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

Called for Assad to step down peacefully.

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Syria Rejects Arab League Plan

A helicopter from NATO's peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan crashed late Thursday in the southern province of Helmand, killing six members of the force, allied military spokesmen reported.

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6 Marines, 4 French killed in Afghanistan

KABUL — After years of advocating peace talks as the only way out of the Afghan war, President Hamid Karzai will soon need to decide whether he is willing to participate in an emerging diplomatic process that his top advisers claim has left him marginalized by both the United States and the Taliban. Read full article > >

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Afghan government feels out of the loop on talks

KABUL, Afghanistan — Two attacks in southern Afghanistan have left at least 19 dead over the last two days, Afghan officials reported. The attacks come at a critical moment in peace talks between the United States and the Taliban. Read full article > >

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Bomb attacks kill 19 in southern Afghanistan

If 10 years hence there are American tourists on the streets of Tehran and Isfahan and peace reigns in the region, perhaps we will all look back at films such as Asghar Farhadi’s “A Separation” and think: That helped. Farhadi’s magnificent opus, nominally a look at divorce but more deeply a meditation on class, truth and honor, won best foreign language film at the Golden Globes on Sunday. Read full article > >

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‘A Separation,’ Golden Globe-winning Iranian film, offers dose of normality

Israel accuses UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg of “gratuitous bashing” after he said it was doing “immense damage” to the peace process through settlement building.

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Israel criticises Clegg comments

TAIPEI, Taiwan — At the 228 Memorial Museum, a shrine to the victims of a 1947 massacre by Chinese troops, staff members were in mourning Sunday over the reelection of Ma Ying-jeou , a president they think wants to turn Taiwan over to China. Read full article > >

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Taiwan unlikely to move to reunify with China, despite Ma Ying-jeou’s reelection

Nobel Peace Prize-winner Mohamed ElBaradei says he is withdrawing from Egypt’s presidential race in protest at the country’s military leadership.

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ElBaradei ends presidency bid

In 1968 I began my life in diplomacy as an aide to Averell Harriman and Cyrus Vance, who were heading peace talks with the North Vietnamese in Paris. Thirty-four years later, I ended that career as the George W. Bush administration’s first special envoy to Afghanistan, appointed weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Like Richard Holbrooke , my contemporary on the Paris delegation and my eventual successor as envoy to Afghanistan, I have been struck by parallels between the two wars and the two peace processes, the first of which ultimately ended in failure and the second of which is only now taking shape, the fruit of much effort by Holbrooke and his successor, Ambassador Marc Grossman . Read full article > >

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Negotiating peace in Afghanistan without repeating Vietnam

SOMETHING SURPRISING happened Tuesday in a Middle East diplomatic landscape that most people assumed was frozen over: Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met face-to-face for the first time in 16 months. That they did so was partly to the credit of Jordan’s King Abdullah, who has been working feverishly to restart negotiations, and partly to the credit of the “Quartet,” the diplomatic amalgam of the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, which has been pressuring the two sides for months. Read full article > >

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A small sign of progress toward Mideast peace

JERUSALEM — Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met for the first time in more than a year in Amman on Tuesday and agreed to keep talking at further meetings, Jordan’s foreign minister said, adding that Israel had received written Palestinian proposals on borders and security and would respond. Although the minister, Nasser Judeh, was careful not to characterize Tuesday’s talks and the coming meetings as negotiations, the discussions in Jordan marked a resumption of direct contacts between the Israelis and Palestinians after a protracted impasse in peace efforts. Read full article > >

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Israelis and Palestinians meet, agree to keep talking

Afghanistan’s Taliban say they have “an initial understanding” to set up an office overseas, possibly in Qatar – a move some see as key to future peace talks.

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Taliban confirm talks office plan

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are due to meet in Jordan on Tuesday, after more than 15 months of deadlock in peace talks.

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Israelis and Palestinians to meet

Palestinian and Israeli negotiators will meet in Jordan on Tuesday in an effort to revive moribund peace talks, although none of the sides involved suggested any reason to view the meeting as a sign of significant progress.

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Palestinians and Israelis Will Talk This Week