Russia’s new president, Dmitry Medvedev, is stepping into the vortex of the superpowers’ race for global pre-eminence. Here are some of the challenges he faces.
NATO AND MISSILES
NATO’s readiness to give Georgia and Ukraine eventual membership has exacerbated Kremlin suspicions that the West’s goal is to surround and weaken Russia. Lately tensions have escalated along Russia’s [...]

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CHALEUNSOUK, Laos: The rice fields that blanketed this remote mountain village for generations are gone. In their place rise neat rows of young rubber trees — their sap destined for China.
All 60 families in this dirt-poor, mud-caked village of gaunt men and hunched women are now growing rubber, like thousands of others across the rugged [...]

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China’s Health Ministry issued a nationwide alert Saturday calling for heightened efforts to control a virus that has caused the deaths of 22 children in one city and shows signs of spreading.
Health bureaus around the country must step up monitoring for hand, foot and mouth disease following a “relatively large” outbreak in the central city [...]

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The “moment of truth” has come for Europe to resist hardliners in Russia who are bent on stopping the spread of democracy in the former Soviet Union, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said on Thursday.
Moscow has sparked an international crisis by ordering extra troops and equipment to Abkhazia, a Black Sea province which threw off [...]

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