Romania and the International Monetary Fund reached a staff-level agreement to unlock about 505 million euros ($664 million) in funds from its standby loan, IMF Mission Chief Jeffrey Franks said.
Leslie H. Gelb says the Obama administration’s announcement of a quick end to U.S. combat in Afghanistan is a surprise decision of strategic skill and political courage.
The Pentagon’s plan for an end to U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan by the end of 2013 has drawn familiar battle lines in the public debate over the proper
Authorities were using military helicopters and a C-130 cargo plane Sunday to evacuate thousands of residents stranded by rising floodwaters in the eastern Australian province of Queensland, the government said.
With an election approaching and at least some Americans upset about irresponsible spending, the president has finally expressed a political interest in cutting something. He says the Pentagon will spend “only” $525 billion next year. …
With an election approaching and at least some Americans upset about irresponsible spending, the president has finally expressed a political interest in cutting something. He says the Pentagon …
Denis O’Brien, the Irish telecommunications and media billionaire, said he would invest in Bank of Ireland Plc as the lender has “cleaned up its balance sheet.”
European stocks posted the biggest weekly gain this year, sending the Stoxx Europe 600 Index to its highest level in six months, as manufacturing increased globally and the U.S. jobless rate fell to the lowest in three years.
NATO’s secretary-general says foreign forces in Afghanistan will remain on combat duty during the scheduled transition to Afghan security control in 2014. That statement by Anders Fogh Rasmussen came after U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said American forces’ combat role will end next year, …
Kremlin political strategists say Russia’s new spirit of independent political thinking is limited to intellectuals in Moscow. But on the western edge of Siberia, almost 2,000 kilometers east of Moscow, more and more Russians are speaking their minds on elections and on democracy. Stability …
The following is a roundup of soccer stories from U.K. newspapers, with clickable links to the Web.
Drug trafficking, changing immigration trends, and rising economic opportunities are the major issues the winner of the 2012 U.S. presidential election faces in dealing with Latin America, says CFR’s Shannon O’Neil.
A report by South Africa’s ruling African National Congress found that nationalization of the country’s mines would be unconstitutional and too expensive, Johannesburg-based Business Day reported, without saying where it got the information.
Richard Bernstein A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia by Aaron L. Friedberg Imaginechina/Corbis A ceremony in Sichuan Province, China, sending off an engineer battalion of the People’s Liberation Army on a peacekeeping mission to Lebanon, January 2011 Imaginechina…
Canada, with its proud history of big-government initiatives such as health care, is now led by a pro-capitalist conservative, whereas America is led by a fellow who’s trying to turn his country into Western Europe.
Since the summer of 2010, Julian Assange has become a pop culture fixture, a self-appointed champion of free speech, the suspect in a Swedish sex crimes investigation and a man who says he’s keeping afloat a financially strapped
The US military said in a secret report that the Taliban, backed by Pakistan, are set to retake control of Afghanistan after NATO-led forces withdraw.
A Senegalese political analyst said it appears that some of the country’s opposition leaders have decided to participate in this month’s presidential election rather than protest President Abdoulaye Wade’s bid for a third term. Campaigning for the February 26 th election…
A pilot project gets underway soon to test whether mobile phones can be used to help educate the poor. It’s estimated three quarters of the world’s poor have access to mobile phones. …
An inaugural group of Congolese women are graduating Saturday from a gender violence survivors program in the nation’s east, where armed rebels roam the hills and rape residents.
As Kenya’s leading psychiatrist, Frank Njenga has been championing the cause of better mental health care on the east African country and the continent for more than three decades.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is urging China to help the international community persuade Iran to abandon any ambitions it may have for nuclear weapons. Her comments came …
This Pew Research Center profile provides Florida voter registration data as reported by the Florida Division of Elections through January 3, 2012. It also provides key demographic information on eligible Latino voters and other
