Awakening Council, Iraqi security exchange gunfire

Iraqi security forces and Awakening Council members clashed Saturday in Baghdad, leaving two civilians dead, 13 other people wounded, and five Iraqi soldiers kidnapped, a military official told CNN. The incident started after Adel al-Mashhadani — the leader of the Fadhil Awakening Council in northern Baghdad — and an aide were arrested by members of the Iraqi army and U.S

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Lights go out across planet for Earth Hour

Lights were going out across the world on Saturday as millions of homes and businesses in major cities went dark for one hour in a symbolic gesture to highlight concerns over climate change. In Australia, floodlights of the Sydney Opera House were extinguished as the city’s iconic harbor kicked off events for Earth Hour, a day-long energy-saving marathon stretching through 88 countries and 24 time zones.

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Global Trade: The Road to Ruin

In Shanghai not long ago, I took a walk from my hotel along Nanjing Road to the Bund, the promenade on the banks of the Huangpu where visitors from China’s hinterland gather to gaze across the river, awestruck, at the ultramodern skyscrapers of Pudong that have transformed the city’s skyline in not much more than a decade. It wasn’t what was on the far side, though, that got my attention: it was the traffic on the river itself, great container ships, chuffing lighters, bulk carriers, every sort of waterborne vessel you could imagine carrying every imaginable cargo, churning up the waters

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Fargo told Red River could crest at 43 feet

North Dakota’s most populous city fortified dikes and braced itself early Friday as the National Weather Service said the Red River could crest as high as 43 feet. That’s 2 feet higher than earlier predicted. The city didn’t plan to raise the reinforcements on the city’s dikes, which were lifted to 43 feet Wednesday when the weather service gave the 41-foot prediction, said Fargo Deputy Mayor Tim Mahoney

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G-20 police: We won’t tolerate violent protests

London police said Thursday they are planning one of the largest and most complex operations in their history as the city gears up to host the G-20 summit next week. London’s three police forces are being brought under a single umbrella for the G-20 security plan, dubbed Operation Glencoe, said Cmdr. Simon O’Brien of London’s Metropolitan Police.

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Protesters, police go online in G20 battle

Social networking Web sites are set to play a crucial role in protests ahead of next week’s G20 meeting of world leaders in London as demonstration organizers and police use Twitter and Facebook as key sources of real-time information and intelligence. Metropolitan Police leaders have warned that the city faces an “unprecedented” wave of protest in the run-up to Thursday’s summit talks on the state of the global economy and are set to deploy huge numbers of officers to maintain public order.

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Feds’ plan to poison banks of Rio Grande stalled

Federal officials postponed poisoning a mile-long stretch of the Rio Grande’s banks this week after residents complained that doing so posed health and environmental risks on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it wants to eradicate the invasive Carrizo cane infesting many portions of the Rio Grande’s banks between Texas and Mexico.

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Behind Obama’s Speech to the Muslim World

When President Obama visits Turkey early next month, some observers are expecting he will use the occasion to deliver on his promise to deliver a major foreign policy speech from a Muslim nation in his first 100 days. But indications are that he will not give the speech in Turkey. The White House and State Department have not yet decided on the location for the speech, which is meant to undo some of the damage done to America’s image in the Muslim world during the George W.

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Online exclusive: Talk Asia Live with Aamir Khan

City officials estimated Tuesday that as many as 10,000 volunteers have come forward since Sunday to aid in a sandbagging effort that’s taken over North Dakota State University’s central arena, the Fargodome, and to help build levees along the now closely watched Red River.

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