Rightward Shift in Israeli Polls Creates New Headaches

The strong showing by right-wing parties in Israel's elections is likely to create new obstacles to U.S. President Barack Obama's hopes for achieving a swift and substantial progress, if not a breakthrough, in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians,...

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The Tigris Too Tells the Story

BAGHDAD - There is less water now in the Tigris, and it is less clean. The river has fewer fish, and rising fuel and other costs mean they are more costly to catch. It's not, as Hamza Majit finds, a good time to be a fisher. "It's getting worse everyday,"...

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Iraq’s ‘Teflon Don’

Already it's begun – the endless non-departure from Iraq. The Obama plan, restated many times during the presidential campaign, involved a 16-month schedule for withdrawing not all U.S. forces, but only U.S. "combat troops." Now, his (and, of course,...

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Gaza: Death’s Laboratory

Erik Fosse, a Norwegian cardiologist, worked in Gaza hospitals during the recent war. "It was as if they had stepped on a mine," he says of certain Palestinian patients he treated. "But there was no shrapnel in the wound. Some had lost their legs. It...

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Out of Iraq?

President Obama's campaign promise to get us out of Iraq in sixteen months gave him the electoral heft to oust "frontrunner" Hillary and catapulted him into the White House. Yet, now that the public's attention is fixed on our swiftly deteriorating economic...

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Afghanistan Pressures Beget Dubious Alliances

Central Asia is shaping up to be an early test of Barack Obama's foreign policy, as the increased demands of the war in Afghanistan force his administration to decide how far to accommodate or to pressure the region's autocratic governments. These questions have...

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US Advised to Back Somalia Reconciliation Efforts

Two years after the administration of President George W. Bush backed Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia, President Barack Obama is being urged to pursue a much more flexible policy toward the East African nation than his predecessor and let Somalis, including Islamist...

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Hoping for a Spontaneous Regime Change in Iran

With the new U.S. administration comfortably situated and setting political goals and policies, looming Iranian elections cast a long shadow over one of its thorniest issues: how to deal with the Islamic Republic. "We will extend a hand if you are willing to...

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