Indo-Pak Peace Hinges on Civil Society Contacts

NEW DELHI - It is becoming increasingly evident, after the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan failed to make significant progress in just concluded peace talks, that inroads to normalizing ties between both countries could only be made by improving...

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French Headscarves Still Fueling Hostage Crisis

PARIS - The two French journalists kidnapped in Iraq more than three weeks back are still in captivity despite efforts by French and Iraqi leaders to secure their freedom. Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot were kidnapped Aug. 20 by the so-called Islamic Army in...

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Think Tank Blasts Bush Commission Report on Cuba

A 10-member international task force of prominent analysts and former diplomats has warned that recommendations by a special commission on the Bush administration's plans for Cuba, released last May, "will poorly serve U.S. interests in Cuba and the wider region". In...

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Backtalk, September 8, 2004

Eugene Koontz's backtalkEugene Koontz misses the point. Most people don't pay close attention to the details of state policy because we're biologically designed for a way of life in which all the major decisions affecting our lives are made in small primate social...

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Pollardites in the Pentagon?

In 1987, Jonathan Pollard, U.S. Navy intelligence analyst, was imprisoned for life for selling a roomful of U.S. secret documents to Israel. Tel Aviv refused to return them. At the Clinton-Netanyahu summit at Wye River, Pollard became a subject of contention....

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Sadr City Peace Talks Fall Apart

BAGHDAD - The new outbreak of violence in Baghdad has shattered ceasefire talks between Shia militants and the Iraqi government. Following a successful if fragile ceasefire in the holy city Najaf, it was hoped that talks in the impoverished Sadr City of Baghdad would...

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A Shabby and Sinister Case for War

Anyone following the Larry Franklin Pentagon spy story is keenly aware of the solidarity binding neoconservatives, AIPAC, Israel's right-wing Likud Party, the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the war drums neocons are beating against Iran. By this time, only the willfully...

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Pat Buchanan for President!

Just kidding of course, but after I watched Pat on Meet the Press Sunday morning, I e-mailed him: "Have you ever thought of running for president?" When he did last time out I supported him, up to the point where I thought he went bonkers on China and trade....

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Neoconservatism and Espionage

These are bad times for Israeli spy operations. It wasn't enough that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) was outed, last week, as a major supplier of U.S. secrets to Tel Aviv: on Monday, Israel's spy satellite – meant to keep an eye on Iran's...

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UN Chief Seeks 30,000 More Troops for Peacekeeping

UNITED NATIONS - As the United Nations gets ready for the opening of the 59th session of the General Assembly next week, Secretary-General Kofi Annan has asked the 191 member states to provide more than 30,000 troops for an anticipated surge in demand for peacekeeping...

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