The Week with IPS
Here are some of the most-read stories of the past week — and stories you shouldn’t go without reading:

Iraqi Sheikh’s Killing a Blow to Bush

Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON – In what was at least a symbolic blow to George W. Bush, a prominent Iraqi tribal sheikh and self-styled leader of the “Sunni Awakening” movement against al Qaeda in Iraq was assassinated just hours before the U.S. president was to make his latest appeal for public support for his Iraq strategy.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39259

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Fallon Derided Petraeus, Opposed the Surge

Gareth Porter*
WASHINGTON – In sharp contrast to the lionisation of Gen. David Petraeus by members of the U.S. Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus’s superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command, derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39235

The U.S. Military Surge in Iraq… More of a Fizzle? – More IPS News
ipsnews.net/new_focus/surge/index.asp

BURMA: Poppy Farming Cuts – ‘UN Praise Misplaced’

Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK – Praise from the United Nations for continued drop in poppy cultivation in military-ruled Burma paints a false picture of success, say members of the Shan ethnic community and human rights activists. What cannot be ignored, they add, is how profitable the narcotics trade remains for the local commanders of the junta.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39264

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IRAN: Rafsanjani – the Man to Watch

Kimia Sanati
TEHRAN – When Iran’s reformist Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, ‘keeper of the Revolution’s secrets and kingmaker’, was elected as speaker of the powerful Assembly of Experts earlier this month, it signalled a major shift in the country’s tumultuous political scene.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39261

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African Maids Face Abuse in Lebanon

Simba Russeau
BEIRUT – Driven by poverty and conflict in their home countries, women from Africa travel to Lebanon only to find themselves hungry, abused, raped and subjected to conditions akin to slavery.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39245

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Parliaments Said to be “Weak” in Fighting Desertification

Evelyn Matsamura Kiapi
MADRID – Legislatures have been taken to task over their track record in addressing desertification, this at the eighth session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (COP8) in the Spanish capital, Madrid.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39242

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COLOMBIA: Death Threats for Tracing Paramilitary Expansion

Constanza Vieira
BOGOTA – Death threats have been received by members of a think tank in the Colombian capital that published a new book describing the expansion of ultra-rightwing paramilitary militias in several provinces of Colombia and their alliance with local politicians.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39202

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IRAQ: Back to School, Back to Horror

Ali al-Fadhily*
BAGHDAD – As another school year begins in Iraq, parents approach it with dread, fearing for the safety of their children.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39266

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AFRICA: EPAs Clashing With Everything-But-Arms Trade Scheme?

Pilirani Semu-Banda
BLANTYRE – The proposed economic partnership agreements (EPAs), which are due to come into force beginning next year, may undermine the benefits of another European Union trade initiative, called Everything-But-Arms, for the sugar industry.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39229

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VENEZUELA: Adiós Lenin… and Other ‘Exotic’ Names

Humberto Márquez
CARACAS – While Stalin led hundreds of students on a march in solidarity with Nixon, authorities in Venezuela were drawing up a law to prevent parents from giving their children names that are invented, difficult to pronounce in Spanish, or exotic.
ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39232

And much more global news at: www.ipsnews.net/

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