UN Security Council, pleading for action. British Prime Minister Tony Blair seizes on the issue to write letters to fellow European Union leaders.

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/ 14 August 2006

Arab despots under threat

Unlike good children, Israel’s drones are heard but not seen. Officially called unmanned aerial vehicles, these ”eyes in the sky” circle south Lebanon day and night. Between 1,8m and 3,6m long, they are little more than cameras and a motor.
They usually fly too high to be spotted, but make a noise so loud you cannot forget it; like a swarm of wasps on a summer afternoon.

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/ 10 July 2006

Russophobia is back

With two weeks to go before Vladimir Putin hosts the G8’s first summit in Russia, criticisms are pouring in from Western think tanks and politicians. Some are legitimate, but many are wildly prejudiced. Russophobia is back. In the latter category was a speech by the United States Vice-President, Dick Cheney, in Lithuania.