Obama Tries to Increase Pressure for Iran Sanctions

President Barack Obama’s year of outreach to Iran has succeeded in putting it on the diplomatic defensive: that much was clear from Friday’s blunt reproach of Tehran by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s board. But it’s less clear that Obama can convert that diplomatic advantage into sanctions that will curtail Iran’s nuclear program.

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Taliban leader rejects U.S. attempts to lure away fighters with money

A top Taliban political leader delivered a message Friday to President Obama, calling his attempt to lure away Taliban fighters with money “an old weapon that has failed already.” Obama meets Friday with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who will tell the U.S. leader how a large deployment to Afghanistan would affect the military

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Football in the firing line: The Gaza Cup final

Terrace crowds are controlled by men wearing army fatigues and holding Kalashnikov rifles, players and press pray on the pitch at half-time and when the final whistle is blown, the trophy is handed to the winning captain by one of Israel’s most wanted men. International military forces have been treating the case as a “potential hijacking,” Lt.

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Bolivia Frees Its Circus Animals. Now They Need Homes

“Lions hate circuses” has long been a bumper sticker slogan of the animal rights movement, and Bolivia has heard the message: The left-leaning government of the Andean country recently passed the world’s first legislation prohibiting the use of all animals in circuses.

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Israel keeping Gaza parched, Amnesty International says

Israel is denying Palestinians access to adequate water supplies by controlling shared water resources, the human rights group Amnesty International said in a report released Tuesday. He said that Israeli consumption of water from the mountain aquifer had gone down in absolute terms from 1967 to today, despite the fact that Israel’s population had more than doubled in that time to its current level of approximately 7 million people

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Expert: Yugoslav war crimes victims need ‘truth commission’

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has successfully brought dozens of war criminals to justice, but a “truth commission” is still necessary if the region’s ethnic factions are ever to achieve lasting reconciliation, according to a former legal adviser to the court.

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DEA personnel among 14 dead in Afghan copter crash

Three Drug Enforcement Administration personnel were among 14 Americans killed when three helicopters went down in Afghanistan on Monday, a law enforcement source said. The joint international security force killed more than a dozen enemy fighters while searching the compound, ISAF said

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