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YOU'RE DOIN' A HECK OF A JOB, MALIKI
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Maliki's political clout in Iraq hinges upon support from cleric Muqtada al Sadr, whose large voting bloc in parliament elected him Prime Minister. Maliki also depends upon Sadr's "Mahdi Army" militia, now a major target for U.S. forces trying to rein in Shiite death squads
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The clock is ticking for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the hapless, feckless leader of the Shiite fundamentalist party Al Dawa. From Washington, London, Baghdad, and other capitals come rumors that Maliki's government will soon be overthrown by a nationalist general or colonel or that he will resign in favor of an emergency "government of national salvation." A coup d'etat in Iraq would put a period -- or rather an exclamation point -- at the end of the Bush administration's bungled experiment with democracy there. And it would open an entirely new phase in that country's post-2003 national nightmare. Would it result in the creation of a Saddam-like strongman to rule Iraq with a heavy hand? Or would it force the warring parties (Sunni insurgents, Iranian-backed Shiite militias, and Kurdish warlords) to intensify the bloody civil war that is tearing Iraq apart? No one knows
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Not only are Cheney and Bush saying that they are the only ones who can be trusted to protect the nation's security, but they are also trying to burnish their own security credentials by tarnishing those of the Clinton administration.
The irony is that despite all the current rhetoric about how Democrats have failed to take terrorism seriously -- a failure that purportedly goes back to the early days of the Clinton presidency -- hawkish Republicans and their neo-conservative allies spent the better part of the 1990s advocating policies that doubtless distracted key policymakers from paying adequate attention to real security issues. Conservatives were raising the alarm over space weapons, China, Iraq, North Korea -- not terrorism, a threat they chose to ignore
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The voice of the main players, Kim Jong-Il and others in N Korea, not heard in Western media
Bush policy toward Iran and North Korea
has vacillated between threats and negotiations for years
Being put forward as someone who can lead Bush out of Iraq quagmire
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A Palestinian woman carrying a bundled infant looks through a small hole in the bars at an Israeli checkpoint
(PHOTO: Edward Parsons/IRIN)
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Israel dividing W Bank into smaller and smaller regions
About the same rates injured or not
Iraqi and British government both walk away from 'stay the course' plan
Warmer winds raising temps at bottom of the world
Public terrorized by suicide bombers, IEDs
Presents himself as an indispensable Western ally in the war against terrorism
Schools closing because families fear death unless children sent to madrassas
Days after U.S. Army says occupation will continue to at least 2010
Desire to "punish China" for its failure to bring Pyongyang to heel
4 years in Florida county jail with no charges filed
Beijing likes Western view that it's the only country that can talk to madman's government
World Economic Forum cuts ranking from #1 to #6
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Demonstrators in Moscow on October 8: 'Kremlin killed freedom of speech' (PHOTO: EPA)
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"There's no doubt that this murder was tied to her professional work as a journalist...[and] it is the signature of a professional hired killer"
Revival of 1950s "strategic consensus" plan to make Arab countries friendly to Israel
Frequent temperatures over 100 every summer
UN barred from these jails, as are human rights activists, journalists, and even the Afghan government
Thailand also a significant buyer of U.S.-made weapons systems
Reserves power to check its chosen prime minister
Broad spectrum of renewable energy paid for by polluting nations
Up to 150,000 people inhabited the Polynesian islands in the region
Blew up plane bound for Cuba with 73 aboard
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