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...contract-management agency. USAID officials, who did not make themselves available for this article, told Congress this past summer that they are rapidly staffing up for Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the agency may soon have its biggest footprint since Vietnam. Currently the dependence on highly paid consultants means at least half of every development dollar stays...
...stopping its bomb attacks and kidnapping potentially rich foreigners for ransom money to fund operations and gain support from local communities. In 2000 the group kidnapped 21 people - 19 of whom were foreigners - in Malaysia, 50 students and teachers from two schools on the island of Basilan, and at least 15 foreign journalists, including one reporter who was kidnapped and released twice...
...triggered the deadly 2004 Asian tsunami, the Indonesian city of 900,000 on the island of Sumatra is one of the world's most vulnerable to seismic activity. Just after 5 p.m. local time on Sept. 30, disaster finally struck when a 7.6-magnitude earthquake jolted Padang, killing at least 529 people, according to the nation's Social Affairs Ministry...
President Barack Obama's strategy of engaging Iran finally got under way in earnest on Thursday with a positive response from Tehran to at least some of the concerns about its nuclear program. At a meeting in Geneva with officials from Western powers, Russia and China, Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili agreed to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect a hitherto secret uranium-enrichment facility under construction near Qum. President Obama and his allies expressed grave concern last week about the site after revelations of its existence, and they made the demand for its inspection...
...acceptance by the U.S. and NATO of a second term of office for Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has raised concerns among many Afghans skeptical of the legitimacy of his re-election. That acceptance was announced in Washington and Brussels on Sept. 29, at least a week before Afghanistan's Electoral Complaints Commission releases its final verdict on a recount of thousands of potentially fraudulent votes that could either confirm Karzai's initial first-round victory or - if his tally falls below 50% - order a runoff vote against his closest challenger, Abdullah Abdullah. But while the Western powers may have...