Obama’s Iraq Pullout Plan: A Thumbs-Up from Anbar

As President Barack Obama prepares to green-light a plan to withdraw most U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 18 months, he’ll face skepticism from some military commanders who fear the withdrawal may be too hasty to maintain the country’s recent security gains. But the President ought to be reassured by the assessment of Marine Major General John Kelly, who just completed a 13-month tour as the top U.S.

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In Berlin, a Gentrifying Neighborhood Under Siege

Sirens breaking the silence of the night, cars engulfed by meter-high flames. This is not a scene from the banlieues of Paris, but from the trendy Eastern Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg, where in recent weeks an ongoing battle against gentrification has intensified.

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Can Pakistan Regain Control of Swat from the Taliban?

“Smile, you’re in Swat,” reads a billboard on the main road into the lush green honeymooners’ valley once dubbed the “Switzerland of Asia”. But over the past two years, Swat has been turned into a playground for the Taliban. And it may be the Taliban, and their fellow Islamists, who have most reason to smile as a result of the government’s decision, last week, to end its floundering military campaign and instead accept the Taliban’s key demand — for the imposition of Islamic shari’a law in the area

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Road to riches ends for 20 million Chinese poor

Tang Hui and his family prospered as migrant workers during China’s economic boom, earning $10,000 a year: enough to build a house, send a cousin to school and pay for his grandmother’s medical bills. But those good days are over. The family’s cash earnings have evaporated, snatched away by a manufacturing crash cascading across China caused by falling global demand for its goods

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Mexico’s Drug War Takes to the Barricades

Masked teenagers lob bricks at police shields, middle-aged women wave banners and chant slogans against repression, while police tanks fire water cannons into rowdy crowds. These images may evoke anti-globalization protests at some high-powered economic summit, but in northern Mexico, they’re the latest flash point in the nation’s incessant drug war

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