DAMASCUS, Syria — The Arab League sought help from the United Nations to address the escalating crisis in Syria on Tuesday, amid Syrian defiance of Arab efforts to broker a peace settlement and an upsurge of violence in which dozens of people died. Read full article > >

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Arab states seek U.N. help as Syria steps up violence

Four people from the Megaupload file-sharing website have been detained in New Zealand, after an extradition request from the United States, which has closed down the site on grounds of piracy.

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VIDEO: Luxury cars seized at Megaupload mansion

KABUL — The World Bank warned Tuesday that any abrupt cut in foreign aid to Afghanistan over the next several years could destabilize the country and prevent the government from providing basic services and paying for its soldiers and police. Concern has been growing in Kabul about how the Afghan economy will weather the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops starting this year and adjust to lower levels of the foreign aid that now props up the state. This year, Afghanistan received $15.7 billion in aid, most of it from the United States — an amount that accounts for 92 percent of all public spending. Read full article > >

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Afghanistan to need billions in aid for years, World Bank says

PARIS — European officials have rejected key recommendations from the United States and the International Monetary Fund, casting doubt on whether an emerging plan to address the region’s financial crisis will be as broad or fast acting as hoped. As crisis negotiations continued this weekend, European officials said they had reached general agreement on a response they were confident would restore faith in European banks and government finances . Read full article > >

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Europe rejects U.S. approach to financial crisis, stirring doubts about plan

Disclosures from WikiLeaks indicated that Al Jazeera’s top news director, Wadah Khanfar, had modified the network’s coverage of the Iraq war in response to pressure from the United States.

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After Disclosures by WikiLeaks, Al Jazeera Replaces Its Top News Director

Despite the “strong recommendation” from the United States that such a move would jeopardise future negotiations with the Israelis, not to mention the high risk of failure, the Palestinian Authority is set to go ahead with its move to formally request statehood at the United Nations in September.

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Nothing Will Come of Abbas’s UN Unilateralism

Despite mounting pressure from the United States, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani seems unlikely to respond to American demands to root out other militant leaders.

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Pakistan Army Chief Balks at U.S. Demands to Cooperate

The European Union is seeking approval from the United Nations for a plan to deploy up to 1,000 ground troops in Libya. This mission to “secure sea and land corridors inside the country” would be largest and riskiest operation of its kind ever…

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EU Prepares to Send Ground Troops

BENGHAZI, Libya — Khalifa Hiftar spent the past 24 years in the United States but returned abruptly to Libya last month to join the rebels fighting to topple Moammar Gaddafi. Now, as the newly installed field commander of the fledgling force, this ­67-year-old is trying to make fast improvements to fighters who need more training, more weapons and, he says, more support from the United States.

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Rebel military commander wants to be America’s man on the ground in Libya

The UK’s Open University is to receive funding from the United States to improve staying-on rates in US colleges.

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Open University to get US funding

Food prices around the world rose for the seventh consecutive month in January and will continue to do so, says a new report from the United Nations. The rise was driven by unpredictable weather patterns that have wreaked havoc on crops and made…

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Global Food Prices Skyrocket

We’re still waiting for her first feature-film role. Anna Chapman, the Russian redhead who was deported from the United States six months ago for spying, made her first major appearance since the scandal on Russian television. She wasn’t willing to…

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Anna Chapman Appears on TV

Swedish prosecutors lost a small battle today in UK court in their efforts to extradite Julian Assange in relation to allegations of rape, when his legal team won an initial judgment that he should be released on £200,000 bail. The Swedes have vowed to appeal within the next 48 hours. The prosecutors have argued that, despite the media circus, the case has nothing to do with Assange’s notoriety as the founder of WikiLeaks, an organization you may have heard is releasing some State Department documents. But I’ve been wondering how often Swedish officials go to the effort to extradite people in Assange’s same position. I could only track down statistics from two time periods, calendar year 2005 and business year 2009-2010, but both show that extraditions are not common. In 2009-2010, a mere six people were sent from the UK to Sweden under the rules of the European Arrest Warrant agreement.  In 2005, just a one single person was extradited from the UK to Sweden . I am still looking for breakdowns of the statistics by charge, but even the aggregate statistics show that extraditions from the United Kingdom to Sweden are rare, though not unheard of. It’s important to remember, as Howard Weaver pointed out to me on Twitter, that Swedish authorities have not formally filed rape charges against Assange. In total, the UK surrendered a total of 699 people in 2009-2010 to all countries for all crimes, up from 516 and 415 in the two previous years. H/T @Dozykraut

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How Unusual Is Sweden’s Attempted Extradition of Julian Assange?

One day in 2004, a 29-year-old man with a terrible stomach problem stepped off a plane from the United States in Thailand. He wasn’t there for the sights, or the food, or the beaches. He had traveled thousands of miles for worms — parasitic worms whose eggs he intended to swallow by the thousands.

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Man claims parasitic worms heal

Under heavy pressure from the United States and allied governments, WikiLeaks appealed to supporters worldwide to mirror its website as it continued to release thousands of sensitive U.S. diplomatic cables.

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WikiLeaks asks supporters for mirror sites