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/ 28 September 2007
The trigger for Burma’s crisis is primarily economic rather than political. Although the main focus of the thousands of Burmese who have been taking to the streets is a demand for an end to the army dictatorship, it was the economy that propelled most of them to risk their lives.
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/ 28 September 2007
An Israeli missile strike killed a Palestinian militant in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, medical workers and witnesses said, a day after 11 Palestinians were killed during an Israeli raid into the coastal territory. Residents said the missile attack killed one gunman and wounded two others from the Islamic Jihad militant group.
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/ 27 September 2007
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) hopes a new biometric identity card (ID) scheme backed by the European Union can help overhaul its undisciplined armed forces, branded by campaigners as the central African state’s worst rights abuser. After decades as a tool of repression under former leader Mobutu Sese Seko and a devastating 1998 to 2003 war, DRC’s army is bloated, unmanageable and corrupt.
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/ 27 September 2007
Troops cleared protesters from the streets of central Yangon on Thursday, giving them 10 minutes to leave or be shot as the Burma junta intensified a two-day crackdown on the largest uprising in 20 years. At least nine people were killed, state television said, on a day when far fewer protesters took to the streets after soldiers raided monasteries in the middle of the night.
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/ 27 September 2007
Pakistan military leader President Pervez Musharraf filed nomination papers on Thursday to run for re-election on October 6, while the Supreme Court prepared to rule on the army chief’s eligibility to stand. A bench of nine judges is due to deliver a ruling on Friday that could have far-reaching consequences for Pakistan’s transition to greater democracy.
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/ 25 September 2007
Hundreds of monks marched towards central Yangon on Tuesday in defiance of a threat by Burma’s ruling generals to send soldiers in to end the biggest anti-junta protests in 20 years. About 2Â 000 monks and ordinary people marched out of the Shwedagon Pagoda, the former Burma’s holiest shrine and the symbolic heart of a growing campaign against 45 years of unbroken military rule.
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/ 25 September 2007
Sierra Leone arrested eight Guineans, including military personnel and fisheries inspectors, whom it accused of carrying out a pirate attack on two locally licensed fishing vessels, officials said on Monday. But Guinean authorities rejected the piracy charge, saying the men were on a legitimate fisheries protection patrol.
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/ 24 September 2007
Saddam Hussein’s notorious hatchet man ”Chemical Ali” was accused on Monday of ordering villagers executed in batches of 25 at a time as he brutally crushed a Shi’ite rebellion in Iraq in 1991. Ali Hassan al-Majid and 14 others returned to the dock for their trial on charges of crimes against humanity after a month-long break.
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/ 21 September 2007
Sri Lankan fighter jets bombed a Tamil Tiger military base in the rebel-held far north on Friday, triggering multiple explosions, the air force said, while a suspected rebel roadside bomb killed one civilian in the east. The air strike targeted top leaders of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
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/ 21 September 2007
Pakistan’s General Pervez Musharraf appointed a new military spy chief and made several other promotions on Friday, days after announcing his plan to step down as head of the army. Appointments are closely watched in Pakistan, as generals have ruled for more than half of the 60 years since the country was founded.
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/ 18 September 2007
Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf will give up his post of army chief if he is re-elected president and he will be sworn in for a new term as a civilian, his lawyer told the Supreme Court on Tuesday. The promise to stand down as army chief removes a major objection to Musharraf’s proposed re-election by October 15.
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/ 17 September 2007
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf plans to quit as army chief to become a civilian leader, removing a key objection to his proposed re-election in October. Musharraf has been holding the post of army chief since he seized power in a military coup in 1999 despite calls from the opposition to quit the dual office.
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/ 14 September 2007
Nigerian troops on Friday raided a community in the restive Niger Delta in a bid to dislodge armed gangs who have been terrorising the local population there, a military spokesperson said. The operation "began at 10am [local time]. The objective is to hunt down the militants from the creeks," Major Musa Sagir said.
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/ 14 September 2007
Soldiers in the Central African Republic (CAR) have massacred hundreds of people and burned villages, forcing civilians to flee, during a counter-insurgency campaign, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Friday. The watchdog group blamed President Francois Bozize’s elite guard for atrocities carried out since mid-2005.
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/ 14 September 2007
At least 15 Pakistani soldiers were killed on Thursday in a suicide bombing at an army building near the capital Islamabad, the military said, the second major attack on the army this month. The blast occurred in the canteen of the building used by the army’s elite Special Services Group in the town of Tarbela Ghazi.
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/ 13 September 2007
Most of the world’s 1,2-billion Muslims celebrated the start of the holy month of Ramadan on Thursday as Indonesians prayed for the victims of a massive earthquake that rocked Sumatra island a day earlier. The start of Ramadan, the holiest month of the Muslim calendar, is traditionally determined by the sighting of a new crescent moon.
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/ 12 September 2007
Pakistani helicopter gunships and artillery pounded pro-Taliban militant hide-outs in a tribal region near the Afghan border, killing up to 40 insurgents, the army said on Wednesday. Hours earlier, dozens of Islamist fighters attacked a check post and kidnapped 12 troops a few kilometres away in the country’s north-west.
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/ 12 September 2007
Somali opposition figures meeting in Eritrea united to form a new ”liberation” movement on Wednesday to seek a military or diplomatic solution to conflict in their homeland, a spokesperson said. The main aim of the organisation, called the Alliance for the Liberation of Somalia, is to secure the exit of Ethiopian troops who are backing the interim government in Somalia.
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/ 12 September 2007
A senior Darfur rebel leader accused the Sudanese government on Wednesday of trying to grab land ahead of October peace talks, and threatened to pull out of the talks unless attacks stopped. Justice and Equality Movement leader Khalil Ibrahim said the violence in the remote west would make it impossible for him to travel to negotiations with Khartoum.
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/ 11 September 2007
The Ugandan army tortured and unlawfully killed civilians while carrying out a disarmament programme in the country’s troubled Karamoja region, an international human rights group said on Tuesday. According to a report, Ugandan soldiers opened fire on children, among other charges.
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/ 11 September 2007
A rocket fired by Gaza militants smashed into an Israeli army base early Tuesday, wounding dozens of sleeping conscripts and heightening pressure on the government to hit the Hamas-ruled territory. At least 69 soldiers sleeping in tents were wounded when the homemade rocket crashed into the Zikim base.
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/ 11 September 2007
One of the world’s most sought after cocaine kingpins was hunted down and captured in Colombia on Monday in the toughest blow against the country’s drugs trade in more than a decade. Diego Montoya, who goes by the alias ”Don Diego”, was the top boss of the Norte del Valle cartel, believed to be responsible for two-thirds of the cocaine exported from Colombia to Europe and the US.
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/ 10 September 2007
Pakistan’s former prime minister Nawaz Sharif launched another phase of his political career on Monday, returning home to challenge the army chief who ousted him eight years ago. Despite the possibility of arrest on graft charges as he steps off his aircraft in Islamabad, Sharif says he is determined to end his exile.
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/ 9 September 2007
Burundi rebels refused on Sunday to rejoin a truce monitoring team they quit in July unless the South African chief mediator of talks with the government is replaced. The Forces for National Liberation — the last active rebel group in the tiny Central African country — accused Charles Nqakula of bias.
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/ 9 September 2007
A car bomb has killed at least 28 coast guard officers in Algeria just days after a blast ripped through a crowd waiting for the president. The bombings are being seen as a show of strength by the country’s main extremist group, which has gained force after linking up with al-Qaeda. Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni warned terrorists that they have ”one choice: turn themselves in or die”.
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/ 8 September 2007
A car bomb killed 10 people in eastern Algeria on Saturday, a security source said. The source gave no further details of the bomb attack in Dellys town, 100km east of Algiers. The explosion happened two days after a suicide bomb attack in the town of Batna that killed at least 20 people, including the attacker.
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/ 8 September 2007
Fresh clashes have erupted between a renegade general and government troops in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The United Nations said violence in the region was hampering efforts to deliver food to tens of thousands of displaced
civilians.
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/ 8 September 2007
Osama bin Laden said in a new video marking the sixth anniversary of al-Qaeda’s September 11 attacks that the United States was vulnerable despite its military and economic power, but he made no specific threats. The al-Qaeda leader said US President George Bush was repeating the mistakes of the former Soviet Union by refusing to acknowledge losses in Iraq.
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/ 7 September 2007
The death toll from a suicide bomb attack in the Algerian town of Batna has risen to 19, the government of the north African country said on Friday. The blast also wounded 107 people, according to an interior ministry statement carried by the official APS news agency. The previous official toll was 14 killed and 60 wounded.
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/ 7 September 2007
Renegade Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) General Laurent Nkunda said on Friday the Congolese army had attacked his position, breaking a fragile ceasefire negotiated by United Nations mediators in eastern DRC. ”I have told Monuc [the United Nations mission in DRC] that we were attacked this morning [Friday],” Nkunda said.
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/ 7 September 2007
United States President George Bush said on Friday the United States would be willing to consider a peace treaty with North Korea if it gave up its nuclear weapons programme. ”We’re looking forward to the day when we can end the Korean War.” Bush told reporters after meeting South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun.
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/ 6 September 2007
Efforts to rejuvenate the South African Army will see 3 000 new recruits being taken in next year, with the figure shooting up to 7 000 in 2009, it was announced on Thursday. ”We need a young and fit group of soldiers,” army chief General Solly Shoke told reporters in Pretoria.