Word: regions
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...underlying fear of violence. Iraq has by now had more practice at choosing its own leaders in relatively open elections than perhaps any other Middle Eastern country besides Israel and Lebanon. But while the Bush Administration had hoped this would create a democratic ripple effect throughout the region, the results of Iraq's elections have been less than edifying. The politicians who came to power after the country's first parliamentary elections four years ago have been unable to resolve such core issues as sharing oil revenue, balancing power between the regions and the central government, and national reconciliation...
Recent security concerns, however, have given India new reasons to reassert itself in Nepal by investing in infrastructure as well as more troops on the border. Security experts say that that jihadist groups in the region exploit the porous border between India and Nepal, and they worry that India's Maoist insurgency may do the same. "That is their biggest concern," says Nayak. (See pictures of China's infrastructure boom...
President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia has been Washington's most fervent ally in a region where leftist leaders like Venezuela's Hugo Chávez have been flexing their muscles and speaking their minds out loud. First elected in 2002, Uribe spent an ironfisted four-year term re-establishing order in a country devastated by leftist rebels, paramilitary groups and drug gangs, winning the respect of much of the populace - enough so that the constitution was amended to allow him a second term. But he wanted a third term and, with approval ratings at about 70% throughout 2009, seemed...
...Baquba, the provincial capital and center of Iraq's citrus-growing region, is a largely colorless place, except for the winter orange harvest and the hundreds of campaign posters for Sunday's nationwide elections that now line the city's trash-filled streets. Still, at least the sectarian power struggle between Sunnis and Shi'ites that once raged through the city is now mostly confined to the ballot box. (See pictures of Iraq's revival...
...edge of Baquba. "The government doesn't trust us because we are Sunni. [But] if they push us any more, we are going to explode." He is particularly worried about what will happen once the U.S. pulls out of Iraq. "Iran will take us," he says. "Everyone in the region will try to occupy Iraq." But what makes the sheik even angrier is the possibility that a future government in Baghdad might turn over disputed areas of northern Diyala to the Kurdistan Regional Government, a body governing a semi-independent Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq. "If that happens...