Word: localized
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...Sept. 3, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists criticized Vietnam's recent crackdown on journalists and political bloggers, whose "independent reporting challenges the tightly censored state-run media's traditional monopoly on local news and opinion." But it's not exactly a surprise. The Vietnamese government has long been extremely sensitive about its relationship with neighboring China. The two nations have battled for centuries, last going to war in 1979 when Beijing sent troops into Vietnam to punish Hanoi for ousting the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and installing a Vietnamese-backed government. Today, China is a huge trading...
...permitted to initiate the fight, German forces in July launched their biggest operation since World War II to clear Chahar Dara district, a Pashtun insurgent stronghold west of Kunduz city where hundreds of fighters travel openly in pickup trucks and demand money and food villagers. But, says local resident Abdul Matin, 28, the militants simply filtered back into the area when the Germans returned to base and police are nowhere in sight. The insurgent efforts accelerated ahead of the Aug. 20 presidential elections, which the Taliban had vowed to disrupt. President Hamid Karzai's running mate, Mohammad Qasim Fahim...
Caste considerations are also playing out: the Reddys are a powerful community of traditional village headmen native to Andhra Pradesh, who continue to remain active in local, state and national politics. Their influence can be judged by the fact that for 36 years after the state was carved out in 1956, ten of the state's Chief Ministers have been from the Reddy community. The 12 Reddys among the present cabinet of ministers are keen to keep the top post within the community, showing how Indian politics also still runs mainly on caste and community considerations. (See a timeline...
...Activist Ona says the Bongo family fortune allowed Ali Ben to finance ubiquitous advertisements in a lavish campaign that his opponents could never have come close to matching. Meanwhile, Ona notes, local and international observers have marveled at how more than 800,000 names were registered on voter rolls in a nation of only 1.3 million people - an astonishing increase of more than 200,000 voters from the last election, in 2005. "That this election was unfair isn't even an issue, but there's so much suspicion of fraud that France should be voicing concern or protesting...
...violence is flaring up again. And suddenly it's not just Chechnya. Neighboring Dagestan and Ingushetia are hotbeds of instability, as are North Ossetia and, to the immediate northwest, Kabardino-Balkaria, with seemingly random shootings, bombings, kidnappings and armed conflicts among rebels, Islamic separatists, local militia and Russian troops...