Tag: freedom headlines

The contrived campaigns and guaranteed landslide victories for autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak were swept away with last year’s revolution. Now 13 candidates — liberals, Islamists and Mubarak-era figures — are vying to succeed him. Mohammed Kamal Tahawy couldn’t believe that one of them had come to his town to ask for his vote. The tour [...]

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On Friday, key European stock indexes were mostly down in late afternoon trading, erasing a rebound from a low opening. Key indexes in Frankfurt, Paris and London had dipped, with the FTSE 100 down 1 percent. Spain’s IBEX, however, had rebounded slightly. The euro touched a five-month low against the dollar early Friday but strengthened [...]

Who should she vote for on June 17, when this nation mired in political chaos holds it second election in two months? A party willing to largely accept the crippling bailout conditions that have taken a bite out of her pension and run the economy into the ground? Or the rising rebels promising to buck [...]

The melee erupted quickly on a warm spring evening that had been completely calm. As the opposition crowd was listening to lectures, singing songs and generally enjoying the last hours of sunlight, the few police officers in sight had seemed prepared to let the gathering go on. But then riot police suddenly poured in. Police [...]

The Brotherhood’s political stock is plunging, analysts and ordinary Egyptians say, because its political party has backtracked on promises and accomplished little since a predominantly Islamist cadre of lawmakers was sworn in in January. In the working-class Cairo neighborhood of Abbasiya, where the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party campaigned vigorously in the weeks before the [...]

Officials said Tuesday that a deal was imminent, after they reached agreement in principal on reopening the transit corridors. But the details are being negotiated. “The framework is ready, but we are now looking at rates,” a Pakistani official said. A U.S. official emphasized that the United States has not agreed to any figure. According [...]

In comments that appeared aimed at calming speculation of a pending Greek exit from the euro, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for Greece to remain part of the region’s common currency, but she also opened the door to new “stimulus” efforts to aid the economy here. Yet Merkel — who has championed austerity as a [...]

In India, the world’s biggest annual bullion importer, gold jewelry plays a central role in weddings and festivals. But its main appeal is as an investment favored by both rich and poor. India imported 933 metric tons of gold for private consumers last year, a 35 percent rise over five years and just under a [...]

In Athens, warring political factions failed Tuesday to forge a new government, triggering fresh elections and heightening chances that this rudderless Mediterranean nation could be forced to abandon the euro. “I have the will, the determination to keep Greece in the euro zone. It would be good for all of us,” Merkel said in an [...]

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee blamed much of the rupee’s fall on the weakness in the euro and fallout from the Greek economic crisis, and he insisted that India’s growth story was “intact.” But business confidence in India has been battered anyway by a slowdown in economic growth, several controversial tax decisions that have scared away [...]

Unlike similar measures authorizing terrorist designations and sanctions, the new order does not include a list of names or organizations already determined to be in violation. Instead, one official said, it is designed as a “deterrent” to “make clear to those who are even thinking of spoiling the transition” to think again. The official was [...]

Pakistan’s decision, after months of political posturing and delicate negotiations, is likely to ease strains between Washington and Islamabad. For its renewed cooperation, Pakistan would reap higher tariffs and a payout of at least $1.3 billion in withheld “coalition support funds” for its contribution to the fight against Islamist militants. Officials on both sides say the [...]

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But it was unclear Monday night whether the deal, which Israeli officials said was mediated by Egypt and Jordan, would end the fasts of the eight detainees who have been on the longest hunger strikes. An attorney for three prisoners who have been fasting for more than seven weeks said they would continue. Two of [...]

He has shifted American troops from a counterinsurgency strategy, with a focus on governance and reconstruction, to a more limited mission of training the Afghan army and fighting the Taliban. The planned promotion to head the U.S. European Command will allow Allen to remain deeply involved in Afghanistan policy and work with NATO allies who [...]

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The United States has already granted sanctions waivers to Japan and 10 European countries after they announced cuts, but it has not yet included India or China, two of the biggest importers of Iranian oil. Deputy Oil Minister R.P.N. Singh told Parliament on Tuesday that imports from Iran would be reduced to 113.6 million barrels [...]

Coming only days before the leaders of the world’s Group of Eight industrialized nations meet at Camp David, the standoff in Greece over its political direction has thrust Europe’s troubles to the top of the agenda. A downturn in Europe could stagger a fragile recovery in the United States and undermine growth around the world. [...]

If Greece were to exit the euro, it would do so with painful consequences for itself and uncertain ones for the rest of Europe and the global economy. At the beginning of the crisis, economists had worried that Greece’s exit from the currency zone would set off a market panic in other weak European countries. [...]

Scrawled on a banner left with the 49 victims was a message from the Zetas drug gang asserting responsibility for the killings, said Jorge Domene, a spokesman for the state government. The message included threats to Mexican authorities and the Zetas’ main criminal rivals, the Gulf cartel and Sinaloa cartel kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. [...]

“Death is Here! No One Leaves,” warns the fake graffiti, which, a little oddly, is spray-painted in English instead of Somali. “GUNS $ BOOMS,” reads another menacing tag. Despite the warnings, the number of recruits graduating from this boot camp — built with U.S. taxpayer money and staffed by State Department contractors — has increased [...]

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With the July 1 presidential vote only weeks away, Peña Nieto holds a solid double-digit lead in the polls, and yet Mexican voters and U.S. observers confess that they do not really know what the candidate stands for. Nor are they sure how he would govern Mexico, a vital trade partner for the United States [...]

(courtesey of MATT WUERKER / Politico 2011) SPEAKING THURSDAY at the Library of Congress, “Doonesbury” creator Garry Trudeau highlighted an intriguing dynamic of satire: The more the intended target reacts, he said, the more its practitioner gains the advantage. If the victim flinches or returns fire at a cartoon, the illustration only gains in power. [...]

“How are you going to create that as an end state?” Allen asked, making no effort to mask his deep skepticism. Faced with an order from President Obama to withdraw 23,000 troops by the end of the summer, and the prospect of further reductions next year, Allen is hastily transforming the U.S. military mission in [...]

Instead, things have worsened. Egypt’s Christians have been the victims of threats and dramatic violence, and they fear the ascendance of political Islam. With landmark elections set to begin May 23, many of the country’s Christians fear that the next president could turn Egypt into a conservative Islamic state that does not have room for [...]

“It is a big loss for Afghanistan. He was thinking about peace and about key national issues,” said Nisar Hares, a lawmaker and close colleague of Rahmani, who maintained a seat in the senate while simultaneously serving on the High Peace Council. The council was envisioned as the public face of the Afghan reconciliation process. [...]

The revival marks an extraordinary comeback for an organization that was almost annihilated after the last revolt in Syria, which ended in the killing by government forces of as many as 25,000 people in the city of Hama in 1982. Only those who managed to flee abroad survived the purge. The Brotherhood’s rise is stirring [...]

She was a woman of many names. Born Stanley Ann Dunham, she assumed, as most people did, that her unusual first name was imposed by her father. An uncle tells a different story, attributing the choice to Madelyn Dunham, Stanley Ann’s mother, who as a small-town Kansas girl yearned to emulate Bette Davis, the sophisticated [...]

McKeon argued that House Republicans “were careful to identify other non-defense budget sources to accommodate the needed” defense increases. That argument previews what will be an extended fight over defense spending through the presidential campaign and into an expected lame-duck congressional session in December. The first round of that fight will take place next week, [...]

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“For us Mexicans, first there is the Virgin of Guadalupe, and second there is our mother,” said Maxine Woodside, radio host of the popular show “Todo Para La Mujer,” or “All About Women,” and herself a mother of two boys. “Mexicans are very attached to family, not like in the United States, where they throw [...]

“We will go to prison instead,” said Krois, 39, sitting beneath a photograph of himself defying police as he and fellow activists with an anti-Zionist organization known as Edah Haredit protested the opening of a parking lot on the Jewish Sabbath. “We are protected by God.” When Netanyahu and the leader of the centrist opposition [...]

“The expansion of voluntary information sharing between the department and the defense industrial base represents an important step forward in our ability to stay current with emerging cyber threats,” Ashton B. Carter, deputy secretary of defense, said in announcing the move Friday. Carter noted that industry’s increased reliance on the Internet for daily business has [...]

And in the neighboring village of Xishigu, frightened residents speak in whispers and hushed tones about how more thugs and security agents have moved into the area since late April, when Chen, who is blind, defied the odds and made an escape so improbable that villagers speak of him as possessing “magic” powers. “I don’t [...]

Now, those measures have taken dramatic effect, with chastened South Korean executives vowing to never again do business with the North, fearing vulnerability to Seoul’s policy changes. “The only victims from [Lee’s policy] are the South Korean companies who were dealing with North Korea,” said Lee Young-seung, who ran a coal importing company. “No government [...]

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Russia, whose approval is necessary at the Security Council for any further U.N.-authorized action, accused countries supporting the U.S.-backed Syrian opposition of intentionally instigating heightened violence to justify military intervention. “Some of our foreign partners are taking steps to ensure, both literally and figuratively, that the situation explodes,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, making [...]

However, several Syrian soldiers in the rear escort vehicle of the convoy suffered injuries and were hospitalized, the statement said. Syrian media said eight soldiers were injured. “This was a graphic example of what the Syrian people are suffering on a daily basis and underlines the imperative for all forms of violence to stop,” Mood [...]

Hours after the appeal was published in Wednesday’s Idaho Mountain Express, the administration broke its own silence on Sgt. Bergdahl, detailing what it said were nonstop efforts to locate and free him, through negotiations or other means. “I wouldn’t rule anything in or out,” said Col. Dave Lapan, director of the Defense Department press office. [...]

Two years ago, as part of its National Action Plan on Climate Change, India set out to boost the solar industry through subsidies, setting a generation target equivalent to around 3 percent of the country’s projected power needs by 2022. The private sector has responded eagerly. With the price of solar energy dropping sharply, and [...]

That set off widespread speculation here that Putin was mediating a battle among the influential power groups who support him — and that at the same time he was irritated that the U.S. State Department criticized a crackdown on protesters Sunday on the eve of his inauguration. Cabinet jobs here are about something more important [...]

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But the bailout also gives the government a majority share of the once-monopolistic Japanese company, a change that will formally take place following Tepco’s annual shareholders meeting in June, according to the Kyodo news agency. Tepco will be forced to follow a restructuring plan that includes electricity rate increases, changes in management, and 3.3 trillion [...]

Chen said he expects to be allowed to leave the country for a time to study in the United States, according to the tentative deal reached by Chinese officials and U.S. diplomats during a visit here last week by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Chen said that the passports he and his wife currently [...]

The report, issued last week, provides a record of what its authors say are specific international human rights violations, including where and when they took place. Though names have been redacted, the report also has biographical information on North Korean agents and prison guards who allegedly oversaw the abuses, providing the potential foundation for Seoul [...]

Since Sunday, police have steadily harassed demonstrators opposed to Putin. On Wednesday, protesters used a celebrating city as cover to elude their pursuers. They infiltrated a Communist parade, mingled with families strolling near the Kremlin and finally joined a city-sponsored festival in a park where riot police had routed them the night before. They would [...]

American officials believe Asiri’s latest bomb was designed to be smuggled onto a U.S.-bound aircraft last month. The non­metallic device had an advanced detonator and was superior to anything created by terrorists so far. “Asiri is an evil genius,” said Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. “He is constantly [...]