Word: primed
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...make big decisions on its own. Still not content with that, the opposition pushed for control of Lebanon's telecommunications system, which would give Hizballah added operational security from Israeli intelligence - but could also help it hamper the activities of the U.N. tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. That tribunal has implicated Syrian officials in the killing, and much of its evidence comes from telephone records. Though Hizballah has denied wanting to derail the investigation, such pressure on its patron could disrupt the flow of weapons over the Syrian border to the Shi'ite group...
...Saad Hariri, son of the murdered former Prime Minister and leader of the ruling coalition, initially balked at Hizballah's terms, but eventually had no choice but to give in. Lebanon's longstanding deadly rivalries and the ever present threat of violence have made Lebanese politicians wary of acting unilaterally, which is why Hariri invited Hizballah and its allies into the Cabinet in the first place. And Hariri is increasingly isolated, with none of his allies being prepared to confront Hizballah head-on given the experience of the May 2008 mini-civil...
...Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's administration must try to find the best diplomatic and military solution to the standoff, even as it deals with the fallout from a looming judicial ruling. "In capturing and extraditing those two, the government made a hasty decision," says Carlos Echeverria, professor of international relations at Madrid's National Distance University. "They didn't think of the consequences." (See pictures of the brazen pirates of Somalia...
...government's stance seems set. On Nov. 8, Spain's ambassador to Kenya met with Omar Abrirashid Ali Sharmarke, who is Prime Minister of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government. The following day, after declaring that the two pirates "have to be tried," Spanish Justice Minister Francisco Caamaño Dominguez affirmed that the administration had left open the door to a trial in Somalia if an agreement could be reached. Because Spain has no extradition treaty with Somalia, which it considers to be a failed state, the government is said to be considering turning the two men over...
...Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pledged to abide by the Iraqi constitution and "normalize" Kirkuk by removing the tens of thousands of Arab Iraqis settled there by Saddam as part of an ethnic-cleansing campaign in the 1980s. After such normalization, according to the constitution, Kirkuk - and other areas with large Kurdish populations in four Iraqi governorates - should then hold a referendum to determine whether they should continue to be administered by Baghdad or be ruled by the Kurdistan Regional Government. It may have been constitutionally mandated, but the idea of forcibly resettling Kirkuk's Arab population was unthinkable...