IPS wishes you the best during the holiday season and for 2008. We hope you enjoy our series of New Year special features! For the entire collection of stories go to:
www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/challenges/index.asp
…or click on the story links below.
New Year Begins Unhappily In What Was Home
Analysis by Dahr Jamail
WASHINGTON – The end of 2007 produced a telltale indication of what the New Year seems likely to bring to Iraq: “We the Iraqi members of parliament signing below demand a timetable for withdrawal of the occupation forces (MNF) from our beloved Iraq,” 144 members of the 275-member parliament, a clear majority, wrote in a declaration April 2007.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40657
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Two Territories, No Nation
Peter Hirschberg
JERUSALEM – The year begins after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas renewed peace talks with Israel that had been frozen for seven years and agreeing with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to make every effort to forge a peace deal by the end of 2008 that would ensure the Palestinians an independent state.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40653
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Election Year Fraught With Multiple Troubles
Analysis by Anil Netto
PENANG – Malaysia enters what is widely expected to be an election year with its ruling coalition looking its frailest in recent times. Economic grievances, inter-religious disputes and unfulfilled pledges have spawned growing disillusionment with the administration of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi that could erode popular support for the ruling coalition.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40651
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Bush’s Twilight Year Looks Grim
Analysis by Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON – If the last days of 2007 are any indication, U.S. President George W. Bush?s last year in office is shaping up as grim and lonely.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40644
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Surging Inflation Worries China’s Leaders
Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING – For a former guerilla party that derives legitimacy by providing economic prosperity to 1.3 billion people, the revelation that Chinese Communist Party leaders, polled in a recent survey, saw surging inflation as the biggest threat facing them in 2008, was alarming.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40640
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Mexico Fails Anti-Drug Test
Diego Cevallos
MEXICO CITY – A decade of efforts by Mexico to eliminate, or at least significantly curb, drug trafficking and consumption has led to nothing but failure.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40622
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Thailand Heading Into a Political Storm
Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK – Thailand?s transition from military rule to a democratically elected administration appears far from smooth. The results of the first general election since the September 2006 coup d?etat point to a nation heading into a political storm in the New Year.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40639
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Lebanon Confronts Its Seven Deadly Plagues
Mona Alami
BEIRUT – This year, Lebanon has witnessed a series of unfortunate events. With demonstrations, street confrontations, rising religious tensions, assassinations, an internal war, economic recession and a looming political crisis that has resulted in a power vacuum at the head of state, Lebanon has faced its own seven deadly plagues.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40638
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Cracks Widen in East Europe
Zoltán Dujisin
PRAGUE – Ideological issues, corruption and populism pervade the political culture of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland at a time when both economic reform and an improvement in living standards are being promised to bridge the gap with the West.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40635
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Transformation Via Constitutional Reforms
Humberto Márquez*
CARACAS – As left-leaning forces have been elected to power in several countries in South America?s Andean region, they have undertaken constitutional reforms to incorporate far-reaching economic and social changes.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40623
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Gates Led Realist Resurgence in ?07
Analysis by Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON – 2007 will likely go down in U.S. history as the year in which the balance of power in the long-running struggle between hawks and realists in the administration of President George W. Bush shifted decisively in favour of the latter.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40619
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Sri Lanka’s Tinderbox Set to Go
Amantha Perera
COLOMBO – Three years after the Indian Ocean tsunami left over 32, 000 Sri Lankans dead and 500,000 survivors homeless, this island country stands on the brink of another disaster — this time manmade and in the shape of an all-out war between Tamil separatist rebels and the country?s armed forces.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40608
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Grim Present, Dim Future for Andean Integration
Humberto Márquez *
CARACAS – The Andean countries are passing through the gates of the new year with their trade bloc, the Andean Community of Nations (CAN) — the oldest and most structured regional integration agreement in the Americas — fraying at the edges.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40599
For more IPS reporting on the Middle East – www.ipsnews.net/middle.asp
Iraq: Beyond the Green Zone – www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/iraq/index.asp
Iran: The Parthian Shot – www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/iran/index.asp
Holy Land/Unholy War – www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/israel_palestina/index.asp
Afghan Divide – www.ipsnews.net/afghanistan/index.asp
View From the U.S.: Bush at War – www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/warII/index.asp
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