MOSCOW – Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin praised the New START nuclear arms treaty with the United States yesterday in his first remarks on the pact since the U.S. Senate approved it last week.
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SEOUL – South Korea’s president has urged negotiations to tackle the peninsula’s nuclear crisis but analysts say chances of international talks are slim because of deep divisions and a lack of pressure on the emboldened North.
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ABIDJAN/DAKAR – West African leaders have threatened to remove Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo by force if he refuses to go quietly, but are likely to rely on persuasion rather than arms to get their way.
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SYDNEY – China’s move to slash export quotas on rare earth minerals — vital in a slew of high-tech products — has raised fresh international trade concerns, and Japan’s Sony Corp vowed yesterday to reduce its reliance on the minerals.
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JERUSALEM – The United States and its allies have up to three years to curb Iran’s nuclear programme, which has been set back by technical difficulties and sanctions, a senior Israeli official said yesterday.
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KHARTOUM – Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir declared Darfur peace talks being held in Qatar would end on Dec. 30, dealing an apparent final blow to negotiations which have made little progress in ending the region’s conflict.
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MAIDUGURI/YENEGOA, Nigeria – Bombs hit a political rally in a southern Nigerian city yesterday, a day after three people were shot dead in the north of the country, as tensions rise before a series of elections next year.
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MOSUL, Iraq – Three suicide bombers stormed into a police battalion headquarters yesterday and killed the commander in the restive northern Iraqi city of Mosul, police sources said.
