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VOL.CLVIII .... No.54,754
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Drug war may dominate US-Canada-Mexico summit; or it may not be discussed at all

August 9th, 2009 By admin

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Mexico City – When the heads of state of the United States, Mexico, and Canada meet Sunday for the summit of North American leaders in Guadalajara, clean energy, economic woes, and swine flu will be key talking points, but Mexico’s drug-related violence is expected to overshadow all other issues.

And while the language of “co-responsibility” has defined the US attitude toward Mexico’s struggle against its drug cartels, the summit comes as increasing doubts loom over the strategy on both sides of the border.

Some US members of congress are requesting that money from an aid package called the Merida Initiative be withheld over human rights abuse allegations against the Mexican military, which is leading the fight against organized crime.

And while Mexican President Felipe Calderón is often exalted by US officials for his hard line against drug traffickers, he is beginning to face a backlash at home as record violence stains his military effort.

“At the summit Calderón will want [President] Obama to commit to a more energetic effort to get Merida rolling,” says Federico Estevez, a political analyst at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico. But he faces hurdles north of the border and at home. “Calderón’s broad strategy against organized crime in …

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Ahmadinejad Sworn In for 2nd Term as Iran’s President

August 5th, 2009 By admin

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BEIRUT, Lebanon — With his adversaries shunning the ceremony and with security forces on the streets, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was sworn into office for a second term Wednesday, almost two months after elections that divided the nation and sparked Iran’s deepest crisis since the Islamic Revolution 30 years ago.

“I, as the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, swear before the holy Koran and the Iranian nation and God to be the guardian of the official religion, the Islamic Republic and the Constitution,” Mr. Ahmadinejad declared as he took the oath of office.

Gregor Samsa Awakes As A Vermin

August 8th, 2009 By admin

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One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections.

The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked. “What’s happened to me? ” he thought. It wasn’t a dream.

His room, a proper human room although a little too small, lay peacefully between its four familiar walls. A collection of textile samples lay spread out on the table – Samsa was a travelling salesman – and above it there hung a picture that he had recently cut out of an illustrated magazine and housed in a nice, gilded frame.

It showed a lady fitted out with a fur hat and fur boa who sat upright, raising a heavy fur muff that covered the whole of her …

Pakistani Claims of Taliban Militant’s Death Are Contested

August 9th, 2009 By admin

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PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Contested claims continued on Sunday over a reported fallout among factions struggling for control of the Pakistani Taliban, a day after Pakistani officials said they had news that the No. 2 figure in the militant group had been killed in a shootout.

A Pakistani government official and an intelligence official said Saturday that Hakimullah Mehsud, a young and aggressive aide to the former Taliban leader, had been shot dead in a fight with Waliur Rehman, another commander who was seeking to become the leader, during a meeting in a remote mountain region near the Afghan border.

If those reports are true, it would be the second major loss for the Pakistani Taliban in just a week, after reports that its supreme leader, Baitullah Mehsud, had been killed in an American airstrike on Wednesday.

But on Sunday, Reuters reported that in a phone call, Mr. Rehman denied that any special meeting …