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...region's jihadis - has been at once the U.S.'s most essential ally and its most troublesome obstacle. Enter General Ashfaq Kayani, the current army chief. His presence in talks between a Pakistani delegation and top officials in the U.S. capital overshadowed that of his country's civilian Foreign Minister - a sign of who still calls the shots in Islamabad. That may no longer be such a bad thing. Kayani's visit comes in the wake of two hard-fought campaigns by his troops against local militants and the capture of assorted Afghan Taliban leaders on Pakistani soil. The general...
...while the Süddeutsche newspaper praised the Defense Minister for his honesty, but posed the question: "What does war mean?" War is a tricky subject in Germany. According to the Defense Ministry, German soldiers are forbidden to engage in a "war of aggression" under the German constitution. Each foreign mission that includes the Bundeswehr - the German parliamentary army - is thus governed by a Bundestag mandate. In the case of Afghanistan, "proportional" military force can be used but German soldiers must adhere to NATO's rules of engagement. (See the top 10 news stories...
...finally referring to the "war" in Afghanistan, the government knows only too well that the Afghan mission is becoming deadlier. But on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle warned against a hasty withdrawal, saying: "If we were to retreat on the spur of the moment now, Afghanistan would return to being a shelter for world terrorism in a very short time." The question remains, though: How many more casualties will an increasingly skeptical German public tolerate...
...ruling government. According to some reports, Kyrgyz President Kermanbek Baikyev fled the capital Bishkek on Wednesday to rally support in his home region of Jalalabad. Bakiyev, who came into office in 2005 as a champion of democracy and reform, has been accused of corruption and rigging elections last year. Foreign observers also see the hand of Russia in recent events - with Moscow eager to reassert its traditional influence over a former Soviet republic that happens to house a key U.S. air base. (Did Moscow subvert Kyrgyzstan, a U.S. ally...
Bakiyev replaced Akayev with a stated agenda of reforming the country and ending corruption, but did little to act on those promises. His regime continued an earlier practice of playing foreign powers against each other - accepting lavish handouts from both Washington and Moscow to accommodate their military installations on its soil, while also tying up lucrative infrastructure projects with Chinese state companies. Yet, by some estimates, half of Kyrgyzstan's economy is tied to the black market; there are signs also of deepening links with organized crime and drug running from Afghanistan and Tajikistan. International monitors questioned the fairness...