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/ 8 December 2007

How intelligence expert rewrote book on Iran

The intelligence came from an exotic variety of sources: there was the so-called Laptop of Death; there was the Iranian commander who mysteriously disappeared in Turkey. But pivotal to the United States investigation into Iran’s suspect nuclear-weapons programme was the work of a little-known intelligence specialist, Thomas Fingar.

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/ 7 December 2007

CIA destroyed video of ‘waterboarding’ detainees

The CIA destroyed video evidence of the coercive interrogation of al-Qaeda operatives held under its secret rendition programme in order to shield agents from prosecution, it was revealed on Thursday. The decision to destroy two videotapes documenting the use of waterboarding against Abu Zubaydah and another high-value al-Qaeda detainee was made in November 2005.

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/ 6 December 2007

Gunman kills nine at Nebraska shopping mall

A lone gunman killed eight people and wounded five others before taking his own life in Omaha, Nebraska, on Wednesday, the worst shooting in the United States since the Virginia Tech massacre earlier this year that left 33 dead. The killer, armed with a rifle, went on a rampage in a mall busy with Christmas shoppers.

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/ 6 December 2007

Canny Mugabe still a hero for many Africans

Robert Mugabe, a largely unwelcome guest of the European Union at a summit this weekend, is a hero in the eyes of many Africans for daring to stand up to the West and seize land from white farmers. Many in Europe have been left scratching their heads over how Zimbabwe’s president since independence still commands respect.

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/ 5 December 2007

Iranian president claims US report as a victory

Jubilant Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Wednesday said the United States report confirming his country had abandoned its nuclear weapons programme was a ”declaration of victory”. ”This was a final shot to those who, in the past several years, spread a sense of threat and concern in the world through lies of nuclear weapons.” Ahmadinejad said.

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/ 4 December 2007

US spies give shock verdict on Iran threat

United States intelligence agencies undercut the White House on Monday by disclosing for the first time that Iran has not been pursuing a nuclear weapons development programme for the past four years. The secret report, which was declassified on Monday and published, marked a significant shift from previous estimates.

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/ 3 December 2007

Bali talks seek new climate pact

About 190 nations met in Bali on Monday seeking a breakthrough to a new global pact to fight climate change by 2009 to avert droughts, heatwaves and rising seas that will hit the poor hardest. A new treaty is meant to widen the Kyoto Protocol, which binds 36 industrial countries to cut greenhouse-gas emissions by 5% below 1990 levels by 2008 to 2012.

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/ 2 December 2007

Chávez for life? Venezuelans to vote on re-election

Venezuelans vote in a tightly contested referendum on Sunday on whether to allow left-wing President Hugo Chávez to stay in power for as long as he keeps winning elections or hand him his first defeat at the polls. The anti-American firebrand, who has easily won one election after another against a fragmented opposition, is in the hardest campaign of his life.

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/ 2 December 2007

Fight against Aids: ‘We must do more’

Activists and global leaders used World Aids Day on Saturday to warn against complacency in fighting the disease and called on governments to fill a multibillion-dollar funding gap. ”We have made tangible and remarkable progress on all these fronts. But we must do more,” United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said.

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/ 1 December 2007

Signs of progress on World Aids Day

Activists on Saturday sought to keep the battle against HIV in the public eye on World Aids Day in the face of growing complacency amid progress in treating and slowing the spread of the disease. The December 1 event is traditionally a time of grim stocktaking as Aids campaigners sound the alarm over the disease’s rampage through Africa.

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/ 30 November 2007

Turkish army gets go-ahead to hit Kurd rebels in Iraq

Turkey’s prime minister said on Friday his Cabinet had authorised the armed forces to conduct a cross-border operation against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, but analysts said major action did not appear imminent. Tayyip Erdogan’s comments seemed chiefly designed to keep up pressure on United States and Iraqi forces to honour pledges to tackle the rebels.

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/ 30 November 2007

Rice to visit Ethiopia in rare Africa trip

United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit Ethiopia next week for meetings on the conflicts in the volatile African Great Lakes region and Sudan and Somalia, said the State Department on Thursday. Rice, a rare visitor to the African continent, will make her third trip to sub-Saharan Africa since becoming Secretary of State in 2005.

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/ 29 November 2007

Musharraf to lift state of emergency

President Pervez Musharraf promised on Thursday to lift Pakistan’s state of emergency on December 16, making a long-awaited gesture of reconciliation hours after being sworn in as a civilian leader. Addressing the nation on television, Musharraf said he would also restore the Constitution, which was suspended when he declared emergency rule on November 3.

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/ 29 November 2007

Musharraf starts new term as civilian leader

Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf was sworn in as president for a second term on Thursday, but this time as a civilian and without his army uniform to protect him from pressure to end emergency rule. Musharraf took the oath for another five years in office from the newly installed chief justice Abdul Hameed Dogar.

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/ 29 November 2007

Australia’s Rudd names Cabinet, signals change

Australia’s Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd unveiled his Cabinet on Thursday, prioritising education, industrial relations and the environment in a break with conservative predecessor John Howard’s legacy. Calling it "a team with fresh ideas", Rudd included four women and a former rock star in the Cabinet.

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/ 28 November 2007

Bush launches Middle East talks amid scepticism

United States President George Bush invited Israeli and Palestinian leaders to the White House to renew long-stalled peace talks on Wednesday but faced deep scepticism over chances for a deal. Finally embracing a hands-on approach, Bush will ceremonially inaugurate the first formal Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations in seven years.

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/ 28 November 2007

New Aussie PM arrives in Canberra

Australia’s Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd arrived in the nation’s capital on Wednesday to choose his new Cabinet, aides said, as outgoing John Howard and his vanquished team cleared out their desks. Rudd (50) stormed to power in a landslide election victory on Saturday that wiped out Howard’s conservative government after almost 12 years in office.

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/ 28 November 2007

Zimbabwe critical of new US envoy

Zimbabwe’s government newspaper offered a chilly, racially tinged welcome on Tuesday to the new United States envoy. The Herald‘s political editor Caesar Zvayi said James McGee had criticised Zimbabwe’s human rights record in statements to the US Senate and, as an appointee of US President George Bush, was likely ”to turn out to be the house Negro”.

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/ 27 November 2007

Time is right for Middle East peace, says Bush

United States President George Bush said on Tuesday it was the ”right time” for peace between Israel and the Palestinians before launching his biggest initiative to negotiate an end to the conflict. But he warned ”achieving this goal will not be easy”, according to remarks prepared for delivery at the opening later of the Annapolis peace conference.

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/ 27 November 2007

Bush nudges Israel, Palestinians toward peace

President George Bush launched a United States drive to create a Palestinian state on Monday, with Israelis and Palestinians nearing an agreement to address the toughest issues of their decades-old conflict. His legacy dominated by war in Iraq, Bush began three days of Middle East diplomacy in separate Oval Office meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

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/ 25 November 2007

Obama, the comeback kid, learns to talk tough

Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama once electrified the United States by preaching a ”politics of hope”. Unfortunately Obama then found himself outsmarted and outfought by his chief rival, Senator Hillary Clinton. Now Obama has, in effect, relaunched his campaign, coming out fighting against Clinton.

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/ 23 November 2007

Pessimism high ahead of Middle East peace meeting

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned on Friday that the failure of new peace efforts would be ”deadly” as new polls showed Israelis and Palestinians equally pessimistic about its chances of success. Most Israelis and Palestinians do not think the meeting, opening on Tuesday in the United States, will succeed, according to separate opinion polls.