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/ 30 November 2007
President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed into law Russia’s suspension of a Cold War treaty limiting military forces in Europe as a senior lawmaker warned that other international accords could be reviewed. The signing came on the final day of campaigning ahead of parliamentary elections on Sunday in which Putin has accused the West of trying to weaken Russia.
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/ 26 November 2007
Pakistan’s ex-premier Nawaz Sharif plotted tactics with key aides on Monday as he sought to capitalise on his hero’s welcome home from exile to spur opposition to President Pervez Musharraf. Sharif, who was ousted by Musharraf in a coup in 1999, was due to file his nomination papers for general elections, despite warning his party may end up boycotting the January 8 vote.
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/ 24 November 2007
Twin suicide blasts killed at least 15 people on Saturday in the Pakistani garrison town of Rawalpindi adjoining Islamabad, the military said, including 13 aboard a Defence Ministry bus. A suicide bomber rammed a car into the back of the bus outside an intelligence-service office.
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/ 18 November 2007
Afghan and Nato-led troops, backed by air power, killed at least 12 Taliban fighters and wounded another 15 in an operation in southern Afghanistan, a Defence Ministry spokesperson said on Sunday. Mostly Canadian Nato troops and Taliban insurgents have been engaged in fierce fighting in the Zherai district, west of the biggest southern city of Kandahar.
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/ 16 November 2007
At least 629 people have died in Bangladesh as a result of severe Cyclone Sidr, it was officially stated on Friday. The cyclone roared ashore with winds of more than 250km/h, and the death toll was expected to rise further, with about 1 000 fishermen reported as missing.
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/ 25 October 2007
Ratcheting up the pressure on Tehran, the United States on Thursday designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps a proliferater of weapons of mass destruction and its elite Qods force a supporter of terrorism. In total, Washington slapped sanctions on more than 20 Iranian companies, major banks and individuals as well as the Defence Ministry.
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/ 25 October 2007
Israeli officials prepared a plan on Wednesday to cut power supplies to the Gaza Strip amid violence that killed two Palestinian boys after a rocket salvo damaged an apartment building in the Jewish state. The United Nations has told Israel it must not inflict collective punishment by cutting vital supplies and services.
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/ 15 October 2007
Authorities have ordered the deportation of two Americans working for a security firm that was trying to recruit Namibians to work as guards at United States facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Namibian Cabinet also recommended the closure of the local branch of the Las Vegas-based security firm, Special Operations Consulting-Security Management Group.
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/ 14 October 2007
Six names of the nine South African National Defence Force soldiers who died during a training accident at the South African Army Combat Training Centre in Lohatla, Northern Cape, were released on Saturday. The Department of Defence has appointed a high-level board of inquiry to investigate the accident.
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/ 12 October 2007
Nine South African soldiers were killed on Friday in a shooting accident involving an anti-aircraft gun during a training exercise at a base in the central Bloemfontein region, the army said. "I can confirm that nine of our people have died and another 15 were injured and taken to various," a South African National Defence Force spokesperson said.
Mogadishu traders were dejectedly sifting through the charred remains of their shops on Thursday after a huge fire destroyed one-third of Bakara market, once the Somali capital’s main business hub. The vast market area and its intricate network of alleyways were completely disfigured by the fire.
Fierce clashes erupted in Mogadishu between Ethiopian-backed Somali forces and Islamist fighters, with both sides claiming to have inflicted heavy casualties, officials and witnesses said on Wednesday. The overnight fighting was focused around the former Defence Ministry building in southern Mogadishu and resulted in a fire in Bakara market.
At least eight Yemeni soldiers were killed in a volcanic eruption on an island off the country’s Red Sea coast, the government said on Monday. A Defence Ministry official said the western part of the island had "collapsed" following the eruption. Yemen’s oil minister said several earthquakes felt on Sunday had triggered the eruption.
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/ 30 September 2007
A suicide bomber killed 28 Afghan troops and two civilians on Saturday in an attack on an army bus in Kabul, the Afghan president said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, the deadliest in the Afghan capital since the hard-line Islamist movement was ousted from power for harbouring al-Qaeda leaders.
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/ 26 September 2007
Nato and United States-led troops backed up by warplanes said on Wednesday they had killed nearly 170 Taliban in two major battles in southern Afghanistan, while a US-led coalition soldier also died. The heaviest of the fighting with the Islamic insurgents erupted on Tuesday in the volatile southern province of Helmand.
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/ 24 September 2007
Two Italian soldiers kidnapped in western Afghanistan last week were freed in a raid by Nato-led forces early on Monday, Italy’s Defence Ministry said. The soldiers were wounded during the raid to free them, one of them seriously, the ministry said, adding that they had been taken to a hospital.
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/ 6 September 2007
United States combat helicopters and tanks bombarded a Baghdad neighbourhood in pre-dawn strikes on Thursday, killing 14 sleeping civilians and destroying houses, angry residents and Iraqi officials said. The US military said the operation was aimed at Shi’ite extremists and the houses destroyed were ”enemy strongholds”.
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/ 6 September 2007
From the German chancellery to the Pentagon, government computer networks have been targeted by cyber spies that media reports say were directed by China’s military. The reported Pentagon attack was the ”most flagrant and brazen to date”, said Alex Neill, an expert on the Chinese military at London’s Royal United Services Institute.