Word: combatant
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...strengthening of his political position after last month's provincial elections have added to Maliki's confidence in managing without the Americans. "We welcome such a decision and support it," said Tahseen al-Shekhli, a spokesman for the Iraqi government, of Obama's intention to end the U.S. combat mission in Iraq by August 2010. "We consider this as a good-faith sign from the American Administration toward Iraq and Iraqis...
...with shrugs of contentment by most Iraqi political figures, largely because the Obama plan appears to be in step with what Iraqis had expected as a result of the Status of Forces Agreement signed by the Maliki government and the Bush Administration last December. That agreement requires most U.S. combat troops to be off the streets of Iraq by this summer and all U.S. troops to have left the country by 2011. (See pictures of Basra's return to normality...
Faced with criticism from foreign governments, Switzerland has changed some of its ways. It added laws to combat money-laundering and cracked down on numbered accounts in the 1990s. But that doesn't mean the banks open their vaults for just anyone. When the U.S., which loses an estimated $100 billion in tax revenues every year on assets stashed overseas, demanded that UBS release information on an additional 52,000 accounts, the bank refused, saying the move would violate Swiss law. Of course, with some 27,000 UBS employees working in U.S. offices, Switzerland might not be the jurisdiction...
...Boston A New Way to Fight the Flu Researchers have developed an antibody-based therapy for the flu virus that may help combat seasonal illnesses as well as more dangerous strains like the infamous H5N1 bird flu. The antibodies attach to a part of the virus that is less mutation-prone than the section targeted by current vaccines (which must be redeveloped every year to counter the virus' changes). Tests on mice produced promising results, although clinical trials with humans won't occur for a few years...
...Still, Ellis and other observers argue that the fiscal-2009 budget's level of earmarking is too high and that projects such as $1.8 million for swine odor and manure management in Iowa, $190,000 for the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Wyoming, $400,000 to combat bullying in Montana and $2.2 million to study grape genetics in New York are easily ridiculed and embarrassing. And they show the risk of one-party control of both the executive and legislative branches of government - which was amply demonstrated by George W. Bush and congressional Republicans...