Simon Tisdall
Guest Author
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/ 31 May 2006

Syria’s silent purge

Almost a year after Syria completed a humiliating military withdrawal from Lebanon amid predictions of imminent regime change in Damascus, President Bashar Assad is clawing back lost ground. Dozens of dissidents have been arrested in recent weeks.

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/ 9 May 2006

Pakistan’s power shift

Inside Peshawar’s cloistered mosques, high in the rugged passes of the North-West Frontier, and deep in the upholstered opposition salons of Lahore, there is growing consensus it is time for Pervez Musharraf to go. But who will replace the general president, Pakistan’s unelected leader since 1999, and how his departure can be achieved are questions so far lacking answers.

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/ 7 April 2006

Iran’s exercise in bravado

Iran has been conducting a sort of grand military parade up and down the Gulf this week, displaying its defensive hardware, test-firing sophisticated-sounding new weapons systems, and proclaiming its readiness to repel all would-be aggressors. The commander of the ”Great Prophet” exercises declared that Iran is now able to ”confront any extra-regional invasion”.

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/ 15 March 2006

Thailand’s troubles

A political morality play is being acted out on the streets of Bangkok as Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand’s Prime Minister, battles to keep his job in the teeth of escalating protests by an ad hoc alliance of opposition parties, students, trade unions and celibate Buddhist vegetarians pledged to the simple life.

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/ 10 March 2006

US beefs up dossier

George Bush’s explanation of his volte-face over a proposed Iran-India gas pipeline project appeared slightly disingenuous. ”Our beef with Iran is not the pipeline,” the United States president said recently after withdrawing previous objections and giving the go-ahead to Washington’s new friends in Delhi.

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/ 16 February 2006

Africa’s forgotten crises

In Africa, everything is bigger. Since the second intifada began in 2000, approximately 4 480 Palestinians and Israelis have died — but that is equivalent to a long weekend in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where, the United Nations says, 1 200 people are dying every day from war-related causes.

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/ 8 February 2006

Bush’s phone offensive

It would normally have been seen as a routine courtesy. But when Bolivia’s newly elected populist President, Evo Morales, received a congratulatory telephone call from the White House last week, he confessed he was surprised.The US has made no secret of its concerns over Morales’s plans to legalise coca cultivation and his fraternal links with Hugo Chávez.

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/ 24 January 2006

Malaysia’s hi-tech search for sense of identity

In multi-ethnic, multi-faith, multilingual Malaysia, the new national ID card is a tie that binds. While Britain’s politicians wrangle over the issue, many Malaysians see their ”multi-application smart card” as a unifying sign of national progress. It is also a tool in a hi-tech fight for economic survival in a globalised world of encircling superpowers.