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/ 17 December 2007
Russia warned on Monday that Kosovo could slip into ”uncontrollable crisis,” ahead of a United Nations Security Council showdown over the Serbian province’s push for independence. The Russian Foreign Ministry warned that the ”indulgence” of some countries in allowing Kosovo to move towards independence could have ”serious negative consequences” for stability.
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/ 15 December 2007
A suicide bomber blew up a car packed with rockets outside police headquarters in the Afghan capital on Saturday killing several people, officials said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. The car was packed with BM12 rockets pointing towards the police chief’s office, said a police official.
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/ 14 December 2007
The European Union’s biggest four countries are pushing to impose and oversee independence in Kosovo without a fresh United Nations mandate, risking a showdown with a resurgent Russia and fierce resistance from Serbia, which vows no surrender of Kosovo.
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/ 5 December 2007
A suicide bomber targeted a bus carrying Afghan army personnel in Kabul on Wednesday, killing six military staff and seven civilians, a defence ministry source said. The bomber used a car in the attack, which happened during the morning rush hour on a road in the south-western part of the city.
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/ 4 December 2007
A suicide bomber rammed a car into a convoy of Nato forces close to the airport in the Afghan capital on Tuesday, wounding 10 Afghan civilians, a police official said. A spokesperson for the Taliban said the militant Islamic group carried out the attack to ”welcome” United States Defence Secretary Robert Gates.
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/ 1 December 2007
Turkey’s army said it entered northern Iraq on Saturday to tackle up a group of up to 60 Kurdish rebels, a day after Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s Cabinet authorised a cross-border operation against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). It was not clear whether the incursion was a major operation by Nato member Turkey aimed at destroying bases of the PKK.
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/ 30 November 2007
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
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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/ 30 November 2007
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
A ”cyber cold war” waged over the world’s computers may become one of the biggest threats to security in the next decade, according to a report published on Thursday. About 120 countries are developing ways to use the internet as a weapon to target financial markets, government computer systems and utilities, internet security company McAfee said in an annual report.
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/ 27 November 2007
Internationally sponsored talks over the future status of the Serbian province of Kosovo were deadlocked on Tuesday, after Kosovo Albanian leaders rejected Serbia’s proposal for self-governance. Kosovo’s majority ethnic Albanian population wants to break all ties with Serbia.
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/ 26 November 2007
Serbia will not give up ”an inch” of Kosovo, Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said on Monday as talks on the breakaway province’s future entered a critical phase before a United Nations deadline next month. ”Serbia will not let an inch of its territory be taken away,” a defiant Kostunica told reporters.
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/ 24 November 2007
A suicide bomb on the outskirts of the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Saturday killed six schoolchildren and wounded three Italians working on an aid project building a bridge, an Interior Ministry spokesperson said. ”It was a suicide bomber … six schoolchildren coming out from school were killed,” said Zemarai Bashary.
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/ 22 November 2007
The Taliban has a permanent presence in 54% of Afghanistan and the country is in serious danger of falling into Taliban hands, according to a report by an independent think tank with long experience in the area. There is no sign of any move within Nato to send reinforcements to Afghanistan.
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/ 20 November 2007
President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday warned that Moscow would not remain indifferent to Nato’s ”muscle-flexing” and said Russia’s nuclear forces would be ready for an adequate response to any aggressor. Putin said the Nato military alliance had built up its forces close to Russia’s borders.
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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
The breakaway province of Kosovo holds a parliamentary election on Saturday, ahead of a showdown with Serbia over the ethnic Albanian majority’s demand for independence. Prime Minister Agim Ceku is stepping down, so the election will bring in new leadership.
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/ 8 November 2007
Troops were deployed in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, on Thursday and news programmes taken off air as international concern grew over President Mikheil Saakashvili’s imposition of emergency rule. The Nato military alliance, France and Human Rights Watch added their condemnation.
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/ 8 November 2007
The United States and French presidents forged a common front against Iran’s nuclear ambitions on Wednesday, signalling a further warming of once-chilly relations between Washington and Paris. US President George Bush and French President Nicolas Sarkozy agreed to keep the pressure on Tehran, which has defied demands to halt uranium enrichment.
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/ 7 November 2007
Afghans began three days of national mourning on Wednesday for 41 people, many of them children, killed in the country’s worst suicide attack to date. The attack shakes public confidence in the ability of the Afghan government and the 50 000 foreign troops in the country to provide security.
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/ 3 November 2007
Turkey stepped up pressure on the United States to help curb attacks by Kurdish rebels from northern Iraq as a conference on Saturday of Iraq’s neighbours and major powers sought to lower cross-border tensions. The ”neighbours’ conference”, hosted by Turkey, was meant to focus on security inside Iraq but instead it is overshadowed by tensions between Turkey and Iraq.
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/ 31 October 2007
The Turkish army on Wednesday said it killed 15 Kurdish separatists near the Iraqi border, as ministers discussed possible economic sanctions against Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish government. The latest fighting took place in the Cudi Mountains in Sirnak province, where helicopters and artillery have been pounding Kurdish rebels since Monday.
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/ 31 October 2007
Afghan and Nato forces have killed 50 Taliban rebels in three days of clashes and surrounded 200 others who occupied civilian homes in southern Afghanistan, police said on Wednesday. Civilians were fleeing on motorbikes, tractors, cars and animals piled with their belongings amid the fighting, provincial police chief Sayed Aqa Saqib said.
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/ 30 October 2007
Denmark scrambled two F-16 fighter jets on Tuesday to identify a Russian bomber detected on radar near the Nato member’s airspace, the Danish air force said in a statement. ”A visual contact was made at 6.02am [local time” with the Tupolev-160 bomber, the statement said.
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/ 30 October 2007
The Turkish army pounded Kurdish rebels near the Iraqi border on Tuesday as Ankara warned that ties with Washington would suffer as long as the separatists enjoyed sanctuary in northern Iraq. Cobra helicopters fired missiles at rebel positions on the Cudi Mountains, which border Iraq, where fighting continued for a second day.
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/ 29 October 2007
Helicopter gunships went into action against rebel Kurds in eastern Turkey on Monday while the government flexed its military muscle with massive national day parades and flypasts in major cities. Turkey has massed up to 100 000 troops, backed by tanks, artillery, war planes and combat helicopters, along the Iraqi border.
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/ 28 October 2007
United States-led coalition and Afghan troops killed about 80 Taliban fighters in a six-hour battle following an ambush in southern Afghanistan, the US military said on Sunday. Taliban fighters opened fire on Saturday with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades on the joint coalition and Afghan army patrol from a trench near Musa Qala in Helmand province.
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/ 27 October 2007
Turkish military planes scoured the Iraqi border for Kurdish rebel camps on Saturday, army sources said, after diplomatic talks in Ankara to avert a major cross-border operation into northern Iraq failed. Turkish-Iraqi talks collapsed late on Friday after Ankara rejected proposals by the Iraqi defence minister for tackling Kurdish guerrillas based in northern Iraq.
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/ 26 October 2007
Turkish helicopters ferried more troops to the border with Iraq on Friday as diplomatic efforts got under way in Ankara to avert a major offensive against Kurdish guerrillas based in northern Iraq. Turkey has massed up to 100 000 troops along the mountainous border before a possible cross-border operation to crush about 3 000 guerrillas of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
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/ 25 October 2007
President Abdullah Gul warned Kurdish rebels on Thursday that Turkey’s patience is running out after Turkish forces said they repelled a guerrilla attack near the Iraqi border. Ankara has massed up to 100 000 troops along the mountainous border before a possible cross-border operation.
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/ 24 October 2007
Turkish warplanes and troops attacked Kurdish rebels inside Iraq this week, security sources said on Wednesday, but Ankara wants to hold back from any major incursion for now and give diplomacy a chance. Turkey moved more troops to the mountainous border, keeping up pressure on Baghdad to honour promises to crack down on the rebels.
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/ 24 October 2007
Turkey has carried out air sorties and shelling against Kurdish positions inside northern Iraq. Reuters said Turkish war planes flew as deep as 20km into Iraqi territory and about 300 ground troops advanced about 10km, killing 34 fighters from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers party.