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ISLAMABAD – The United Nations will withdraw some of its staff from Pakistan because of safety concerns, a U.N. spokeswoman said yesterday, highlighting security threats posed by increasingly brazen Taliban militants.
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MOSCOW – Russian gas will move via Ukraine without interruption this New Year as the ex-Soviet states have a 10-year supply deal in place, Russia’s monopoly gas exporter said yesterday, easing fears in Europe of a repeat gas war.
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ANKARA – Talks between Turkey and the IMF over a possible stand-by loan arrangement were progressing, a ruling party official said yesterday, following a newspaper report that Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan had told his party leadership that the Fund had accepted Turkey’s terms.
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REYKJAVIK – Iceland’s president said yesterday he would delay signing an amended bill to repay more than $5 billion lost by savers in Britain and the Netherlands when the island’s banks collapsed.
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– U.S. President Barack Obama faces a long list of challenges as he returns from his Hawaiian holiday and begins the new year.
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WASHINGTON – Last week’s failed plot to bomb a U.S. passenger jet has exposed lingering fissures within the U.S. intelligence community, which had information from interviews and clandestine intercepts but did not put the pieces together, officials said.
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JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has proposed an Egyptian-hosted summit with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as a possible way to resume stalled peace talks, Israeli officials said yesterday.
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JAKARTA – The Indonesian resort island of Bali faces a risk of attack on New Year’s Eve, a statement issued by the U.S. Embassy quoted the island’s governor as saying, but the governor’s office denied making any such comment.
